Archives for category: Life

The ‘hugs’ post

August 2, 2011 //

In which I flog my face, in the company of illustrious embellishers. Based on an idea submitted by Ganesh Natarajan, age 26, Chennai.

Adam Warren, the man behind Empowered and Dirty Pair, the master of the soft lead.

Meeting Adam Warren was high on my priority list for the con. His Empowered happens to be the one of the few comics that I wish had a speedier release schedule, and I have gone on record stating how much of a crush I have on the titular super-heroine. One of my fondest wishes is to own a complete Emp story – Adam does 2-3 page stories often in his books, and they are funny, sexy and perfect self-contained chunks of his artistry.

I spent the better part of a day looking for his booth, and following his tweets regarding his whereabouts. On the second day of the con, I landed up at Stuart Ng books because they had his sketchbooks, and as soon as I saw them on display, I grabbed at one and was flipping through it. This guy asks me if he can take a look, and I oblige. As he flipped through it, I was on full Emp-love mode, talking about how cool the series is and how great the sketchbook looks, because it had some short stories in it. After some time, I notice a bunch of people clustered around us, and steal a glance at the guy’s name tag. *Groan* It was Adam Warren himself, looking through his sketchbook because they came straight to the con and he had not seen them before. Obviously, I met him again the next day, and bought some art, but I found it totally serendipitous to meet him this way.

Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead

I met Kirkman on Wednesday evening, when everybody was setting up. I was still in the “I can’t believe I am standing here” mode when my friend Kwan introduced me to Kirkman, and I shook hands and said hi. Kwan took a picture of us. And then as we were walking away, it sort of registered who I had just met – the guy that wrote the best ongoing series in comics, bar none. So I took a deep breath, turned and explained to Robert why I thought he was awesome and his books were awesome and that he should continue the awesomeness and take my money forever. He did not freak out and run away, so I assume I was lucid when I said all that.

Jerry Robinson, the man who created The Joker

It was such an honor to meet one of the figures who shaped the Golden Age. Mr Robinson was signing at his own booth, and I happened to be there at the right time. Picked up one of his prints, had him sign it to me, and when I asked to take a photograph, he called me behind the booth so that I was in the picture as well.

Jeff Smith, of Bone fame, with Vijaya Iyer, his wife and publisher, Cartoon Books.

Picture taken at the end of the party. I had seven glasses of wine in me, and was very freaking happy with the evening’s proceedings. There was a Bone photo-booth, and the original plan was to go in there with Jeff and Vijaya and pose with Bone. But the booth was closed towards the end, so we just decided to take the picture on my camera.

Then I staggered to my hotel room (2 miles away!), collapsed on my bed, and felt the world heave and shudder all night. Seven glasses of wine, I hate you (like I love you).

Dave Gibbons. THE Dave Gibbons.

If Dave Gibbons looks a little flustered here, it’s because he was in a hurry. I sort of feel sorry about my friend Joe stopping him just so I could get a picture taken with him, but Dave was nice enough to oblige. Later on, Dave was on stage with Jonathan Ross, as part of the Eisner presenters and the duo killed everyone with their jokes.

Craig Thompson of Blankets and Goodbye Chunky Rice

In 2007, I nearly paid a European collector $350 to get a small sketch by Craig that he owned. Wise sense (and a nearly-empty wallet) prevailed, and I did not go ahead with the deal. It was therefore a happy moment at the Con when I got to meet Craig, chatted with him about his work – he mentioned that he almost made it to the Jaipur Lit festival this year, but had to pull out at the last moment. Even meeting him was fortuitous. I was looking for the Harper-Collins booth to see if Joe Hill was hanging out there, and when passingthe Pantheon booth, I nearly fainted (mostly because I could not believe that I had missed this crucial bit of information) on seeing a hardcover edition of Habibi, Thompson’s 700+ page work after Blankets. As it turned out, the book would be out in September, and all I could do at the moment was hold it, caress it and kiss it goodbye-till-we-meet-again. The lady at the booth informed us that Craig would be signing posters at the booth for an hour the next day. Of course I made sure I was there an hour before the designated time, saw that a line had already formed before me. I bought a Blankets hardcover, and when it was my turn, Craig graciously drew a sketch for me. It was, ladies and gentlemen, the cause of the shit-eating grin I had on me the rest of the day.

Joe Hill and Gabe Rodriguez, the team behind Locke and Key, probably my favorite series right now.

Ah, Joe Hill. The man who Made Me Believe. The first writer, after my childhood idol (who was his father) that I would buy anything by. It’s almost funny to think that I had postponed reading Locke And Key so long just because I thought it would not live up to his prose writing. I was wrong. Joe Hill is a genius, and lucky, because he teamed with artist Gabriel Rodriguez, whose work has to be seen to be believed. Do not read anything about Locke and Key on the web, just go and download it RIGHT NOW. Read it. If you are not compelled to pay these guys money once you’re done, maybe you should stop reading this blog, because seriously, I do not have anything in common with you. Yes, them’s fighting words, but you’ve got to understand, I’ve waited years to be this blown away by a comic-book series. To not be jaded by a writer’s work because I can predict what’s coming next. *

*with the exception of The Walking Dead.

Tags comicon, san diego

Categories Comics, Life

10 Things I Did At Comicon

August 2, 2011 //

Picked up pre-ordered stuff. I spent the first day picking up stuff that I had pre-paid for, a few pieces of art, the Bone 20th volume edition (which came with a Jeff Smith original Bone painting), the Artist’s Edition of Walt Simonson’s Thor. A happy beginning!
Met a lot of art people. Dealers, collectors and online friends, people I had been corresponding with for the better part of 5 years, seeking advice and envying their real-world adventures from faraway India. This year, I was on an adventure of my own, and could finally put faces and voices to names and email addresses. Some of us had dinner together on Wednesday night. Much mutual envy was expressed, and every form of comic art – European, Japanese and American – was discussed and dissected over food and drinks. I was to meet more people as the days progressed.
Met some of my heroes. Jerry Robinson. Craig Thompson. Becky Cloonan. Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez. Dave Gibbons. Michael Zulli. Steve Leialoha. Walt Simonson. Stan Sakai. Sergio Aragones. Joelle Jones. David Zahn. Adam Warren. Bill Willingham. Mark Buckingham. Robert Kirkman. Jill Thompson. They may just be names to you, but to me, they were icons that defined my reading habits. Meeting them in person was surprising, awe-inspiring, more than a little happiness-inducing. In most cases, I managed not to gush or simper or freak out anyone too much, and managed to tell them how cool their work was and how important they were to a guy growing up in India. I hope they understood.
Wheeled and dealed I had taken some of my art with me, and after the shock and awe of the first two days wore off, I looked to see if I could trade some of my under-loved pages for some better stuff. And yeah, I got some great stuff – traded an Invisibles page for a Steve Bissette/Alfredo Alcala Swamp Thing page, sold some of my pages to fund another purchase. Also got some deals started in the pipeline, so I know where my money for the next few months is going.
Attended a party I had met Jeff Smith and Vijaya Iyer in 2009, when I interviewed Jeff for Rolling Stone India. This year marked the 20th Anniversary of Bone, and Vijaya invited me to the Scholastic party celebrations. The minute I walked into the terrace of the Hilton Bayfront on Thursday evening, I knew I was in for a swell time. Pros and fans mingled with each other, there were free goodie bags full of Scholastic graphic novels being handed out, great food, and an open bar. Surreal moments that evening – at one point I found myself discussing Hindu mythology with Paul Levitz, at another, Sergio Aragones put a hand on my shoulder like we had known each other for years, and told me how his passport caused much consternation at Bhutanese immigration since he was the first Mexican to visit the country. I recommended some books to a charming lady, an editor for Dvir Publishing House in Israel, which is publishing the Hebrew versions of Bone, and she in turn recommended the excellent works of Raina Teglmaier. Surprise, Raina was at the party signing her books, so I went on and said hello. Struck up conversations about Robyn and Swedish music and collecting comic art and types of cake around the world with random strangers, got a little drunk, staggered to my room a happy, happy man.
Walked a lot When veterans of the Con tell you that it’s a tiring event, part of it is because of the sheer size of the convention. Walking from one end of the floor to the other takes about half a day, taking into account the crowds, the amount of distracting shininess on display and the fact that there are too many things going on at the same time. If you are ever at SDCC, make sure you have ample amount of snacks and some water with you. Do not buy too many books at once. Plan the day’s activities in the morning, if possible. And please, get yourself in shape a bit. I followed all these rules that my friend Joe hammered in me the last few months, and I was functioning on pure adrenaline by the end of Friday evening. And then I discovered that there were two more floors with stuff happening. *Sigh*
Attended the Fables panel The biggest problem with attending panels at SDCC is that you need to queue for them, and considering the amount of things going on, it seems a criminal waste of time to stand in line when you could be doing something else. But I wanted to attend a panel – not just any panel, the Fables one, which was one of the most well-attended in the con, and required a ridiculous amount of queuing. I went in about 4 hours early, stayed for the Once Upon A Time TV show premiere (which is a TV show that seemed to be heavily inspired by Fables, though to be fair, the creative team behind Lost is doing it, and fairy tale characters are public domain, after all. Though I did not think too highly of it, I am fairly sure it will be successful) and the Jim Lee panel. The Fables panel had a huge number of creators up on stage, and the wait proved to be really worth it. Willingham and co were great at giving out nuggets of information about the future direction of the series without really spoiling anything, and even though I’m not as rabid about Fables as I was a few years ago, I found myself getting more than a little interested in knowing where the series and its spinoffs were going. And oh - I will probably forever envy the lucky fan who answered a trivia question about Boy Blue and got a horn in a case, which was signed by everyone on stage. UGH!
Attended the Eisners The Eisner awards are the premiere award ceremony for the comic-book industry (sorry, Eagle Awards and Angouleme grand prizes) and when I learnt that entry was not just limited to professionals, I knew I had to go attend. I am glad I did. Cheered for Joe Hill and Gabe Rodriguez and Mike Mignola and the Ba/Moon brothers, and was completely thrilled at seeing Jonathan Ross taking potshots at the comic-book industry. A low-point was Lance Henricksen on stage, massacring names of nominees, comicbook companies and award-winners, but all in all, an awesome experience.
Helped a friend. When art-hopping, I saw two Alex Raymond Rip Kirby strips for sale, at a more-than-decent price. How decent? Well, two strips were being sold cheaper than a single example available at a dealer in an adjacent row. I knew my friend was interested in good Raymond examples, and those two were great for the price. A couple of hastily exchanged emails and a Paypal payment later, the strips were his. As a bonus, I get to keep them until I meet him. I also got other things for different friends, and you will all get them when I meet you next.
Bought books. While I had been trying to avoid buying books ever since moving to LA, the amount of 50% discount offers going around was too much for my fragile collecting soul, and I caved in multiple times. How much did I get? I went there with one bag, and I had seven heavy bags when I came back. Among the good stuff – Kagan McLeod’s Infinite Kung-fu, a hardcover edition of Blankets that Craig sketched in, Alec by Eddie Campbell, Tim Seeley’s Hack/Slash. All three Amulet volumes, signed and sketched-in by Kazu Kibuishi, Finder omnibus by Carla Speed McNeil. Obviously, I have to find time to sit and read them all.

There will probably be a post with pictures in them coming up soon.

Tags comicon, san diego

Categories Comics, Life

A most unexpected Rahman concert

July 16, 2011 //

The first, and only, AR Rahman concert I had been to was in Hyderabad, in 2003. It was the first time Rahman had ever toured, and expectations were high, the man himself ~~had not sold out~~ was at the top of his game, and I had all-access backstage passes. Since then, I’ve passed on every ARR concert that happened in the vicinity, partly because I could not really top the 2003 experience, and partly because there was not really anything new happening in any of the concerts – you could make out parts being badly lip-synched, there would be the mandatory Sivamani jam, garish background dancers, and a bunch of crowd-pleasing songs. Ho-hum.

But when Sasi told me about Rahman playing at the Hollywood Bowl in July, I was struck with that Rahmantic yearning again. And that’s how we landed up there this Sunday, with a bottle of wine, bags of popcorn, and a cumulative high after listening to ‘Jiya Se Jiya’ in the car. (the Hollywood Bowl allows you to bring your own food in, which was a pleasant surprise) As expected, the place was desi-ville, right from the parking lot to the crowded stands. (Which also meant there was a great deal of queue-bumping. Or queue-nonexistence.) A bhangra group, apparently a bunch of SoCal dancers called the Sher Foundation were performing at the entrance and inviting passers-by to join in, leading to much exhibition of left feet.

The concert began with a performance by Rhythms of Rajasthan, a folk singing troupe. Nobody really paid them much attention, people were still streaming in, it was not dark enough to see the screens, and there were no crunchy beats to make you get up and dance, yo. Karsh Kale was up next. He played an excellent 45-minute set, with some great singers joining him onstage, as well as a female violinist named Lili Haydn, who owned. Salim Merchant came onstage for a bit, jamming to his song ‘Shukran Allah’ from Kurbaan with Kale and his crew. Overall, a fantastic performance, and I was primed for the evening. But no ARR in sight, instead Sher Foundation and something called Bollywood Step Dance came onstage and did what every wannabe on every talent show on every TV channel does – dance to Bollywood songs. Omkara, Jab We Met, facepalm. Thankfully, this did not last too long.

The announcer came on stage, did his usual Rahman spiel. Mispronounced name, check. Slumdog Millionaire mention, check. Audience going wild, check. Random drunk Tamil dude screaming ‘thalaivar’ over and over again, check. Conductor Matt Dunkley walked in. The opening sequence to Enthiran played on the giant screen, and the crowd roared as Robonikanth sauntered into view. The music began to play, slowly building, and the choir launched into ‘Arima Arima’. But whoa, it was a version much different from the one on the soundtrack. I believe the precise moment I began to gape with disbelief was when ‘Arima’ became a rearranged ‘Puthiya Manithan’ . Because this was good, guys. This was not stick-to-the-crowd-pleasers Rahman I was expecting. The Spirit of Unity tour in 2003 had the bombastic ‘Oruvan Oruvan’ from Muthu opening every show. The overture to that song is a magnificent orchestral piece that was tweaked a little, so that the meaty beats and SPB’s robust vocals that lead to the song became a bubbly hymn of anticipation, driving fanboys like yours truly delirious with happiness. This version of Enthiran evoked something quite like that. But I expected the singers to emerge any minute, destroying those few minutes of sonic adventurism that we were witnessing. I was wrong.

Rahman came onstage, talked a bit about how happy he was to be there. Said something funny about this not being a ‘rockstar event’. A brief speech about Roja, and he walked away. The orchestra struck up again, with a delicate reinterpretation of ‘Kaadhal Rojave’, with ARR regular Naveen on the solo flute. It was at this point I realized this was going to be much, much more than a regular concert.

Chances were high that something like this would suck. You know why? Because orchestral reinterpretations fall into two categories – gimmicky or wannabe. An outfit like Apocalyptica, once the novelty of hearing METALLICA-ON-CELLO-WOO-HOO wears off, is just a bunch of celloists scraping on their instruments as hard as possible to make them sound like badass Les Pauls. Off the top of my head, the only orchestral version I loved whole-heartedly, without coming back to it some time later and going ‘wha-huh, I enjoyed that?’ was Jon Lord’s Concerto For Group And Orchestra. And please don’t say S&M. No, it does not hold up. Matt Dunkley, who was the conductor and arranger for the concert, has apparently worked with ARR since

The choice of songs was superb. These were the underrated gems, the pieces that do not make it to your top 10 ARR lists. ‘Ayo Re Sakhi’ from Water, (which was nearly ruined by the female vocalist, a lady named Amrita. I will get to her in a minute) , pieces from Couples Retreat and 127 Hours. ‘Mausam & Escape’ from Slumdog Millionaire was a frenzied piano/sitar duet, with sitarist Asad Khan joining Rahman on the keys, and a very unexpected choice for that soundtrack. The predictable inclusions – the theme from Warriors of Heaven and Earth and ‘Once Upon A Time in India’ from Lagaan, the Bombay theme. The most unpredictable one was a suite from The Rising, otherwise known as Mangal Pandey. I have to admit that the piece made me itch to go and revisit the OST, though I am not courageous enough to consider watching the film again. (Shudder!)

The one piece I could not recognize at all was ‘Changing Seasons’. Was it from Raavan? I have absolutely no clue, because my post-2009 ARRfu is weak. I do not remember seeing it anywhere before, even on promos.

The low points -

Almost no connection between the content of the video clips and the piece being conducted at the moment. Imagine watching an action sequence with a romantic theme playing in the background, and you will understand what I mean.
The multiple anti-British themes (and their corresponding videos) got a little tedious. Thankfully, no pieces from Bose: The Forgotten Hero.
The choice of ‘Jai Ho’ as the closing song. While I get it, it’s the most recognized Rahman song in Hollywoodland, familiar enough for even the random drunk woman sitting next to me to wake up and cheer. But you have a Philharmonic orchestra and start off with programmed beats and a bunch of under-trained vocalists to substitute for Sukhwinder Singh’s power-packed vocals. Seriously?
The terrible, terrible female vocalist, who had no business sharing a stage with the Man, or anywhere near a microphone. She sounded nervous at first, a little out of breath, when singing the Water song, but one can only forgive so much. Her voice was grating enough to suck away all the joy out of ‘Jai Ho’. I missed you, Tanvi Shah. You may be the only Indian woman who can say ‘Salut, baila baila!’ without making me giggle.

And now to wait for an official CD release.

Tags AR Rahman, concert, hollywood bowl

Categories AR Rahman, Life, Music

A Neil Gaiman Evening

July 1, 2011 //

You would be surprised at how fast I managed to jump and book tickets when Neil Gaiman tweeted about his upcoming American Gods tour, sometime last month. And the minute I clicked on the ‘confirm payment’ button, the site refused to load. A few moments of panic when I thought everybody in LA was booking tickets at the same time, Indian Railways tatkal style, and hastily opened another browser, ready to buy another set of tickets. But the Paypal email confirming the purchase came in, and I knew I was good.

Too good, in fact. As the date grew closer, tickets were still available – strange for an author whose rock-star status sold out venues weeks ahead of appearances. I tried to get people in office interested, but no one was really interested, and Tuesday evening is not really a good day to go attend a show, I guess. So what happened was that I landed up in front of Saban theatre at 6 PM, for an 8 PM show, expecting to breezily pick up tickets.

Ah. O-o-o-kay.

Apparently it was a Neil Gaiman show after all. Go LA!

So I stood in line, reading Black Lagoon and listening to the ladies behind me talk about what a good time they had at previous appearances, and occasionally looking at the sun setting through the buildings across Wilshire Boulevard. And of course the line kept getting longer and longer behind me, even as I inched closer to the entrance.

And then I was in, carrying both my tickets, after the lady at the counter made me repeat my name thrice and then proceeded to serve other people in the line because she could not find my tickets. Yes, tickets in plural, because I had thought there would be someone I could go with and had booked two $15 tickets instead of one $35 ticket that would have gotten me a signed copy of American Gods as well. But you know what? I have multiple copies of the book back in India, from the first edition hardcover that was procured for 100 Rs at Best Book Stall sometime around 2002, multiple paperback editions, one of the them the preferred-text version, different covers, the whole shebang. None of the above stopped me from regretting the lack of a $35 ticket as I walked in and saw the lovely copies on sale. Signed stuff always get me good, I tell you. I bought myself a signed hardcover of Neverwhere, which I had a tattered copy of, and which I have not read in quite a long time.

As I went in, it struck me that seats numbered AA101 and AA102 could mean one of two things – I am either somewhere at the back, or way near the front. As it turned out, it was the latter. FRONT ROW SEATS, fuck yeah!

And nobody was in yet, of course. Except for two lonely chairs and a few over-excited nerds.

Soon it was 8, and people were still trickling in. Someone came out and announced that while Neil and Patton were backstage and ready, they were still selling tickets and would wait for some more time. C’est la vie. I did not want to waste the extra ticket I had, and randomly asked a lady sitting at the back if she wanted to sit in the front row. As it turns out, she was having a bad day – long drive, husband did not join her because of work, and she had an early morning event to attend the next day. Yup, she was totally up for a seat up front. And she was a children’s librarian, so I was fairly sure Neil Gaiman would approve. We talked about Joe Hill, His Dark Materials, and Lemony Snicket, and the awesome experience of reading Graveyard Book and Jungle Book back to back. She recommended I check out Hunger Games, and I asked her to try the Bartimaeus Trilogy and Chew.

And then Neil Gaiman waved to us from the corner of the stage, which made the fangirls squeal, and Twitter’s servers to momentarily groan from the flush of tweets that emanated from every mobile device in the vicinity.

At this point of time, I should probably remember to tell you that when I left the house that morning, I was running about 4 minutes late. Which meant that in order to catch the bus that left Admiralty and Palawan at exactly 8:07 AM, I would have to walk at the rate of a DJ Yoda album, and not, as was my usual music-to-walk-to-the-bus-stand-of-choice, the Tune Yards. Which also meant that when, about 2 minutes out of the door, when I felt my pocket to check for my phone and realized that it wasn’t there, I silently cursed my stupidity, but made no move to head back to pick it up. Remember this somewhat insignificant detail for later, all right? All right.

So it was time. The hall was nearly full. There were people even on the balcony, as the somewhat surprised Saban theatre remarked, which was not a common occurrence for an author appearance. Patton Oswalt came in, and began to sing Harry Belafonte songs with a Mid-western accent.

Uh, no, not really.

Oswalt was funny. Made fun of his own geek credentials (“This is like asking the world’s biggest Gaiman stalker to play twenty questions”), made fun of everyone in the hall, and then called the Man in Black out. Yeah baby!

What followed was what, in certain circles, would be termed as ‘total paisa vasool’. Questions were asked and answered, there were observations made about what constitutes weird in America. Neil talked about making an appearance in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where the venue was a 15 minute walk from the hotel, but the old lady driving his limousine managed to transform the drive into a 45-minute one, because she chose to make up her own directions, and he saw a nuclear submarine in a park. He talked of the time he listened to a critic’s complaint about how Violent Cases was an overpriced book and asked the publishers to lower the price, and no one really noticed the price-cut. He spoke about the origins of American Gods, and how he jump-started a bit of myth himself, by coming up with a Slavic goddess who has, since then, gone on to have her own Wikipedia page and numerous citations. His book apparently had its origins during a sleep-deprived tour of Iceland, where he wondered if the Norse gods travelled to America along with the Vikings. He typed out a one page summary for his publisher with a working title, which in turn became the fully-fleshed out cover image with the exact logo typeset that would become the cover of the book later on. And, on a comment from Patton Oswalt, he proceeded to do an impersonation of Bjork. Let me say that again – Neil Gaiman did an impersonation of Bjork. Heads around the Saban theatre proceeded to explode, your truly included.

Neil Gaiman, in case you did not know already, hypnotizes his audience. His comic timing is immaculate, the humor just dry enough, the punchlines enhanced by the charming British accent. When he read the first short bit from American Gods, about the origins of the Easter and a waitress who has a very vague understanding of the word ‘pagan’, his voice took on the rough tones of Wednesday, and changed to the somewhat clueless waitresses, and you did not even realize it was just one person. Yes, I have never heard any of Gaiman’s audiobooks and narrations, probably because I always knew I had to see him live. And I was completely, utterly blown away. The actual reading became a very entertaining cast version of the Bilquis sequence in Gods, a portion that involves sex, prayer and …umm….stuff that should not really happen during sex, unless you’re having sex with a goddess. I have a video. Neil, who played the narrator, was flawless. Zelda Williams, the lady who played Bilquis, cracked up multiple times and I do not blame her. Patton Oswalt takes his reading very seriously. The photograph you see is shaking because I was laughing just as hard as everyone else.

Then there were a bunch of audience questions that Patton Oswalt asked Gaiman on their behalf (questions had to be mailed in prior to the event). I had sent in a question about the nature of franchises in today’s popular culture, the need for prequels, sequels and spinoffs and about an author’s role in determining when a story should be a standalone thing and when it needs to be fleshed out even more. The reason behind my question was to find out if the TV series deal (Playtone is producing a six season TV series on American Gods ) made Gaiman want to write the planned sequel, or whether it was always meant to be. My question wasn’t asked, but a lot of good ones were, and Gaiman shared a lot of coming-soon news – like his collaboration with Stephen Merritt of Magnetic Fields, his upcoming children’s book about a panda who sneezes, called Chu’s Day (the name itself makes me smile), his attempt to interpret Journey to The West, the Chinese epic, which seems to have become a movie script, and lots, lots of other things. There is a very detailed transcript of the question and answer session right here, if you are interested.

And so, the evening came to an end, and everyone went home, except for the lucky few who got to go backstage and hang around with Neil. I wasn’t one of them. My primary concern was to catch bus # 105 to Fairfax and Apple, and from there, grab the connecting bus to Washington and Palawan, and reach home as soon as possible.

Except, it was 10:45, and when I reached the Fairfax and Apple, it was 11:15. The last bus to Washington had already left, at 11.

That was when my unfortunate decision to not pick up my phone in the morning came back to bite me where it hurt. I did not have anyone’s number, not even the regular cab company that I normally call in those unforeseen situations where I’m short of time and there’s no bus in sight. So I began walking. Thankfully, there was a gas station nearby, and when I asked the salesman there if he could call a cab, he agreed. “Ten minutes”, he said, and I bought a Coke can from him out of gratitude, and waited for my ride home.

It came. It was not a cab. It was an old lady in an SUV, who said – “you hoppa in. Where you wanna go?” and I asked her, like every money-loving Indian boy should, if she had a meter. “No problem-a. I go by the mileage. You pay 1.75 per mile, just like cab.” Well, who was I to complain? I hoppa-ed in, and the lady proceeded to drive me home, at a steady speed of 25 miles an hour. Turns out she was the salesman’s mother (I would have never guessed!) and she had just bought the car, and really liked driving it. Her husband had wanted to come drive me home, but she insisted on doing it herself.

It was, you will agree, a very appropriate end to the evening.

Tags LA, neil gaiman

Categories Life, Weirdness

Book Fair Adventures Part 2

September 16, 2010 //

It amuses me to think of how many, and how very strange memories I have of the Guwahati Book Fair.

This happened when I was in the ninth standard. It was the last two days of that year’s fair, and a bunch of us friends decided to meet up in the afternoon, go to a resort and do some go-karting, head to a pub, get smashed and find ourselves a bunch of girls to hang out with. Well no, it was fucking 1994 and there was no go-karting in fucking Guwahati, and definitely no pubs. My city was the kind of place where, if you went to one of those dimly lit bar-cum-restaurants and ordered a drink (if you drank, that is. I didn’t.), chances were the manager would come to you and ask if you were so-and-so’s son, and it would turn out that you were distant relatives and oh dear god you were going to be in so much trouble when you went back home. The only time we would hang around with girls was in school, where if anyone got too interested in a girl she would come and tie a rakhi on the guy. So yeah, what we planned to do was to meet at the Book Fair, and go buy books and head home at 7:00, which is when most of Guwahati fell asleep.

What happened that fine day was something else altogether. Post-noon, I had that pleasurable flutterby feeling in my tummy that heralded the arrival of fine bibliographic pleasures on the horizon, and I distinctly remember playing ‘Koncham Nilavu’ very loud while getting ready to go. (For a very long time, ‘Koncham Nilavu’ was my default let’s-do-this-shit-yo song of choice) I headed out just at about 3 ( we were supposed to meet at 4), the perfect time to adjust for a bus delay. As I walked out the gate, there was a dog sleeping nearby – not an uncommon sight by any means, and my motto in life at that time being ‘Canis Dormiens Nunquam Tittilandus’, I sidestepped the noble animal and proceeded to my destination.

The bitch jumped up and bit me on the thigh! It wasn’t one of those Stephen King Presents Cujo-level bites with a lot of gore and ripping sounds of muscle and tissue, neither was it a playful Disney Dalmatian-level nip – the bite was just enough to make me holler. My shout made the dog let go of my thigh and growl loudly, and I did the most logical thing possible – I kicked it twice and ran back inside the house. Not forgetting to lock the gate.

I admit to being very panicky, and hoping that there was no blood. Ran to the bathroom, switched on the light, took my jeans off (remembering to thank my lucky stars I had worn jeans and not a normal pair of trousers). Nope, a little scratched skin, but no trace of blood. My Junior Red Cross training kicked into gear (most people thought the JRC was nothing much beyond singing campfire songs, ogling at girls from other schools and designing blood donation posters. I disagree) and I washed the wound thoroughly with detergent and lots of water to make sure no trace of the dog’s saliva remained. By then, my panic levels had lowered themselves to sustainable levels, and I was beginning to worry about the fact that I had lost about fifteen minutes and I should head to the Book Fair as soon as possible. And that’s precisely what I did, remembering to take a stone along just in case the dog was around.

And I wore the same pair of jeans, of course.

By the time I got to the fair, the fear had been replaced by boisterousness . You will have to admit there is an inherent coolness to replying – “Nothing much, got bitten by a dog”, when someone asks you what’s up. My friends snickered a little, one of them was a little worried, and talked about an uncle who had been bitten by a dog and ran around the house on all fours after a year, because he did not get any shots. You needed to take shots, each aimed at a precise point around your navel, or else you would be barking mad, quite literally, in a year. “Nah, not going to happen to me”, I said. “I cleaned it thoroughly, and there was no blood.” I came back home, very pleased with myself, at about 7:30. There were a bunch of people in the living room. They looked worried. Apparently there was a rabid dog in the neighborhood that had bitten some people, and they had managed to kill it. One of the kids that were bitten was in hospital. I figured it was high time I speak up about my adventure.

It was a long night. Lots of injections ( none around the tummy, thankfully), lots of weeping ( my mom), lots of murmurs about irresponsible teenagers who do not know about their priorities, and fuck, no meat for a year. Thanks to that stupid dog, I had to change my diet, I had to remember specific dates every month to go and get more injections, go visit some temples with my parents who were convinced that there was an evil spirit at work mucking about with my karma-lines, and miss a kick-ass school picnic. And to this day, everytime I see a sleeping stray dog, I mentally prepare myself to be ready to kick and run if the beast shows the slightest intention of lunging at me.

But I bought some great books that day, so it all worked out in the end.

Tags book fair, dog-bite, guwahati

Categories Books, Life, Weirdness