Anyway, this post is about that line that separates “Leave it to God and hope for the best” and “If you don’t try to make things happen, they never will”. I’ve been on the proactive side of something for the last few days, and I think I’m inching closer and closer across the border to the other side. I’ll let you know how it goes (not).

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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It was easier to write blog posts then because on that great expanse of white, there were no distractions. I’m older (and wiser?) and more experienced now, with a lot many more posts behind me. Now, it feels like every second post I’m about to write has already been written. Or that I’ve grown out of it. It’s tragic, really, in a way. But it’s also a good thing because maybe it shows I’m moving forwards. It’s like yet another depiction of the fact that life is changing (or well, it has), and I’m accepting the change by changing too. I’m not a kid anymore (that’s a lie … I so totally am still a kid … at least I hope I am!).

So today, for the first time in a long time, I’m typing this post on Notepad, without spelling check or grammar or the neat fonts and colours and formatting. It’s primitive, but strangely, it doesn’t really feel too strange. Now all that’s missing is freedom of thought.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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Sepp Blatter thinks racist insults during a game should be forgotten at the end of the game–the referee should make them shake hands and forget it because things happen in the heat of the game. What a load of crap. Thankfully, he’s been roundly and deservedly criticised, and has finally apologised.

Why am I posting this here?

• Too big for a Facebook status
• This is my blog, my opinion
• Because it’s an opinion I choose to express.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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But the boy knew he wasn’t as gifted as others perceived. He knew he had to learn other trades. He started going into the forest with the others, learning how to chop trees and sell wood. He earned a little money and bought himself some toys. They were reward for working so hard, for enduring cuts and bruises and constant back-aches. Yet, he carried on, growing better and better, earning more and more, until one day, he bought himself his own cycle, just for fun.

On a typical day, he’d trudge into the forest with the others early in the morning. After working hard all day, he’d return home late in the evening, freshen up and go riding on his cycle. He soon made friends with other boys in other parts of the small town, and then a couple of girlfriends too, who taught him how to do more things with his lips than just sing.

And life went on.

One fine day, it rained too heavily. Many parts of the town got flooded with water, and everyone was advised to stay indoors. The boy was no longer a boy but a hardened man now. His hands were rough, and his face was smoothened by years of winter wind blowing against it. With nothing else to do, he made himself some tea and sat by the window, tapping his foot absentmindedly against the chair’s leg.

Suddenly he realised the tapping was rhythmic. A simple tap-tap-tap, tap-tap. What a strange thing. But the rhythm began to fill him up, from toe to head, until he found himself nodding his head as soundless music welled up inside him. Suddenly, he had the urge to sing, something he hadn’t done in years. He hummed the forgotten lyrics of the verse until he reached the chorus, and when he opened his mouth to sing—

He spat out his tea.

He tried again, and then he threw away his cup, staring at it as if it were filled with poison.

Yet he tried again to force words out of his mouth in a melodious manner, but all that came out of him was an untamed voice, wildly out of tune, uncouth. He sputtered and fell to his knees, clutching his throat desperately.

But it was in vain. The music had drained out of him, gone like the trees he had cut away. The demons of neglect had stolen his gift from him.

I am that boy. I am he, at that stage of my life when the writing is going out of me. All I think about is work, my salary and Football Manager. I am losing touch, losing my magic. I have not been inspired to write for the longest time, and I am afraid it’s slipping away from me. I look back on it now—writing used to give me satisfaction every time I wrote something awesome. Now, that source of satisfaction and happiness has gone missing. Writing a blog post is one thing, but writing something romantic (for lack of a better word) is almost therapeutic. Where has my imagination gone? I hope, having locked it away for so long, I have not lost its key. Then why, something inside me screams, am I not writing? Why am I not getting ideas about what to write? Why am I not randomly typing away on an empty Notepad or Word document, to find at the end that it’s beautiful and brutally honest? I WANT TO WRITE! A story, a shamelessly amateur poem, anything at all! A random literary stream of consciousness that could mean anything to anyone reading it, and something entirely different to me, because I created it and only I know what I meant.

What strikes me hurtfully is how much I’ve sold myself out. Whenever I write a blog post, I’m concerned about the fact that it will appear on Facebook, it might attract readership and comments. If my writing is a bit of my soul baring itself to me, I’m putting it up for display to the world. Am I ok with that?

This is not the first time I’ve written about writing something under the watchful eyes of the Invisible Audience—hah, I think of it now…the number of times I’ve written praise for it. Yet, I contradict myself…my audience is not invisible. It’s made up of people I know, people I studied with—colleagues and potential colleagues, bosses and potential clients. We’re all judged by everyone else every minute of every day. But come to think of it…instead of that fact becoming a point of worry, shouldn’t it raise a question, i.e. why bother? How many of these people mean anything to you anyway?

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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I suppose I should have taken it as a sign that I had to actually consciously build up excitement before the show. Before the Iron Maiden concert (and yes, I will compare Metallica 2011 with Iron Maiden 2007 throughout the post), TB and I were literally buzzing. Maybe there’s a certain romance of being young ones about to witness India’s first ever true rock/metal concert. Whatever.

It rained in the morning as I drove up to Indiranagar. I didn’t care. In fact, I found it exciting. A rain-soaked concert! HELL YEAH! Except that that became a bit of a problem, as you’ll find out.

Getting to the venue wasn’t a problem—we had hired radio cabs. Getting in wasn’t a major problem either—it was fairly well-managed. The ground, though, was slushy and slippery. And for some reason, our group pushed forward, which made zilch sense to me. What was the point of getting forward a few steps? There were bodies in front of us…we couldn’t see the stage clearly anyway (well, I couldn’t—height disadvantage). And there were thousands of dim-witted idiots trying to do pretty much the same thing—take a couple of steps forward, squeeze through to try and reach the coveted barrier…not that many of them had any major success.

We got in at 4 or so. The opening acts bored us. Biffy Clyro, otherwise a good band but a bad selection to open for heavy metal Metallica, took ages to set up. But a major annoyance was how long it took for Metallica to start performing. For more than an hour, the crowd just waited, soundcheck completed, for the Gods to get on the stage. Humbug.

What about the actual concert, then? The performance?

Disappointing…seriously. Compared to Maiden, Metallica’s stage presence is amateurish. They did have pyrotechnics and…nothing else. No stage design. No artistry. Just a giant screen at the back showing the band performing. Bruce Dickinson is like a monkey on drugs on the stage. He set the place alight. Hetfield…not so much. “Metallica loves you India” can only get so much applause and cheers, man. Show some enthu!

James Hetfielf (doesn't Lars on the giant screen at the back look like someone's squeezing his sensitive parts when he plays the drums?)

Maiden must also be credited for travelling with all their original equipment. Metallica used some shitty local sound system, which was so bad! It’s hard to imagine Metallica could sound like that. What a waste. For the first half of the concert, when I was in the midst of the crowd, all I could hear was the crowd yelling. Maiden DROWNED OUT the crowd, man. And then, after I went for a cool drink and a less crowded place, all I could hear was the music, no crowd at all.

Oh, and because it rained while we waited for them to start playing, the entire ground was now just layers upon layers of mud, so when I stepped out of the crowd and towards the cool drink stand, my shoes were caked with mud. So were my jeans…right up to my knees!

After the show, there were approximately 30,000 on the road, and far from enough public transport to carry them all. We walked for a couple of kilometres, backs aching from standing and jumping for so long, and then overpaid an auto to bring us home.

All in all, what a waste. I paid roughly twice the amount I paid for Iron Maiden and got roughly half as good an experience. Poor sound, poor stage presence, poor crowd, poor conditions. As TB remarked after the show, if future concerts are like this, it’s much better to plug in earphones and listen to the CD.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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Back in early 2007, when I was going through the motions of 2^nd year of engineering, a good friend (Aditya TB) found out that Iron Maiden was planning to perform in India. But you bet your life I was excited. A real rock show. I wanted to go. We all wanted to go. When we started planning, we had at least 4 people who wanted to go for sure. Yeah.

Poster for Eddfest (Iron Maiden Live), Bangalore - March 2007

Then, people started dropping out. TB and I were still interested though. As soon as we could book tickets online, I tried it. Then, when we heard that tickets were available at Music World stores, I went and stood in line, refusing to budge until I got tickets, which I did. Yes!

Once we got the tickets, I started cramming. I wasn’t big into Maiden at the time (I was more obsessed with Tool at the time, if I remember right), so I had to listen to all the potential songs they’d play. At that time, for me, Metallica were on a (much) higher pedestal than Maiden in the corridors of heavy metal music. I distinctly remember saying at the time—“If Metallica ever come to India, I’ll go see the show, no matter what.”

Well, guess what. Four and a half years later…Bangalore, 30 October 2011, at the Palace Grounds (same place as the Maiden concert).

Poster for Rock N' India (Metallica Live at Bangalore)

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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I’m not going to be more regular with my posts. Let’s face it. I’m only going to write when I feel like it. Writing is enjoyable for me. Let’s not make it anything other than that.

On the other hand, I need to build commitment. Even in small things like this? Does commitment to writing a number of posts a month (weekly, bi-weekly, whatever) reflect in my general level of commitment to other things in life which conventionally would be more “important”? Hehe. How fun life is, isn’t it, when you make these little connections, read between the lines, draw a line between two distant dots thinking they were meant to be connected?

Here are the lyrics to Metallica’s “Where the Wild Things Are”:

So wake up sleepy one
It’s time to save your world

Steal dreams and give to you
Shoplift a thought or two
All children touch the sun
Burn fingers one by one
By one

Will this earth be good to you?
Keep you clean or stain through?

So wake up sleepy one
It’s time to save your world
You’re where the wild things are
Yeah, toy soldiers off to war

Big eyes to open soon
Believing all under sun and moon
But does heaven know you’re here?
And did they give you smiles or tears
No, no tears

Will this earth be good to you?
Keep you clean or stain through?

So wake up sleepy one
It’s time to save your world
You’re where the wild things are
Yeah, toy soldiers off to war

You swing your rattle down
(Hand puppets storm the base
Flags up now cannons rage
Hand puppets storm the base)
Call to arms the trumpets sound
(Flags up now cannons rage
All clowns head for the rear
Slingshots fire to the air
All clowns head for the rear)
Toy horses start the charge
(Slingshots fire to the air
Slip into the edge of death
Crossfire to the marionettes)
Robot chessmen standing guard
(Slip into the edge of death
Crossfire to the marionettes)
(all together)
We shall never surrender

All you children touch the sun
Burn your fingers one by one
Will this earth be good to you?
Keep you clean or stain through?

So wake up sleepy one
It’s time to save your world
You’re where the wild things are
Now, toy soldiers off to war
Off to war
Off to war….

So close your little eyes

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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Second–holy crap, what a match!

Third:

Arsene Wenger apologises for United mauling

Arsenal to offer fans free ticket — “The north London club confirmed that they would be offering to compensate the supporters who made the trip by paying for a ticket for another away game.”

SERIOUSLY? GET OVER IT! You lost 8-2 to a team that seems to be untouchable at the moment, while your team its probably at its lowest ebb, having lost 2 star players to other clubs, and a bunch of others injured. Plus you were playing at Old Trafford, where we went undefeated last season. I know 8-2 is a drubbing in *ANY* circumstances, but seriously, get over it and get on with rebuilding.

Arsene Wenger watches his boys being given a lesson in footballing excellence

To be honest, this was the first Arsenal-Man Utd match that I was sure of winning even before kick-off. Arsenal’s injuries, suspensions and general lack of confidence and self-belief meant that they should have come here expecting the worst. It probably didn’t help Wenger that he didn’t have enough options to pack up and park the bus even if he wanted to. Meh.

As the season progresses, I expect Arsenal to get stronger, if only out of respect for Wenger’s football. If he has any shred of shrewdness whatsoever, he will buy players in the next couple of days, and things will start getting better. I also expect, at the end of the season, for Wenger to resign gracefully and move on to other challenges–probably to Chelsea or Man City.

Heh, actually think about the irony. Arsene Wenger managing clubs that sweat money. That would be interesting to watch, seriously.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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The boy is one of my closest friends, in a very weird way. We get along, most of the times. We go weeks without speaking. We probably hate a few things about each other, and will never understand each others’ choices in a few things. We’re like chalk and cheese about most things. I’m occasionally jealous of him, I don’t think he cares. I don’t think he’s ever been jealous of me either. But at the end of the day, what’s important is that everything else is trivial. Our friendship goes beyond everything else, and I’d probably not trust my life to anyone else if not him. End of.

The girl is also one of my closest friends right now. We talk every day. We get along famously well, except for the few times we bicker about trifles. I don’t really need to write more. You know who are you.

Thank you two for making me happy about some things in life. Cheers.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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But look what you’re missing:

When you take off at night, the lights of the city leave you spellbound. It’s like looking into a sky filled with multi-coloured stars. Houses and offices twinkle in vast stretches of darkness; roads, lit up by the ever-present headlights of traffic appear luminescent, criss-crossing across the dark blanket of the city.

Cityscape at night

And when you take off in the morning on an overcast day in Bombay, you wonder what you’re going to see. You look at the wet runway with trepidation and hope the huge monstrous aircraft doesn’t slip or skid. A short while after you’ve left the ground behind, you climb up through the first layers of clouds, look out the window and find yourself unable to look away—layers upon layers of clouds of various colours, sizes and shapes. It’s like looking into a mountainous landscape, except that everything is in varying shades of white, some incandescent.

This post was originally published on my blog, Thought Overflow | For poetry and more of my writing, check out my website at Gurdit.com.

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