My Highlights of 2008
Wednesday, December 31st, 2008
On the last day of this year, I thought it was only fair to write about the lovely year its been for me. After I decided to make this post, I thought about the year and the events that I should write about, and the only points of reference I had were the photographs I had taken through the year! So based on the strength of my photoblog, here I go!
The new year was brought in just the way I like it! I went for midnight mass with the family and then headed to spend time with Shilpa. We even made pizza ourselves! I like this over the partying and the madness! And the rest of the year was going to get crazy anyway .. and it did 
It was by complete accident that I started taking photographs at weddings. I carry my camera around with me all the time and when I first took some photos at my friend’s wedding, it was because I wanted to keep myself occupied! Some of the couple’s friends had made a movie about their life together and wanted to show it at the reception and since I had both my camera and my mac with me, I took a couple of hundred photos (like I do always), transferred them to my mac and ran a slideshow on the projector that was set up for the movie! This became such a great hit because a typical wedding photographer would take a month after the wedding for you to see the photos even and here guests who came in a little later could see what had happened earlier in the reception!
I started getting offers to shoot weddings which I still don’t take up for money. I am just not good enough yet and am still doing this as a hobby and for only my close friends. But then, sometime later this year, I should possibly start charging for it
Much to my liking, a LOT of music happened this year, with the new project (tentatively named - Allegro Fudge) that is making some very interesting music, to playing with old friends at Opus and other places around the city to the lovely ‘Raghu Dixit Project‘, its been a time when I grew a lot as a musician and I hope that will continue right through.
February 26th, 2008 was when The Raghu Dixit Project’s debut album was launched and from there its been a crazy ride with the band this year. From being MTV’s artist of the month, to seeing our album for sale in stores, to playing all over the country and some parts of the world, being part of the Roots Music Festival tour of the North East of India, to travelling around 5 countries in South Asia, to being part of a superhit movie score, my journey in music with Raghu has been tremendous this year! And I only hope next year will top it and will see me get better with the bass guitar!
This is my favourite picture of the band on stage taken this year. This was taken by Sayan ‘The Red Bantoo’ Datta, who is one of the best concert photographers I have met in the country!
The trip to the North East of India that I went on with the band, was more than just the music for me. It was a great lesson in management and I learnt more on that one trip about how to organize concerts, negotiate with people, delegate work, get work done, and just manage things than I have learnt in the past 25 years of my life! From the accident to having to set up promotional deals with radio stations in the North East and making sure things were on track in a place I have never been to in my life, in a language I don’t understand was quite an experience!
It was on this trip that I spoke extensively with Vijay Nair about the various things that we can in the realm of Indie music in India. Many of those ideas are being brought to fruition as we speak :). This was also the trip that fuelled my leaving IT and eventually landing up where I am today. We’ll come to that in a bit.
2008 was the year that I was finally able to do music and work in the music biz a little more seriously and a large part of that was because of winning the IYME award for India. That was one of the best experiences I’ve had all year. I got to go to London, Liverpool and Manchester and see how the music industry works there and make friends and contacts that will be invaluable to me as I continue on this path in the music biz.
2008 was in many ways, the year for travel! Most of this was not purely travel, but I did get to see a LOT of the world and I am thankful for it. I will seriously invest time and money in travel over next year and the years to come. Its just the best thing in the world I should tell you! I used to be this person who completely disliked travelling on IT work because you are going to be stuck in an office in another country like you are now and it will only be a change of location. But I strongly urge you to travel when you can and do it NOW! go to as many places and see the world .. there is a lot you will learn
2008 was the year I finally quit IT! to pursue a life and career in the music industry and as a great first step, a series of co-incidences and great timing made me the VP for MuckWork and getting to work with Derek Sivers can be a great start to a career in the Music Biz and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am for it. More updates on how everything progresses will be made as things happen. But I am finally doing what I LOVE from my heart and its a great place to be and I am determined to make this count
There are a lot of interesting projects I am part of in the Indie Music scene in India and I will tell you about them as they happen. Right now its all just concepts but they will come together soon.
The project that started it all was relaunched late this year and I am really proud of what we have got here. The brand new RadioVeRVe now has more music and a LOT more features. I strongly recommend that you check it out and tell me what you think about it. This is just the start for the new RadioVeRVe. There is more that will go there and it will happen soon!
Another great project that I was part of late this year was FOSS.in. It was haphazard to start with, ambitious when it came close and finally when it happened, it was grand! there is a lot we did right this year, a LOT we didn’t and we learnt with everything that din’t go as planned. The team ‘bash’ after the event was quite an event and I hope that it makes us strong as a team together because there is a LOT of good that will happen with the event next year
Finally, Shilpa and I have been together for almost 5 years now and I could not have been happier about it! this has been the year when we grew a LOT closer to each other. When it was smooth sailing almost all year long The year when we started respecting our own space and learning or rather getting used to each one doing our own thing and not having to be around each other all the time. In many ways, that has been the secret to how close we’ve become.
This was also a year when I reconnected with a lot of old friends, made new ones, started many new projects and got qutie a bit of work done and enjoyed every moment of it. In a tremendous number of ways, this has been the best year of my life yet and I see a lot of good happening in 2009 as well. There have been many things I have forgotten to mention and I am sure they will come back to me soon and I’ll probably make new posts about it!
For now, cheers to a great year and here’s another one hoping for an even better year ahead
Biryani at Khazana
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
If you have seen me, you could probably tell that I am a foodie! Its quite obvious 
And one of the simplest yard sticks I use to judge how good the food at a place is, is by eating the Biryani served there. Obviously this works only at places that serve Biryani! and I use a different dish for different cuisines.
Now, I have eaten Biryani at many places in Bangalore and if there is one place I would pick to go back to repeatedly, it has to be Khazana - a little hole in the wall restaurant in Johnson Market (down the road from Fanoos).
I was passing by that place at lunch time today and there was absolutely no way I would miss a chance to eat there! Now you must realize that this is not a fancy shamancy place that I am talking about, its a really small joint on the road side that I was introduced to first by my guitar tutor, Mr. Alan Rego (who is a regular there!)
Infact, Khazana has a very loyal regular clientelle. I remember landing up there from work with my colleague at 12.15 PM for lunch and the place was closed, so we wait outside knowing it will open any moment soon. 5 minutes later, we see there are 4 more people waiting there for it to open and when they open the place by 12.30 PM, there were 12 of us ready to go in there and sit.
In Khazana, you just sit on whatever chair you can find, and you just (hopefully) become friends with the person you are sitting with, if you don’t already know them! But that is optional of course
In many ways, Khazana is a perfect model of what an ideal restaurant should be. A dedicated clientelle, a specialist menu (I will come to that in a moment) and really cheap prices! A great tasting fully stuffing meal for 2 would cost you about 100 rupees per head which is much better than many fancy restaurants in town!
The menu at Khazana has 16 items, there is no concept of starter, main course, dessert or any such thing! and the costliest item on the menu is 67 rupees! I love the quote on the menu and the disclaimer, “Food is subject to availability!”. This is completely true and on most days, they run out of a majority of their menu items in a couple of hours after opening.
If you are in the mood for some great cheap non-vegetarian food, I totally recommend the ‘Beef Biryani’ and ‘Beef Kalimirchi’ combo at Khazana! My mouth waters as I write this
PS: The quote reads - “Almighty gave us exquisite things to eat, the least we can do is prepare them tasty and serve them to you“
Best photographs of 2008
Monday, December 29th, 2008
Some of these photos will just blow your mind! please take the time to go through these images and go through all parts and read about them!
Get inspired!
Got to these links via PhotoJojo
My Guitars - The Warwick Streamer
Sunday, December 28th, 2008
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!
Hoysala Sene and the Bangalore Culture!
Sunday, December 28th, 2008
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?
