This is one hell of a story! and it has to start with this story! Because this is the coolest story of my musician life yet

Sometime late in 2006, I was travelling back from Delhi (after playing at the India Social Forum) with The Raghu Dixit Project and on the plane back to Bangalore, I bumped into Debbie.

See, at that time, I hadn’t travelled too much by flights and so I was not too familiar with how things work and for the first few flights that I took, I was stuck to my seat and just looking out of the windows most of the time and reading my books or listening to my iPod.

So anyway, being bigger than average Indians, I usually don’t fit too well in airplane seats and so try to sit next to the aisle and put at least one leg out and stretch it! so there I was stretched out and trying to get the most comfortable position I could find and the guy next to me had to go to the loo. Instead of getting out and sit right there and have to move again for him when he returns, I just moved off to the next row of seats and sat next to Debbie!

Debbie was trying to get her bottle of mineral water to open with no avail and asked me to open it for her. From there, we started talking and she was coolness personified! right from being in the US navy in operation desert storm to being a roadie for tons of rock bands on their tours including at one time, “Grateful Dead” to being an art school major to getting tattooed to the complete blonde act to earning obscene amounts of money in the IT industry!! “Groovy!” was one of her phrases along with “Yeay!! Whooo” and she used those for every little thing!

So we land in Bangalore and the hotel had forgotten to send her a cab, so I end up dropping her to her hotel and she forgets her wallet in the car which I promptly take back to her hotel and return to her. We chat some more and then decide to meet for dinner! So Shilpa and I took her to Samarkhand that night for some food she has not eaten! And we had a blast!

So anyway, I told her about the band I played for and how I was planning to at that time take music more seriously and getting myself a good guitar was part of that plan. And she told me how she knew a friend of hers who ran a music store in California and she’d see if she can help with it.

Once she went back to the US, she got her friend to arrange for a couple of different models of Warwick Guitars to be present in the store, and then drove over 200 miles to pick up my very good friends and bandmates from Phenom, Mrinal and JD and took them to the store where Mrinal picked this guitar from the different models that were available.

Debbie then paid for that guitar and drove Mrinal and JD back to their place 200 miles away with the guitar! A total journey of close to a 1000 miles and she has paid for the guitar at this point!

When I heard what happened, I din’t know how to react!! I’ve never known a relative stranger do this much for someone they met over a weekend in another country! Debbie later told me that she just had this very good feeling after meeting me in India and that this was her way of paying me back for the ‘help’ I had provided when she was in India – which included taking her out for dinner and dropping her from the airport to her hotel! I was blown away by this gesture!!

I did pay her back in full and Shilpa’s (then to-be) brother-in-law Dominic, got the guitar down with him when he came to India from the US and I was able to hold the guitar in my hands on the 22nd of December 2006!

And that was just the start to the brilliant journey I have had as a musician with that bass guitar! Its been the most cherished thing I have ever bought in my life and I am sure it will be for a LONG LONG time!

So the “news” finally appeared in all the local news papers today. The allegations were approximately as follows – (Please check each newspaper for exact stories)

1. Kannada Prabha – which alleged that there was a “Live Band” playing in there. That was their Headline!

2. Prajavani – The article that mentioned the incident stated that the restaurant “Fuga” was running a discotheque.

3. Deccan Herald – The article mentioned that allegations were made by the activists that the discotheque that was running was “against Indian Culture”.

4. Indian Express – This article mentioned the variations of the above including the “live band” and the “discotheque” and the “culture” issue.

Most articles mentioned that there was “Ganja” and “Charas” being served at “Fuga” and how the guests at the club were seen coming out of there with their faces covered!

Now, I was inside! and let me state what I saw and what actually happened.

1. There was no “live band”, there was no band! let me repeat that .. there was NO BAND!

2. NO ONE serves “Charas” and “Ganja” in a club!! Get over it! its not that easy to score drugs even if you want to! Its not sold over the counter!

3. What is this “Culture” that we are trying to safeguard? Is dancing to music such a big crime? Is wearing a skirt a crime? Which part of what happens in a regular club is a crime? And I can vouch that there were very regular things happening! Worse things happen on MG Road on the street and that is even public knowledge! I don’t see anyone going and doing anything about it!

If you read some of the reports, then you will read about how the police went in and checked the place and found NO EVIDENCE of any wrong doing! and I can guarantee that because .. I was in there and I saw it! So doesn’t the press now need to try and get the actual story out? Can’t the management of Fuga or someone sue these chaps for such slander?

Now as a result of this, the group “Hoysala Sene” got its 15 minutes of fame and made a splash in the local press. Congrats boys! you have now arrived! But what was actually proven? What was the point of this? I read that someone from the Hoysala Sene has video evidence of the wrong doing in the club, why not publish that?

I am not a party animal and this was my first time at Fuga and it is a nice place and I really liked the way they handled the whole crisis. But what I don’t get is, first, there are these million rules in place that prevent people from even going out. Next, it is clear that you can just randomly accuse anyone and get away with it! What is happening to my city?

Last night, I went out with a bunch of my friends to Fuga for a simple night out. It was infact a very good friend’s bachelorette party and I was among the few guys invited Everything was going as expected until about 9.30 PM when the first batch of cops arrived on the scene and shut down the music (dancing and alcohol don’t mix in Bangalore and so that was the reason).

We sat around for a bit with the music shut and then resumed a little later but the dance floor was closed and the volumes suggested the place was more a lounge than a club.

Whatever, so that was all okay with us and we were heading out anyway to her place for the rest of the party when suddenly we were locked in! Supposedly, there was a bunch of people (about 50 of them) with Karnataka flags sitting outside the club on the street and picketing!

This is supposedly a new group that has just started in the city and their name is rumoured to be ‘Hoysala Sene’ (The Hoysala Army). They were there from about 10 PM till midnight and ever increasing in number and were supposedly waiting to ‘oust’ people inside! Some rumours spread to the extent that they wanted to make a point about the dressing sense of the club goers or just trying to be the moral police in this matter.

So for the next 2 hours, we were packed into the club and the doors locked while the picketing gang outside waited for the media to arrive in all its glory! Finally, a little after midnight, members from our extremely responsible media waltzed into the club with their video cameras and their flashlights and for some reason ignored my wide smiling face and went straight for the girls in the club!

It was like they were on some mission to find the girls in the club and put them on their TV News show! And they din’t care about anyone else! This is the best shot of them I could get as I was walking out of the club.

Now what I am asking is, what were the people in the club doing wrong exactly? How is it wrong to go out with friends to a club and dress up while you are at it? Which part of what was happening was illegal? Or was the issue dancing when alcohol was being served? Was that why you were targetting the ladies only? Is this the ‘news’ you want to *CREATE*??

I am waiting to see what tomorrow’s news papers say about this and what the TV channels show this out to be. I was in there and I saw what happened! it was a plain and simple night out in a club which was stopped rather illegally by a picketing gang of people. I want to see the media report this .. and tell me their version!

I was excited about this movie from when I first heard about it and then I saw how it started getting more and more popular and everyone I knew was talking about it! What finally clinched it for me was when Derek recommended this to me and told me what I am now telling all of you! – “You must watch this movie!!!”

It doesn’t have any major stars (well, not in the capacity of major stars atleast) and its not some major production, but what it is, is a very nice story of a dream run! And its been shot beautifully and narrated perfectly! The casting for the roles was perfect! Though I guess I would have liked to see Amitabh Bachchan do the quiz show anchor role but then, that would just be too perfect! and it would ring a bell only in India

I got myself a copy of the movie and watched it on my laptop and I think that is how most of India’s online junta will watch it because the producers of the movie made a little bit of a mistake not releasing it here! I will definitely be watching it again in the theatres, but then, I’m sure they are losing out of a LOT of people by not releasing it simultaneously here in India.

I highly recommend watching this movie and waiting for it to hit the theatres! but then .. sometimes .. curiosity gets the better of you! There is a reason its rated 8.5/10 on IMDB!

Its Christmas in what is probably the best year so far for me! but things look to get much better as the days go by! Its been a fantastic year and in my eyes a start to a brilliant time ahead!

So here’s wishing you all a Merry Christmas and I hope everything that you have wanted becomes yours in this season and for the year to come!

Muckwork (http://muckwork.com) is the new company that is Derek Sivers‘ brainchild which through a weird twist of fate, I ended up being the VP for!

Possible Muckwork Logo

Its the most fun I have had working in a LONG LONG time and the learning curve is tremendous but then, its only getting better every day. We are currently in the process of setting up various backend systems required to get this up and going and also have been talking with various people for partnerships and collaborations for when we start. And we should start soon!

Like it has been mentioned before, and I love this way of explaining it, when the music industry started becoming an industry a little earlier in this century, the musician just made music and played gigs. The people around the musician took care of everything else that was to be done. We then in the last 10 years or so moved into the phase of the DIY musician who started doing things himself / herself.

The DIY musician eventually ended up spending more time doing the things around the music than the music itself! So now we are at a phase where, technology has made it so easy for many things to be done which previously required a LOT of people doing a LOT of work and as a company we feel that a musician should concentrate on doing the music side of things while they smartly use a lot of resources around them for the rest of the work.

This is where Muckwork comes in. We plan to be the people to go to for the rest of it! The dream is to be able to become a company where a musician comes with whatever vague requests for work, right from “create my press kit” to “make me famous” and we have some way to do that! Though “make me famous” will depend a LOT on your music and many other things

So we start small and start sometime soon and then take it as it comes! its going to be a brilliant new year! so watch this space ..

Lets get the announcement out of the way – The Brand New RadioVeRVe is Up and Running! – http://radioverve.com

About 4 years ago, Shreyas and I started out with a little experiment that eventually became (cutting a long story short) RadioVeRVe. Today I proudly announce the latest version of the site which we have been working on frankly for too long! Its time to let this one out of the bag and add to it everything we want it to become! And it is meant to become something special!

The past year has been very slow for RadioVeRVe and a lot of “real life” and “career” caught up with it and I haven’t given it enough time or nurtured it as much as I could have and should have. But it was a project too close to my heart to just let slip away!

What you see on RadioVeRVe today is the start of something that we have planned and as the weeks pass, you will see a LOT more stuff being released and announced there. So keep your eyes on the site and more importantly, your ears glued to it!

This site would not have been possible without the help of a LOT of our friends who put their time and money behind it, just because they liked the idea, or even at times, just felt bad for us! I would like to thank all of them for the help – Especially Jonathan, Praveen, Shilpa and Arjun. You guys made this happen! Thanks

In the Mangalorean Christian community, there are a few months in the year regarded as the “wedding season” and from the looks of it, December and January are certainly part of that season.

I’ve been attending quite a few of my friends’ weddings and since last year, I started going there with my camera! It gave me something to do when I was not eating / drinking / dancing . Some of the photos I took at the wedding were actually quite nice and people seemed to like them a LOT! What made them different was probably the fact that while the “Official” photographer was looking at the wedding as an event that needs to be documented, I was looking at it as, so many people, so many emotions, lets capture the fun and excitement!

In the first week of January, I have been appointed unofficial photographer at a couple of weddings and I have been reading up online on tips and tricks to get good at it. What I wanted from you chaps is if you have any particular advice or things I should read up for this. I do not have any fancy equipment, I am just running on instinct and hoping for the best!

I just got into the Bangalore airport and was subject to “random checking”. The security at the airport has increased considerably! there are actual guards with actual guns and its a sure sign of precautions being taken because of the recent attacks!

So coming back to the story, the guard who stopped me, took my ticket and started asking my name and my age and where I am from and all that and then said what are you going to Bombay for? to which I replied, “I’m going on work!” and he looks at me and says to me, “No chance! you don’t work .. there is no way you work!”

After much debate, I told him, its true, I am a musician and that probably explains my long hair and “non work” attire! That satisfied his curiosity and as he let me go ahead after thoroughly going through the contents of my bag he said .. “The minute I saw you only I knew, you must be a musician or something, there is no way you do ‘work’”!

Little do they know!