I haven’t posted a blog since my last article about one month back, and the reason is that in the last month, I have traveled to, from, and between 11 different cities via 9 flights, 3 overnight buses, and 2 overnight taxis. I’ve recorded a new album, played in 2 concerts, sat in one concert, had 12 days of classes, explored North and South India, and ridden one very charming camel. I’ve barely slept, and I’ve had some of the most memorable experiences of my lifetime (I wish I had written about said experiences in detail right after they happened … blast!). After returning to the United States, I’m going to write a final blog article that will detail a lot of what has happened in India since February 1st, but I want to take a bit of time now to talk about the experience of trekking around a country with a world class touring musician.

Though my guru is wildly famous and wealthy now, he started his career from scratch with virtually no money, no actual saxophone teacher (because he is the first), and very little formal education. He lived the life of a traveling musician, performing wherever and whenever he could, taking crowded bottom class trains and overnight buses without A/C to various South Indian cities for gigs that paid pennies. He ate train stand food on the run to avoid missing his ride, he recorded albums for little pay and no royalties, and he spent the vast majority of his day either playing music or praying. Some habits die hard, and for that reason, my guru seems to still prefer taking overnight car rides for trips that are 8 hours or less (hence the crazy number of sleepless drives I’ve had here). For me, roaming around India has been an exercise in meeting the demands of a global icon using the methods of a budding, humble artist (meaning overnight trains, buses, and taxis, disgusting hotels, surprise gigs with little to no notice, and generally no sleep).

Living in India and being around my guru at this stage of my own musical career has shown me how truly remarkable the life of this world class artist with whom I study really is. The hardest part of being a successful professional musician is, of course, being a good musician. The amount of practice, listening, and musical emersion it takes to maintain the virtuosity required to compete on a world stage is large enough to consume the entirety of a normal person’s daily life. Now imagine having to additionally maintain a business, negotiate contracts for gigs, teach students, maintain enough political savy to keep the musical establishment loving and respecting you, deal with reviewers who consistently spew garbage, and, of course, support 3 children and a wife.

Each day I show up to class ushers in a fresh batch of people either calling or showing up to my guru’s door because they want something from him. Kadri mama is constantly giving money to temples, old friends, family, etc. He frequently deals with the requests (and often pleading) of hack students who want to study with him just long enough to put Kadri Gopalnath’s name on their shoulder and sell their product (their crappy music).

Nobody in this world is perfect, and my guru is certainly no exception. Traveling and studying with him, however, has been an exploration of a standard of excellence that is as high as any that exists in the world. I don’t know how my life has been so fortunate to continuously deal out opportunities to learn from the most impressive people on the planet. I ask those, however, who frequently tell me that I maintain unreasonable standards … how is it possible to be any other way when my life is packed with people like Kadri Gopalnath?

~ Yesh
Bay Area

Though I only spent two days in Mumbai, it is clear to me now that India really ought to be divided up into two regions: Mumbai and the rest of India. In my opinion, the pulse in Mumbai leaves Chennai in the dust. There also appears to be enormous pockets of wealth in Mumbai that may have sped local development, which has spurred an influx of travelers and business folks from all over the world.

Most of my time in Mumbai was spent hobnobbing with some very interesting and successful journalists. Chaya introduced me to a few gifted writers and professionals whose editorial achievements include such reputable publications as the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Boston Herald.

The two major places of note during my trip were café Zoe in Lower Parel and the Dome on Marine Drive. Chaya and I went to these places to eat, drink, and be merry, and I would say that neither disappointed. Both places had a substantial number of young people from varying origins. Being in that environment was refreshing (that scene has been more or less absent since I came to Chennai).

One repeated personal observation was the appearance of wildly beautiful women frequently hanging out with or dating really mediocre dudes. I witnessed this everywhere from bars to beaches to market centers. I’ve heard varying explanations including: 1) Women spend a lot of time getting made up and guys don’t (I think that’s true everywhere), 2) Gender relations in Mumbai (and all of India for that matter) still give males a substantial dominant advantage, which lurks in the psyche of women (interesting argument), 3) Women are hotter than guys everywhere (definitely true but the hotness disparity between men and women is more pronounced in Mumbai), 4) Many of the social scenes we visited are packed with people from immensely wealthy families, and women are better than men at using financial advantage to make themselves attractive (don’t know anything about this).

For the moment, I am going to refrain from picking an explanation (other opinions are always welcome). To conclude, I would say first, to those visiting India from America and looking for a place with modern comfort, food, infrastructure, and even sanitation, Mumbai is probably the closest of the cities I’ve seen to satisfying your desires. Second, I personally think that a guy with average looks, intelligence, talents, and a host of other things probably has a shot at meeting a beautiful girl in Mumbai … can’t say anything about personality.

For me, Goa always had a certain paradise image that trumped other classical vacation destinations. I’ve come to India 9 times (3 of which were at “viable dieable” ages), and for whatever reason I never seized the opportunity to travel to Goa. Having spent a weekend there, I have concluded that one, I need to go back, and two, Goa is not quite the paradise that I had imagined (though it’s still fun!).

My cousin Chaya and I landed in Goa on March 15th early afternoon (soon after the power outage, cold shower, cab hunting, chased by dogs episode that was detailed in my previous blog post). We started our trip by heading out to the Goa Marriott resort (Mirimar Beach). A driver from the Marriott was waiting for us at the airport and took us directly to the resort. The high points of Mirimar were 1) being brought a bottle of Kingfisher and some mystery juice while checking in, 2) the 90 minute combined Ayurvedic, Thai, and Swedish massage I received that night (never had a masseuse walk on me before), 3) Hanging out pool side with Chaya blogging and making fun of 4 Indian dudes playing “who can hold his breath underwater the longest” (this was really more comedic because of the winner’s victory dance … sadly I couldn’t video tape it) and 4) sipping lime soda, butterscotch milkshakes, Bloody Marys, and fenny cocktails (fenny is cashew nut liquor sold only in Goa) while watching the sun set over the Arabian Sea. I would say that but for the lack of plastic umbrellas in my cocktails and the ridiculous requirement that both Chaya and I show our passport and tourist Visa to stay in the hotel (ludicrous policy that nearly caused a raucous), the Marriott resort in Goa was a solid, relaxing place.

On our second day, we went to Anjuna in search of a younger crowd with few limits and poor judgment. Regrettably, due to some kinks in our plan of attack, we struggled to find what we were looking for. We did, however, get in a solid day at Vagatore beach that included cocktails on beach chairs, reading, and a European hippy wedding. We also made it out to Baga Beach for a luao type party with live music and a mixed crowd of locals and visiting Europeans. Chaya and I drank and swayed to the sounds of everything from late 60s jazz to 80’s pop and late 90s R&B (very impressive cover band).

The hightlight of the trip had to be our trip to La Plage resort on Ashvem beach. The beach was gorgeous, and we met some of chaya’s friends from Mumbai who hooked us up with some exceptional Goan food, champaigne, wine, etc. We were tempted to cancel our flight to Mumbai and stay in Goa for another day but alas, better judgement (blast!) and work/financial considerations (BUGGER!!) swept us away.

We left Goa on March 17th early evening with the promise of an expedient return. My next trip will definitely have to be longer, but I remain thrilled to have spent any amount of time, however short, shooting the breeze with my super cool cousin!!
Until next time!

After my first blog post, I planned to spend some time writing about why I am in India, what professional and artistic accomplishments I have had, and what I hope to do with the rest of my time here. However, last night (terribly early this morning) was such a fiasco that I feel that I must share that first. Take note that I have no interest in only writing stories that cast India and my experiences here in a negative light. Often, the events in our lives that we remember the most are associated with extreme elation or extreme trauma. Think of my first two blog posts as explorations of trauma.

I’m sitting in Mumbai airport right now. The time is 10:03 am. I arrived 2 hours back after taking a 5:40 am flight from Chennai. My next flight leaves at 12 noon, and I will be flying to Goa with my cousin Chaya (woot!). The hopeless stupidity of Indian airport security and procedures will be the topic of a future blog post.

This story starts at 8:45 pm Chennai time on March 14th. I had just returned from my cousin’s place, and I was about to get packed for my trip to Goa. Regrettably, my building had a sudden power outage leaving me in a second floor flat in total darkness. For those unaware with Chennai and many cities in India, there are actually power outages everyday that last for 2 hours. The actual time of the outage varies by area. In my neighborhood, the power is scheduled to be cut between 12 noon and 2 pm, so a random power outage at 8:45 pm is unusual.

My uncle Ramesh (Rami Uncle) lives next door, so I went to check if his power was out; it turns out that my place had the only outage on the street. Rami uncle proceeded to call some repairmen (twice in fact), and in a predictable fashion they didn’t show up; so I went back up to my apartment and figured that attempting to sleep naked in the Chennai heat was my only chance of getting at least some rest before my cab showed up at 3:00 am. I sat in my bed sweating for about an hour debating about which of the following options would be better: 1) 90 degrees with the window closed or 2) 89 degrees with the window open and mosquitoes streaming in to feast. In poor judgment, I actually chose option 2 … it took only a few minutes to realize my error.

By midnight, it was clear that I wasn’t going to fall asleep, so I got up and felt my way toward the bathroom. I figured a cold shower might cool down my body enough to sleep without the fan or A/C. I stood under the cold water for about 10 minutes, and after finishing, I soaked a small towel in cold water, wrapped it around my head, and tried to go back to sleep. I slept for about 30 minutes before waking to my alarm … I hadn’t packed yet (power was still out)! I tied a flashlight to the top of my dresser bureau and slowly started to collect things with what little light I had. By 1:45 am, the lights flickered, as some repairmen appeared to have shown up to fix the electric problem. By 2:15 am, the lights were back on and the air conditioning was functioning.

In the 45 minutes that I had, I actually managed to pack and clean up the apartment by the time the cab called. The problem is that cabs in India don’t actually know how to find an address on their own. In this case, even though I had given directions to the cab service when I ordered it 12 hours earlier, this cab driver didn’t know how to find me (nor did he know English). With my broken Tamil I was able to get the guy within two blocks of my place, at which point I told him to sit tight so that I could find him.

After grabbing all of my things together and starting to walk to meet the cab driver, I noticed 3 stray dogs standing 100 feet in front of me barking and blocking the path toward the driver (again, for the unaware, India is covered with stray dogs, most of which are generally friendly). There was no other route to take and I was getting worried about making my flight, so I continued to walk. The dogs actually moved to the side of the road to let me pass, and then they formed a v-shaped formation around me (one behind, and one on each side). They followed me all the way to the end of the road … barking, growling, and drooling! I reached what is normally a very busy road (that was abandoned because it was 3 am), and the dogs actually continued to cross the street with me!!

A few moments later, another pack of 5 dogs appeared in the spot where I was going to meet the cab driver. Once they all started barking, I thought I was cooked, but it turns out that they were barking at the three dogs that had been harassing me for the past few minutes. There I stood, saved from one pack of dogs by another, calling my cab’s cell phone. He found me, took me to the airport, and in the predictable fashion of a cab driver who didn’t do his job and felt no remorse about not finding my location, he charged me 50 rupees more than was on the meter (as if I didn’t see the meter). In my exhaustion, I paid the ass hole marginally less than what he asked for, went through 40 minutes of insane Indian airport procedures, and eventually got on my plain to Mumbai. One 6 hour power outage, a cold shower, a pack of stray dogs, a crooked, incompetent cab driver, and 45 minutes of airport procedures later … I was on a plane to see my cousin!

Moral of the story … speak loud and carry a dog tranquilizer!