That being said, I’d like to listen to music of glory, an orchestra of triumph, the light that shines through the dark clouds of despair. Change is in the air for me and I foresee a tentative, frustrating future, filled with doubts and “what-ifs”.

But you give me the strength to put all of that on hold while I enjoy my blissful existence for now, this calm that lends itself beautifully to any music that fills my room, like you’re filling up my heart. Tomorrow is too far away. All I know and care about is that today, I have you.

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 don’t want to hear any other voice except the one in my head. I don’t want to hear any man-made sounds except music. Music is my, my love…and I’ve never loved it more than I love it now, in that single track, playing early in the morning, forcing me to listen, to feel deeply, to lose myself and wish I didn’t exist, except perhaps as a whisper…or a song.

——–

Kasabian – I.D.

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 makes me wonder sometimes where I’m going. This is a rat race and sometimes I feel a bit like a mouse. Gimme some cheese, thank you, and I’m happy. I don’t want to conquer the world, I don’t want to be revered. I’m not going to be the next miracle for mankind; I just can’t be bothered.

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 growing up, learning to live within boundaries. I was, earlier, neither here nor there. I existed in that space between your world and mine, because I was alone, I was me, I was unique and no one else would understand. And that was ok. Because I had me. Now, apparently, I want more than that. I want you. Tell me I’m ok. Tell me I belong, I fit, because you control me.

Well, balls to you, and to me, if it has to come to that. Let the music build up in a deafening crescendo, let the neighbours awaken. And sigh. And yell, and tell me to tone it down. I don’t want to, but my enemy is not you. It’s me. I am choice—my own. And I am responsible, in more ways than I want to be. I want to face the consequences of my recklessness without the fear I currently feel.

It’s frustrating how much I want to be rid of you, and yet I need you, somehow. I want to go into a room without windows and smoke until I can’t see in front of me and feel my eyes burn. I want to yell at the top of my voice, and yet the conservative me wants to drown it out with music, for fear that they will hear.

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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New Honda City 2012 TV Commercial

And then ask yourself:

• He admitted to forgetting his wife/girlfriend/partner, and she’s happy about it? Really?
• What kind of corporate super success dresses up in designer clothes with a shawl wrapped around him when he’s going out for work?

And then you have the terrible Coca Cola ad.

Coca Cola TV Commercial (Reasons to Believe)

Oh look, we’re going to fight tanks with teddy bears. Ridiculous, throw a bunch of statistics at people, especially those which reek of some kind of positive message, and you have the entire world drinking out of your aerated cola-filled cup.

And the same applies to the new ridiculous Hero hockey-promotion ad (can’t find it in Youtube, unfortunately). How in the world is the goodwill of a million hearts going to help Indian hockey, really? Pah! Just preying on the idea that supporting hockey, our grand national sport, is cool, simply because it is our grand national sport. Oh yay.

I could go on and on, but I really can’t be bothered to spend more time on this. The long overdue blog post has been written.

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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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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