Rock in India.

You will never see the light!
Bound to always live by lies!
-No Sympathy For Fools, Behemoth.

For those about to rock, we salute you.
-For Those About To Rock, AC/DC.

Show me the meaning of being lonely
Is this the feeling I need to walk with?
Tell me why
I can't be there where you are
There's something missing in my heart
-Show Me The Meaning, Backstreet Boys.



I smile at the thought of the beautiful evening ahead as I enter the Palace Grounds, wearing a white BSB tee. I look around. Damn! I've never seen so many hot chicks before. Chicks wearing pink tops and all. Hot stuff. I reach the frisk booth. A big mattress of a guy asks me to empty my back-pack. I do so. He gives all the items a quick glance. There's a Fanta bottle. A couple of orange flavored lolli-pops. A spare pink tee. A cap. A Nick-You-Rock poster that I made the previous day. Et al. He nods and lets me in. Like I give a damn. He can hurt me though. I don't want that now, do I? So I, avoiding his gaze, enter the venue. As I enter, the first thing I hear is the song Quit Playing Games With My Heart being played over the system. This is it. All these years of waiting has been worth it. I suddenly remember singing BSB songs with friends in the bus on our way back after school. Good memories. Nostalgia strikes. Is that a tear? Bloody hell. It is. I fail to understand why I cry so often. I remove my handkerchief and wipe the tear off. As I look up, I notice a girl staring at me. She gives me a smile. As if she just read my mind. As if she knew what that tear drop was a product of. As if she'd been there. I smile back. She smiles again and disappears in the crowd. I look around in utter wonder. Excitement. I notice many others sucking on lolli-pops. Gosh! This is fun! Having so many like-minded people at the same place at the same time, all for the love of Rock. As I explore the place more, I realize there are games and rides too, like the ones they have at the amusement parks. Can't get any cooler, seriously. Oh. There are game stalls too. I go to one. There are lolli-pops of different flavors arranged on the floor. What's with lolli-pops! But what the hell, eh? If one manages to throw a ring on any of them, one gets it for free. Swell, innit? Suddenly, I notice some activity on the stage. I see people setting up the equipment. Overflowing with exhilaration, I move towards the stage. As time flies by, the crowd grows bigger and after a while as I stretch up on my toes and look behind, I see endless faces, endless pink tees and endless posters like the one I have. I remove the poster from my bag. As I unroll the rolled paper to admire my own artwork, I notice people around me peeking a glance at it. Apparently, its a well made poster, as I receive compliments. I begin to realize that this is just the beginning of a time I am not going to be able to forget in many years to come. I'm pulled back to reality as the lights go out and I sense some activity on the stage. I can see that people are as anticipated as I am. Thousands of girls screaming Nick's name. Thousands of blokes shouting BSB-rocks slogans. All of a sudden, fireworks go up in the sky and form the shape of a heart like in the movies. The stage lights up and there they are! The five legends! All of them dressed up in the most dazzling, shimmering, sparkling outfits I've ever seen. The crowd goes into a frenzy as the deafening roar of cheer and love for the boy band fills the air of the Palace Grounds.

This is not Rock! Its pretty fucking far from it.

Porcupine Tree

4:45 PM - I pay the rickshaw-wala.

4:55 PM - I eat a vada-pav, waiting for a friend. I see hot chicks.

5:10 PM - I enter the IIT campus with that friend.

5:15 PM - We see the line.

5:16 PM - We realize its a long line.

5:17 PM - We realize its a fucking long line.

5:30 PM - A really hot chick in really revealing clothing approaches me. I grow excited.

5:31 PM - The really hot chick goes to the chick behind me and starts interviewing her. Apparently, she's media. I think, WTF.

6:00 PM - We hear some band playing really heavy stuff and curse the universe in general.

6:30 PM - Parikrama people start playing. At least that's what we think.

6:35 PM - We hear violins. Fear = Reality. We start cursing the universe again.

6:36 PM - Somebody screams, "IIT SUCKS!"

6:36 PM - We nod in approval realizing that IIT's a better thing to curse than the universe.

7:00 PM - Curse.

7:05 PM - Whine.

7:10 PM - Crib.

7:15 PM - Talks about intense frisking ahead. People freak out. One dude throws away a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of rum. People start laughing at him.

7:30 PM - Parikrama people announce their last song. We curse IIT.

7:30 PM - We try to calculate the time it would still take us to get inside.

7:31 PM - Somebody remarks that we could miss PTree.

7:31 PM to 7:40 PM - People get angry and start discussing strategies on how they can sneak in and not miss the show and how to burn the place down if missed.

7:41 PM - A cop car passes by, with cops inside it warning people to not smuggle stuff inside and how one would not be allowed to enter if caught.

7:41 PM - Two more dudes psych out and dump a few cigarettes.

7:42 PM to 7:43 PM - I start thinking about my camera. The thought of depositing it in the locker room crosses my mind.

7:44 PM - I realize its PT I'm attending.

7:45 PM - I hide the camera strategically.

7:46 PM - I spot a few friends way ahead of me in the line and they let me in.

7:55 PM - Intense frisking. They don't discover the camera. I breathe a sigh of relief.

8:00 PM - And joy. We are in.

8:15 PM - Porcupine Tree starts playing.

It was beautiful! They played all the songs that we hoped they would. Including Russia On Ice. A few songs they played :

Halo
Hate Song
Blackest Eyes
Lazarus
Trains
Sound Of Muzak
Russia On Ice
Way Out Of Here
Time Flies

... and all.

It was way way way better than Iron Maiden. And the moment they started playing Russia On Ice, I was all AAAAAH! So was the rest of the crowd. And the response PT got from the crowd was just zoooperb. People were singing along almost throughout. And I've seen two PT concerts. That doesn't happen. Who knows, they might come back. That will be the day!

And I was in the second row! Second fucking row! Of course that took a shitload of pushing and cursing, but still. Second Row!

I even managed to shoot Trains and Way Out Of Here. Both the songs, full!

Again, Beautiful.

LAZARUS! Here I come!

I am happy.

:D

Coffee and books.

There's no coffee here. There're no books either. But doesn't it give out coffee-ish and book-ish vibes? It does, na? So intoxicating, this place. Its CEPT ka campus.

Bliss.

Eyes of blue, bluish skies.
Those that know not yet, of lies.
Inflict wounds on sinful mine.
Yes, wounds; red, wet and brine.

:) and not :|

So what if I don't get to travel on my Thump this time? I'm still traveling na. Its the wind on face and all those things that matter, no?

Why?

Cynthia: God, don't you ever feel like everything we do and everything we've been taught is just to service the future?
Tony: Yeah I know, like it's all preparation.
Cynthia: Right. But what are we preparing ourselves for?
Mike: Death.
Tony: Life of the party.
Mike: It's true.
Cynthia: You know, but that's valid because if we are all gonna die anyway shouldn't we be enjoying ourselves now? You know, I'd like to quit thinking of the present, like right now, as some minor insignificant preamble to something else.
- Dazed and Confused.

It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and... this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video's a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember... and I need to remember... Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in.
- Ricky Fitts, American Beauty.

Roamer, wanderer
Nomad, vagabond
Call me what you will.
- Wherever I may roam, Metallica.

Nothing of this is important. Nothing at all. The useless study material we need to go through before the exams. Thick books filled to the brim with formulae which I'm sure we're never going to use again. All of it is a waste of time. All of it. I'm surprised such people exist. People who believe that remembering the ten principles of material handling can make one a better engineer. Knowing the Bresenhem code for a point inside a rectangle doesn't make a man a better person. I know a few who can tell you the log of 46 without opening the log-book, but inform them of an awesome weather outside with thoughts of getting out and roaming around playing in your head and they'll stare at you with questioning looks. Summers are no different from winters for them except that they feel more sleepy in winters which affects the number of hours they can study for at a stretch, which in turn affects their pointer. Jobs don't make sense. They just rob you of your intelligence. They put you in a cubicle, give you a chair to sit on and a computer to do their pointless work on. Some say the ultimate aim of any human being is to earn, reproduce, and settle down. But is it? We're habitants of a planet revolving around a huge hot mass. We're on a planet that has had the fortune of having life on it. Not ordinary life. Life like us. Complex beings. We're on one huge planet. The ground beneath our feet is full of brown dirt, yellow sand, and grey roads. Isn't there enough to explore and see and observe? Instead of all the awesomeness that we should be enlightening ourselves of, we keep busy trying to meet expectations. Expectations that our parents burden us with. We prefer not to be burdened. But, owing to the genetic bondage, we have to. Twenty years gone. Poof. Twenty years, which makes it more than 5000 days. And just one day can make one high, high on all the beauty in this world, and enough to be inspired. If fame and money makes more sense than personal satisfaction, then it sucks. I'm sick of being shouted at for not studying. Not remembering utterly useless stuff, if I may. I hate to think of an entity other than myself as being in control of my own fate. Why can't I just hit the road when I want to? There's just so much of beauty around, that I hate doing the things that I'm wasting time in doing. For every minute spent in thinking about the ways I can clear an exam the next day, I'm wasting a minute of awesome weather and open roads. I know I'm going to end up walking on the same road as most do, but I would like to differ.

Click,
and the key's in.
Turn,
and gear light's green.
Kick,
and The Thump's alive.