Music at Barista

For those of you interested in live music, here's what I found on Barista's website in the promotions page.

It's raining rock

Watch out for the musical performances at Bangalore Barista outlets on the following days: March 18, April 1, April 15, April 29, May 13, May 27, June 10, June 24, July 8 and July 22.

The stuff in bold, which I added, is still to come.

Barista Unplugged

Did you know that Barista (on St. Marks Road) has a live music thingamie every month called Barista Unplugged? Well, when I went last evening (April 29th 2005), I found out that this was the third unplugged session.

There were two "bands" that played: Amplifried and Shickados. The show was supposed to start at 7.00 pm and they started only at around 7.40 or so. No apologies, no nothing. To all bands that play live music, if you are late, apologise to the audience, doesn't matter if it's not your fault. Especially if you're a band that most people have never heard of.

The set started off with the guy from Amplifried playing a song from Creed and then inexplicably stopping (no explanations) and then starting after about 10 minutes. The body language of the guy was amazing. He was so self-conscious of the fact that people were watching him, he tried to be cool, ended up not being so cool. He had a good voice, I'll give him that but with song selections that ranged from the Beatles, to the Stone Temple Pilots, to Green Day, to Maroon Five (which he massacred) and Pearl Jam, you wondered what the guy was trying to do. Alternative rock maybe but it sure as hell wasn't great. Plus, I couldn't figure out if he had a band or not.

The other band that played was Shickados, the has something to do with a place on the moon. They had one guitarist, a bongo player, and a vocalist who also played the bass. They played Hindi music and they were quite good. The vocalist had a nice, deep voice and the guitarist was good. The bongos didn't come through properly because of the mixing (which was terrible) but the band was a definite improvement from Amplifried.

Late into the show, the guitarist played an own composition (comp) dedicating it to his ex-girlfriend, which he called Angel. Good stuff, some dreamy chords and reasonably decent tune. Shickados also played one of their own comps (I forget the name) and it was really good. I talked to the band members later and they told me that they had about seven or eight own comps and that they were all students at an art academy.

I think that if Shickados plays their own stuff, they'll be a band to watch out for. So what if they play Hindi music? If it's good music, I'll listen. Plus, Indi-pop is becoming such a huge market anyway.

Amplifried? Na, I think I'll pass.

PS: Rave magazine was one of the sponsors for this event. Rave brings out 10 issues every year, almost everything to do with music and they cover all genres, even Indian classical stuff. At Rs. 350 for a year's subscription, I think I'll be signing up soon. They also have a free magazine called Rave Rock which is totally devoted to rock (yeah baby) in Bangalore.

Ponds anti-dowry talcum powder

There's a relatively new Ponds talcum powder ad that's been airing recently: Pretty girl (read: fair) is getting ready for marriage and she hears a scene. The father-in-law (f-i-l) to be screams that if he isn't going to get the money (now!) that the marriage is off. Our pretty bride goes to the f-i-l and hands him a ring (which I presume is the engagement ring) and he walks off in a huff.

She holds a press conference later and is praised for her stand and a smart-looking guy asks for her hand in marriage. And they live happily ever after and she continues to use Ponds forever. And their kids use ponds too. Sorry, got carried away there.

I wonder about this ad: Why didn't the smart girl call off the wedding before the date was set? I am sure the money matters would've been discussed at the "proposal" stage and she would've been aware of it. So, she was okay with it at that stage but, she calls the wedding off only when her Dad is not able to make the down payments on the groom's car, er, dowry?

Huh? And we're supposed to buy Ponds because of this?

Since when did Ponds become a smartness drug? What are they sniffing now-a-days anyway? Ponds?

Weird happenings

For some reason, a post that was still being written got posted. I didn't even realise this, till I saw the post on the site. Deleted the post but it was one of those, Hit Enter by mistake and something happens, kind of things. I am still not sure. Maybe I should blog about this. Oh wait, I am!

The subtle art of giving gifts

In case you heard this late (like me), the word dowry has now been replaced by the word gift. Some of the interesting arguments I've heard about gift-giving are:

1. If we don't take it (the gift), then they'll think that something's wrong with us.


2. It's a gift; they are giving it of their own accord.


3. I didn't ask for it, I am not going to refuse it if they give it.


4. That's the way it is in our community.

I want to take a bat to the head of people who say this, but I am essentially a non-violent person. All these arguments, I hear these, from people who are educated, middle class, and living in cities. What hope is there for the women who live in smaller towns or in villages?

It's damn frustrating to even think about the whole thing. But, as Edmund Burke said:

All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

I'm doing my part by blogging about this.

You do your part too. Speak out against this tradition. And, don't take or give any gifts when your turn comes.

Excellent service at a government company

You always hear people bitching about government companies and their poor customer service. I have something different to report.

I had a wonderful experience when I went to buy insurance at New India Assurance. The person who was in charge of dealing with customers was extremely courteous. Not just to me, even to the people who'd come with expired insurance stuff, who wanted to know about how to file claims, with everyone. He displayed remarkable patience and when he was dealing with one person, he was totally with them.

When I was sitting there for quite a while, he even offered me tea. When the person who was writing up the insurance took some time to finish my papers, she apologised saying that since it was the first time she was making that kind of insurance (using the computer), she had taken quite a while.

The whole office was cheerful and while it had the usual trappings of a government office, it was really a customer's delight being there.

Don't know too many places that I can say that about, government or private.

A lounge bar

I went to Taaika (spelling?) last night. This is a relatively "new" place that opened up in Bangalore. My cousin and a couple of friends told me good things about it, but yesterday was the first time I went. Taaika's on Church street, on the building that houses Fabmall and Atlanta Bread Bar (another new place). The building's next to the one that has United Colours of Benetton. Taaika's on the second floor.

First thing I say when I walk in is, This place reminds me of Cosmo Village. I find out later that the place is owned by the same person that owns Cosmo Village. Blink I guess.

The place is huge. Huge is the operative word. When you're in there, you can get lost. The couches are huge. You can sink into them. The tables are huge. The food portions are not so huge. The lighting is subdued, lots of candles everywhere, some of them huge. They have a dance floor as well.

After a little while of sitting in there, I kinda forgot that I was in Bangalore (in a good kind of way). I could've been anywhere. Naaz (an interesting blogger that I heard about recently) puts Tai Ka (her spelling) as the #2 reason why Bangalore is better than Chennai. She writes:

Tai Ka proves that Bangalore is not all hip-hop, and the Dj played some wicked wicked tunes..best I've heard since I got back to India (hed kandi rocks!).

I must confess that I didn't pay much attention to the music. The prices at the place are pretty decent, almost the same that you'd pay at any decent pub.

It's one of those places that you must visit, if only because it's so different from any other pub you've been to.

Meals at Hotel Brindavan

If you like the traditional South Indian meal, you know, sambhar, rasam, rice, papad, all those vegetables and curries, head over sometime to Hotel Brindavan. It's just off MG road, in a small alley next to Styx (the pub), which is before Cauvery Emporium (interesection of MG road and Brigade road). The hotel is at the dead-end.

Walk in to the hotel and walk straight through and you'll come to the "restaurant". The place is pretty cool even though it's not air-conditioned. High ceilings, lots of tables arranged in rows, with about eight chairs to a table.

Buy a coupon at the counter, head over to a table, sit down and wait for a couple of minutes, and the waiters will start serving you.

First comes the banana leaf and the steel tumbler for water. They'll wait for you to clean the leaf, so there's no pressure. You start off with chappatis; as many as you want. All you can eat rice and papads too. They're generous. They serve one or two vegetables, a gravy dish, and some raita sometimes. The rasam and sambhar is delicious. They give you a katori (small bowl) of buttermilk and some curd too.

The service is quick and there's not a lot of waiting involved. The food is simple and it's not oily and won't make you feel bloated. Not unless you eat a lot, which you probably will, since the food's quite good.

Plus, at Rs. 40, you can't beat the price.

A beleaguered CEO

Imagine you're the CEO of a 50+ year old company. Before you took over the company, it wasn't doing too well. After you took over, there were some rough times but you made things right and things started looking good. You even started breaking new ground. You encouraged people and mentored them, even some people that nobody backed. You did things that no other CEO did. You became the most successful CEO of the company. Sure, you made some mistakes but who doesn't.

Then, you lost your magic touch, for a while. Not that long though. Your performance dipped. And, suddenly, all the shareholders are now crying for your head.

You raised the standards and now you're a victim of your own success. You realise that you're only as good as your last few months.

Remember that Saurav.

Slight change of focus

For the two people that read this blog, I'm changing the focus of this blog a little bit. I'm going to write a little more about India and life in India as well. I will continue to write about life in Bangalore but this will allow me to expand the focus of the blog.

Miss Congeniality 2

I like Sandra Bullock a lot. So, if you don't like her, you probably won't like this movie.

This movie showed a different side of Gracy Hart's (Sandra Bullock) character and there was the usual humour, a little less than the first movie but better. Then, there's an unusual female buddy cops thing that happened with Sandra Bullock and Regina King (Jerry Maguire, Enemy of the State, Ray), which I thought was a nice side-story worked into the script. In fact, towards the end of the movie I thought, Hmm, they could do the third part now, a female buddy cop movie!

Don't know if that will happen, but I enjoyed myself and it was a fun movie to watch. If you like Sandra Bullock, go watch it for sure. And if you don't, but you're looking for some entertainment, a few laughs, go watch it.

50 buck movie tickets

PVR (in the Forum mall in Koramangala) has a deal where tickets for shows before 1.00 pm from Monday to Thursday are half-price, Rs. 50. I guess that got Symphony and Rex thinking because they introduced a Rs. 50 ticket, except that this is for the morning show and more importantly for ALL days.

Competition rocks.