My Experiments with Metal- A Guest Post by Udayan Das

I am excited to introduce a friend of mine from school to all you wonderful readers today. Udayan is a comic artist. He has two comics up on comicfury, and is always working on more. He is currently interested in fantasy and surrealism in art, and listens to a lot of experimental music that fuses psychedelic, drone, symphonic and jazz elements. But, before all this, he was what is I believe referred to as a “metalhead” and it is through him that I was introduced to metal. The following piece is the result of a telephonic discussion with Udayan and he talks about a journey of self discovery here. Have a read!

The Bilge Master

Summer, 2012. The microwave heat of Delhi beat down on the city’s inhabitants, an unceasing presence in all the hustle and bustle of the national capital. There was no getting away from it. You either got your skin burnt to a fine crisp in the sun, or drowned in your own sweat in the metro.
While the brightest young minds of the country shuffled into class to check their Facebook, something incredible was happening. Unbeknownst to society, a revolution was taking birth.

I plugged in my Vox digital amp. Hands almost shaking with excitement, I put the cable into my guitar. Reaching for the volume knob, I turned it clockwise, further than I had turned in a long time. The guitar came to life, its distorted roar driving deep into my brain. I looked at the face behind the drum kit. The sticks clacked together. One. Two. Three. Four. On instinct, I grabbed a familiar power chord and hit it. The familiar jam of the sound was comforting. It was a simple pattern, and as the groove set in, my nervousness faded away and I could focus. Playing with others was still something very new to me, and I was quickly finding out that it was a whole different ballgame from practicing alone in my room. A few seconds in, I went for a solo. Tensed up, I ran through the notes as fast as I could make my muscles go. The jam soon came crashing to a halt. As satisfied as the ego was, a part of me knew that it sounded like shit. I had a long way to go.
“Dude, let’s go grab a smoke.”
A minute later we were near the local shop. I inhaled, feeling a burn in my throat. Breathing the grey wisps out, I said, “Well, how was that?”
“It was all right.” The tone said otherwise.

That was how it was, beginning to make music. I was nineteen years old, and it had been three years then since I had first heard it. Since I had first heard metal. For the past two years, I had dedicated myself to the old gods and the new. Maiden and Sevenfold. Priest and Lamb of God. Pantera and Children of Bodom. Metal was an essential part of my life. I had heard the solos. I had heard the riffs. I was obsessed with the speed, the heaviness. If I couldn’t play fast, what was the point of playing at all? Looking back, that state of mind represented a fracture, a gulf if you will, between music as I listened to it, and music as I played it. A compulsive habit was clouding my mind and heart. 

At that point, listening to metal was an experience that was worlds apart from playing it. It was intense. Cathartic. Every note, every word, every beat seemed to be saying all the things the naïve young boy couldn’t. So he gave in to the emotion, allowed himself to be swept away by the sound. It was a safe place, far from the dangers of the real world.

But I didn’t quit.

Breaking the ego’s hold on the self takes time. I had to learn to view life and reality from different perspectives. A lot of the change happened through practice. Constantly having external voices comment on my playing, and tell me what to do. That’s what happens in a band. And of course, playing in college means people hear you. And they have things to say too. It gave me at least some idea of what I sounded like from outside myself.

This was how I developed my aesthetic sense. Whether it was visual art or sonic, I needed something to guide me towards the right path. Things automatically sounded and looked better if I ignored the monster in my head that wanted to bathe in glory. Whenever I followed the monster, my work never left an impression on the people around me. So I needed another guide. There was a kinder voice inside me. It communicated more through feelings than words. And following its path was fun. The search for external approval had led me to the only voice that mattered. My own soul. This was where the real journey began.

I found myself drifting further and further away from the artists I once listened to. Pearl Jam, Tool, Alice in Chains. Certainly a far cry from Megadeth and Metallica. And yet, the word metal still meant something to me.

I paused. I had reached the edge of the desert. I took not a single look back at the dreary sands I had left behind me. Out ahead grey marble covered the ground, and beyond that, green. I thought I could see the likeness of the nebulae etched into the ground. The Eyeless Saint stood in front of me.
“You’ve made it through. But the person standing here is not the same person who began this journey.”
“No. He is the same person. I am more myself now than when I set out.”
“Hmm. The metal. You no longer worship the old gods or the new. Yet, you carry the metal.”
“The metal was never about the old gods or the new. The metal taught me one thing only.”
“And what is that?”
“To leave behind structures and idols, limitations and rigidities.”
“So what you’re saying is…”
“Metal allowed me to reach the point where I was not bound to its vessels.”
“So where will you go from here?”
“I don’t know.”

Winter. January 2015. I took off my jacket. It was impossible to move my hands with it on. I wasn’t thinking much about the people I was going to meet.  I didn’t have any expectations of a collaboration. But it would be interesting to talk to them. As I began warming up, all thoughts not related to the guitar slipped out of my mind. Shortly afterwards, I got a call telling me they were here.  This would be my first time meeting anyone purely for the purpose of jamming with them. They were complete strangers to me.

As we sat down to jam, I realized that this need not go in the same direction as my previous band. Three years of constant practice and taking the time to learn scales had given me a sense of melody and rhythm. No longer was I just hitting notes at random. I could control where this went.


That was a year ago. A few months after that jam session, I decided to stop playing guitar. From the guy who ignored reality and clung to a few bands, to someone who loves music, yet is able to stop playing it: I had come a long way. I had finally found my goal in life, and it was not being a musician in the generally accepted sense of that word. And I could not have made that realization without metal. Through listening to and learning to play music, metal had given me about something more than simply the ability to pick strings in time and key. It had given me a real, complete experience of life. It had given me a journey. A journey that had its successes, as well as it failures and lessons. Through the experience of loss, I found within me a strength I did not know I had. Music did not become my goal in life. Instead ,it helped me find the strength to pursue my goal. Metal did not remain a musical genre for me. It taught me to find my own set of values and principles in life, even if they were different from what metal preached. That was what metal and music gifted me.

Obituary (From a Thankful Child)

As a child, I had a number of different hobbies. I would play with water. I would gaze fascinated at fire and I would try (and fail) to slice tomatoes. Apart from this, I would spend time with my mother and father and it is because of that that I found new friends very early in my life- English music and movies.

I was sung to sleep with songs like The Beatles’ Hey Jude or Abba’s Take a Chance on Me. Then, I grew up slightly, and I was introduced to bands like The Eagles and Guns and Roses by a friend who was older than me called Soumya Basu. Then, a few years short of teenage, in walked Harry Potter and his world of magic. However, I must state for the record that I had read and completed Tolkien’s Rings saga before having read Potter.

My childhood consisted of these elements. It consisted of getting up in the morning and switching on some music. It consisted of a healthy hate of Professor Snape, which suddenly turned to love and it consisted of going around doing my work in the real world, while at the same time being in a different, private sanctum which existed in my head and my head alone. In this world, I would slay Balrogs with Gandalf, I would learn History of Magic with Harry and I would throw my limbs about in random gyration to music by The Eagles, Cream, Eric Clapton and The Beatles.

This morning, I learnt that Glenn Frey of The Eagles has passed away. 

In the past few days, the world has lost Alan Rickman, David Bowie and now Glenn Frey. Most of us must probably be reading Harry Potter again, or watching Rickman as Snape or as a boss who falls for his secretary (Love Actually) and listening to The Eagles or The Man Who Sold the World. It’s upsetting and very saddening that a new year has started off on a note such as this.

Then again, these people aren’t really gone are they? They continue to live in our memories, in your childhood and in mine. Their music will swim in our heads and their portrayals discussed in company over a cup of hot cocoa. They will return every time you turn up the volume on your mp3 player or television.

That’s the thing about legends. They live on.

Goodbye David, Alan and Glenn. Thank you for making my childhood amazing. I will never forget you.

The Bilge Master

On the Scale of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien

I’m going to talk about a book series that’s very close to my heart and it’s called The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. I first read these books when I was 10, in a black one-volume edition and I fell in love with the tale and the setting and all the myriad characters.

I’ve often heard it said that the sheer scale of Middle Earth and Lord of the Rings is staggering and that makes people lose interest in the novels and throw them down unfinished. A few of my friends have told me this, as have a few people I met on the street. Now, why is Middle Earth so huge? Why is the scale of three books so immense? I’m going to try and put forward my logic behind the scale of this novel.

For those of you not familiar with LOTR, here is a brief summary of the plot. Sauron is a dark lord who crafts three rings- One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them and one ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. A Hobbit, called Bilbo Baggins manages to find the One Ring to Rule Them All and his nephew Frodo is tasked with destroying the Ring by a wizard named Gandalf the Grey. The Ruling Ring is basically the source of all of Sauron’s power and by destroying it, Sauron can never come back. In addition to this, the entire poem reads thus

“Three Rings for the Elven Kings under the sky,

Seven for the Dwarf Lords in their halls of stone

Nine for mortal men doomed to die

One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne

In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie”

However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Lord of the Rings is a universe brimming with content.  The history of the various locations in Middle Earth, which is the fictional continent where all this is happening is in itself something majestic. We meet creatures such as Orcs in mines, we meet giant Eagles led by Gwaiihir the Wind Lord. We also come across a man who can turn into a bear at will called Beorn and a man called Tom Bombadil who is a sort of sage with magical powers. Tom likes to sing, as does his wife Goldberry.

We are taken on a journey across mountains to the Elvish city of Rivendell, where a council meets to decide how best to dispose of the Ring. We meet a man called Strider whose destiny lies elsewhere. We meet the creature Gollum, corrupted by the Ring’s power whose role in the books is pivotal. Telling you why is a major plot spoiler so if you want to know, please try reading this amazing saga.  

Middle Earth has trolls. It has giants. It has Dwarves and Men and Hobbits and giant spiders like Sheoleb.  It has Barrow Wights and Ringwraiths. It has the Nazgul, the nine mortal men doomed to die as stated in the poem, who are also called The Black Riders and their king, The Witch King of Angmar. LOTR also has a fortress called Isengard, where Saruman the White reigned and it has the forest of Fangorn home to Ents. Ents are Tree People.

Now answer me one question. Isn’t this a lot to take in? If your answer is yes, also consider the question of scale that I posed earlier. LOTR had to have a very large scale because it’s narrative demanded a huge scale.

To further cement this point, let us consider Harry Potter. Harry Potter is set in a fictional world, just as LOTR is. Harry Potter is however confined to Hogwarts for a long period of its narrative. Yes, we do see the Ministry of Magic and Gringotts. But they’re just a bank and a Parliament. Further, the idea of the Horcruxes reminds me of the Ring of Power. Storing a piece of oneself in an object. That’s exactly what Sauron did.

If you explore the nuances of some fantasy works, you’ll find a lot of them have drawn from concepts shown in LOTR. This fact, once again proves that the scale of LOTR had to be immense. I have not mentioned the extended universe and the two books Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion. Those two books, should you read them give you a look into the history of Middle Earth.

Then again, perhaps it is possible that in an era of increasing miniaturization and books that reflect the progress mankind has made, something set in medieval times like LOTR may be unpopular amongst the youth. However, the youth will have heard of something called the Shire, a species called Hobbits and Sauron. 

Thus, I think I’ll vouchsafe this statement- the beauty of a book like Lord of the Rings has managed to expand beyond the confines of text and has made its way into the hearts of young and old people, across generations. I believe we can attribute this to the scale of the book.

Yes, we have had great fantasy writing. We have read Harry Potter, we have read Cornelia Funke and Paolini. We have enjoyed cinematic adaptations of their work. However, before platform nine-and-three-quarters, before Saphira and Eragon and Durza and before Inkheart, there was the One Ring to Rule Them All.

To sum up, yes The Lord of the Rings is a massive text and yes it does seem to go on. I accept it can be a little tedious to read at times, but consider the galaxy of content that is stored in just three books. Lord of the Rings invites you on a journey. It breaks your heart, it makes you gasp with awe and in my case, it made me fall in love with books at the tender age of 10. Lord of the Rings is massive, because it’s meant to be massive. LOTR is basically a behemoth in the fantasy genre. A friend of mine even went so far as to say that if 20 is an epic, LOTR is a 16.

I rest my case.

The Bilge Master

An Opinion On Life After Death or The Afterlife

I wonder if you’ve wondered

About the afterlife

Does it exist?

Is it a paradise filled with wonders?

Or a personal hell, crafted as per your wish?

Is it different for those who’ve been buried?

And those we’ve cremated?

Or is the afterlife an incomplete death?

Like stillborn babies who didn’t take their first breath

I know demons are real                                                

For they haunt me and my friends

What if the afterlife is filled with demons?

And wicked things that know not rest?

What if the afterlife kills your demons?

And leaves you with blank pages

On which you write to your loved ones

Both living and dead

Is the afterlife an aftermath?

Of a life that your body has abandoned, but your soul wishes to have

Or maybe it’s a figment of my imagination

Brought on by too much wine?

Still, who am I hurting with my private thinking

Of what it may be like

However I doubt I’d see eye to eye

With an afterlife when I die

The Bilge Master

Lipstick Blues

I

That shade she wore

Was called Relentlessly Red

She wore it to work

She wore it to a party

She wore it when she dumped me

And went off somewhere else

And sometimes I turn the light off

To sit and smoke in silence

And in that silence I remember

What it was like

To date Relentlessly Red

II

I have a shade of lipstick

In my handbag

Which I do not use

But, it is not for show

This shade of lipstick called Relentlessly Red

I wore it relentlessly once

Like its name suggests,

I wore it to parties

And to our first date

I was wearing it

When he kissed me for the last time

And I walked away

I suppose you could say

I was dating Relentlessly Red

The Bilge Master

Relentlessly Red is a shade of lipstick by MAC. The poem got inspired by it's name. Yes, it's a poem about lipstick.

Hello 2016! Let's Dance

A famous singer, nicknamed Ol’ Blue Eyes one sang a song, in which he observed thus

“Life is like the seasons,

After winter comes the spring,

So I’ll keep this smile awhile,

And see what tomorrow brings”

The song is a sad one, yet it gives you hope. There’s always tomorrow. The sun will rise. The moon will rise. Unfortunately, we don’t see both of them at the same time. It’s funny because, we can’t see happiness when we are in the grip of despair and we can’t see sadness if we are in a delirium of happiness. That’s what happened to me in 2015. I got lost in an ocean of sadness and clawed my way back to sanity after almost four months of medication, therapy and endless support from my father, mother and my friends.

Yesterday, I went to see my psychiatrist. He’s a real cracker of a man called Ram. He oozes happiness. It leaks out of him like water does out of a sieve. He told me he saw a significant improvement in my condition from the last time I was here. He also said that he felt I would be able to beat this thing soon. He told me I wasn’t able to see it, because I was still under its influence but something in my eyes or in my face gave him this impression.

What better way to start the first day of a new year than with this news?

2015 was a very bad year. The keyword being was. I do not know what will happen this year. I do not know what the next semester has in store for me. I have no clue whatsoever about how Durga Puja will be celebrated. I do not know if I’ll get superpowers this year.

What I do know however, is that I’m gonna beat this disease this year.

I’d like to take this opportunity to let as many people as I can know that depression related disorders of the mind are a very real thing and they drain the happiness out of you, just like a Dementor. However, the part of you that wants to hang on is always stronger than the part that gives in. So, to everyone who has this sort of disease, hang on and fight back. It can be done. I’ve done it. My friend is doing it. You can do it too.

Here’s wishing all my readers, old and new a very joyous, sadness free new year. Hello 2016, let’s dance!

The Bilge Master