A Victorian Sex Cries Generator, filched from Mr Neil Gaiman’s journal.

Samples

Planet M opens an outlet in Hyderabad. MPM Mall, Abids. Seems Suniel Shetty and Celina Jaitley are inauguarating it today, right now. Suniel seems to have become Hyderabad’s resident celebrity ever since he launched Mischief here…..he keeps popping up on Page 3, Hyd Times wearing the same leather jacket ( so it seems) and the same macho-bereft-of-smile look, kind of like a constipated St Bernard. Image building must be such a pain, poor fellow.

The scary thing is – the press release said “(Planet M) will have a selection of choicest titles that goes with the Hyderabadi taste…” Now, now, that means:- (a) More remix albums. (b) More DJ Dhinchuck-DJ Ram Narayan-type albums (c) More Aguilera-Vengaboyz-Spears-Keating kind of stuff. That does not sound too good.

Music World is going through this massive refurbishment program – the other day I saw one of the salesguys going through the shelves taking out all those ancient 550 Rs albums ( bands like Nazareth, Kansas, America, Judas Priest…) and packing them off. Lots of new stock coming, or so they say. They have even started a buy-and-exchange offer, where I can buy a cd and exchange it for something else if I don’t like it. Loads of interesting possibilities, heh heh.

Sangeet Saagar has a sale going on too, buy one and get one free, out of a selection of about 50 cds. Three Vangelis albums available – is what Chandru told me. He got two Jefferson Airplane albums for 250 each. So lunch today at Paradise, with the mandatory trip to SS.

Bad feelings

Indian Ocean‘s Melancholic Ecstasy reminds me of a long car-drive from Panaji to Mumbai.

I was a bonafide student of REC Warangal then, for three whole weeks. However, the admission procedure was followed by the announcement that classes would begin a month later, and I took off to my uncle’s place in Goa. Ah! Three weeks of pure bliss. No thoughts about the upcoming tryst with seniors ( they had asked me to get a bottle of Feni, and I was thinking of the best walkaround ), playing around with my uncle’s new Pentium ( The only thing I could use with confidence was MSPaint) and of course, hanging around Panjim.

And one fine day, I found Indian Ocean. The album. The first album. And as I keep reminding everyone around me, I found it in a freakin’ Paan shop. I had heard Desert Rain before, but had never got around to buying it. I also found a hardcover copy of Stephen King’s Tommyknockers and three copies of Sandman#50 and coaxed my aunt to buy them for me.

That was the afternoon I was going to leave Goa and come back to Warangal. I had decided on the official story about the Feni I was supposed to bring back ( “Uhhh, Udattada, I had bought a bottle for you guys, but my aunt was packing my suitcase and she found it hidden under my Jeans. She threw it away.” ) and I was aware of the fact that, yes, this was it, this was where I Boldly ride into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell. (that was the general opinion about REC seniors )When I bought the cassette, it was a welcome diversion from thinking about …er…you-know-what. So I explained to my uncle, in very deep detail, what a great band Indian Ocean was, and how Desert Rain really blew my mind and stuff like that. He got exasperated after a while ( any driver would, I guess, when he’s got two kids, my cousins, hollering in the back and a naive nephew going on about a band ), so he said – “Why don’t you put the cassette inside the deck, so that we can all listen to it?”

Oh no, I thought. What if he listens to a track of just guitar and tabla and says something stupid like “Where are the songs?” What if my cousins hate it and start screaming louder? What if the cassette contains a different cassette altogether, like Raja Babu or something? Yeah, I was that paranoid even then.

So I gingerly push the tape in. And Village Damsel starts off, with a bass track that’s joined by the guitar, and then the tabla and the drums. A few minutes later, my uncle is smiling to himself, tapping on his steering wheel. My cousins, both of them, are quiet. My aunt, who has been sitting quietly all along, says – “This is good.” Winding roads, villages, pass us by. My worries disappear. By the time it’s ten, and we pull into some hotel, I realise that we’ve been listening to the tape for about 3 hours ( auto-continue )

The next morning, just before I am about to board the train, my uncle says something like “Why don’t I pay you , so you can buy the tape at Hyderabad, and I keep this one?”

I believe that was one of the situations I have handled very diplomatically in my life. I didn’t know how rare the cassette was, or whether I would get it in Hyderabad or not, but no way I would let it out of my site. I gave my uncle the exact details of which paan shop I got it from, and also that I saw two more copies of the tape. For good measure, I also pointed out that I wouldn’t be coming to Hyderabad for quite a long time, it being the Senior-Junior Interaction season in REC, after all.

Whew.

Of course, I didn’t see the cassette again at any shop. No one else I knew did, either. I used to keep getting worried about the tape being spoiled, and always kept hoping that HMV would re-release it. But those short-sighted corporate morons just didn’t seem to care. Kandisa came, blew me away. At least more people knew about Indian Ocean now. I passed out of REC, joined this company, and carried out my first, and only e-transaction, opting to buy a cd of Desert Rain for 400 rupees. ( I learnt two months later that Kosmic music was re-releasing the album and selling it for 200 rupees only, but I didn’t mind. the one I got was a classic Indie-label album)

This Tuesday, I went to Lifestyle music world, just to scope out the new stuff. The rock section was in pathetic condition, so I decided to check out the New-Age/Instrumental section.

And it was there. HMV’s reissue of the first Indian Ocean album. For only 99 Rupees.

“Hallelujah!” was the only thing I could think of saying then. The rest of the stuff ( this stuff ) came later.