Aa chhule Zameen!

This is how the French part in the chorus to A Tout Le Monde goes:

A tout le monde
A tout les amis
Je vous Aime
Je dois partir

And that second line actually sounds like Aa chhule zameen. Of course, you have to be looking for something like this to actually find it. That is why I'll state it right now that it was my sister who spotted it, not me. Either way, we can conclude that French is a funny sounding language. And even funnier when coming from Dave Mustaine.

So, the show. March 14th 2008. Early on, this band called Prestorika's up there and they're playing good heavy music. So I go closer to the stage, avoid a mosh-pit the smart way - go forward rather than backward. But then during the next song, the vocalist orders another pit and he points right in my direction. Now, I'm no mosher, but seeing people slowly edge away from me gave me a feeling of power. So I stayed still for another few seconds. I could almost shout out "I Have The POWER!!" - He-Man style. But then it hit me [not literally], when the fast double-bass beat began, when a shove came my way, that I wasn't powerful at all and I was at the mercy of the moshers, so I didn't even try to be smart, just dodged the pit sideways. But damn, that was close.

Enough of all that though. Motherjane, Thermal and a Quarter, Junkyard Groove, Pentagram, Millennium and even Machine Head failed to impress as we waited for Megadeth and would settle for nothing less. And when they did arrive, I started making my way forward. I wasn't gonna make the same mistake as I made with Maiden. [I jumped into the VIP area then instead of going forward, and though we got free drinks n stuff, we didn't get to see the gods up close.]

Here's showing how long it took..
Click on em to enlarge. Firefox users middle-click to open in new tab.
The beginning [after the easy part]
10 minutes later. And only now can you see that I'm actually closer.
One of the few pics that came out unshaken despite the zoom-in.
With people jumping vigorously all around me, I should get an award for such pics.
I was in the fourth row from the front by this time. Nearly half an hour to get there.

Around this time I could hardly move. So many fans packed in so little space makes for a tight squeeze. If I moved my feet, I'd invariably step on somebody else's foot. I couldn't get my arms below shoulder level as I'd have to fight for that space too. I just left em up there with my cam-phone, clicking away. Man, did my arms hurt. But then came a wave, not a mexican one, the one that's caused by an attempt at a mosh-pit in the distance. I went sideways by almost two feet[with everyone else of course]. Only my left shoe didn't. I almost knew that I could forget bout getting it back, but hey, I had to try. Simply asked people to move tellin em bout my shoe and in no time I was given space enough to find it and comfortably put it back on. Surprising to find such courtesy in a place like that.. From people who shout "Megadeth" in tune with the riff of Symphony of Destruction. Annoying as hell. JUST LISTEN TO THE SONG DAMMIT! A sample:
Listen around the 00:28 mark.

Anyway, here's a video of em playing Trust followed by a couple more pics..




Sidenote: Coming back out took about two mins.



To conclude, it was amazing fun, and this bit was amazingly funny
I actually had the following conversation with a friend over SMS.

Him: You still at the show?
Me: Yeah.
Him: Megadeth is performing?
Me: Yeah.
Him: Dave Mustaine is there?
Me: Duh, duuude!

I show the messages to my friends around and have a great laugh. I wont reveal the poor soul's name lest he die of shame, which he should, in an ideal world. 'coz he claims to be a Megadeth fan, and more importantly claims to be smart.

March of Exhaustion

Left.. Left.. Left, Right, Left.
Hut, Two, Three, Four, Hut, Two, Three,

How I detested any and all of that. I, as a left-brained person, have always needed a logical reason for all my actions. And try as I might, I simply could not find one for marching in step with lots of other drones around an empty grounds every Thursday.

But this blog entry is about somethin else. March 2008. It began with a bang, which is more of a gunshot-to-my-head bang than a celebratory fireworks bang.
1st March: Got a confidence-shattering rejection from Alliance Business School, Bangalore. [If these guys dont take me in, who will?] But after putting that behind me, I went ahead and made sure I passed the rest of the month livin' it up.

14th March: Megadeth and Machine Head at Palace Grounds. With a bunch of Indian bands going first. Was there quite early. Waited patiently for 4 hours with just a friend's friend for company. I should've tried getting more free passes. When Megadeth finally came onstage, I started makin my way forward. Cam-phone held high. Didn't care bout company then. The results of that[my shoe!] will be in another blog post. But it was memorable, fun and a bit tiring as well.

18th March: A friend's long awaited treat for getting placed. Heavy lunch at Punjabi Rasoi, RT Nagar.

19th March: Go karting. 7 of us. And 6 of us kart-virgins. Me being the exception, though I was only just comin out of a dry spell. 120 bucks for 7 laps. Almost all of us went twice. And ol' Laughing Gas Diablo, having realised that ol' Jeremy Clarkson wasn't kidding and driving fast around corners is actually fun, went four times. He used to wonder what it was like while watching all those Top Gear episodes, and found true happiness by impulse spending 480 bucks on that track. And also true fatigue having gone around a hundred and forty corners at breakneck [yeah, right] speed.
People going to Patel's inn, R.T. Nagar, note that cars 6 and 7 are the fast ones. I say 6 is better. But then again I didn't even try 7.

20th March: The Prince of Darkness himself invites us to help him spend his Gregorian-calendar-birthday climbing a big rock. And climb we did. And Diablo went radioactive in the Batcave, while Infinitiks played Brave Photographer. Details soon. ;)

20th March: I get home all exhausted and I log onto the internet only to find that another B-school didn't think I was worthy enough for 'em. IMI Delhi, for all who care.

Spent the next 3 days being spent. From the climb, not the (metaphoric, but no less painful) fall.

Then we started practice for the college fest's Western Acoustics competition. Songs were considered, shortlisted, practised and then completely discarded. Coz we heard better songs and I realized that Xay could sing along with the solo for Wish You Were Here a la the Delicate Sound Of Thunder version [Go listen, NOW, if you haven't ever heard it, you filthy scum!]. It boiled down to Little by Little by Oasis or Wish You Were Here. We went back n forth between the two and in the end, we picked one.

28th March: And in the actual end, we ended up playing both. Hehe. And of course, Xay wasn't the only one I was accompanying, there was the other guy... who came first by singing Home by Daughtry. I don't take any credit. Coz I didn't really have much to do during the performance. And of course again, there was the mystery guy who also went up on stage with me as accompanist.. Details soon. ;)

29th March: Day of the Rock Show and the Treasure Hunt. Though the organizers called it T-shirt day. How boring a name for a day as this. Somebody I know, I inspired and guided, performing as lead guitarist for a band is an event to be proud of. Even though the sound system helped screw it all up. Also runnin around seeking treasure [and being in the lead for a while] saps your energy, stretching you to your limits [Well, they were my limits, at least]. And if you waste time on not realizing which assets were being spoken of, and then coming 11th* instead of the first that you otherwise would've come, you start wondering if the girl that called you "a pig just like all men" the other day knew what she was talkin about. Exhilarating fun, but also exhausting like hell.

29th March: It hits me at my weakest time, this rejection business. THE two times I was most exhausted in this month are the exact days that a B-school tells me that 96.56%ile isn't good enough. You need to be a nice person, with a good sense of humor who brings them gifts and tell them how pretty they are while having a high-paying job. IMT Ghaziabad this time. The last one left. But there is hope... in the second and third waitlists every optimist seems to be expecting.. We'll see if the quintessential delusion that is simultaneously man's greatest strength and his greatest weakness shows results. meh.

31st March: I start writing this blog entry... (**)



* outta 50 teams, 11th is respectable. Besides, we even stopped for drinks in between.
** See how cool I'm tryin to be while I do the whole "the end is the beginning" thing? Are you just gonna let me get away with that? Come on, leave a scathing attack in the comments section, you filthy scum!