Congrats Dhoni! Time for a Haircut!

Never beyond my wildest dreams had I thought I would button-down the following:
India won the World Cup!

What more can a cricket buff ask for than a classic Indo-Pak encounter as the grand finale? It was a magical evening. The mood was festive, people overjoyed, atmosphere gleeful, it was 1983 all over again, but only better. As it was getting increasingly difficult to believe the fateful scenario, to make matters more illusory, India won a nail-biter. World cup comes home, jingle bells!!!

We are all missing on one thing though. It was all nonsensical.

20 Twenty? Give me a fuckin break. Its not remotely related to cricket. Its a diluted version of a game pretending to be football for the need of a wider audience. The game which actually started as a 5-day event has succumbed to a 20-over format to cope up with today's world of 2-minutes noodles and frappuccino.

Any true cricket lover will rubbish the idea of 20-20s. The game is a delicate mix of vigor and patience. It required strategical thinking much like a warfare plan. With the advent of capitalism cricket got reduced to a 'One day' setting and we have gotten used to it, much like we are now used to breathing in alarmingly large volumes of Methane. But for crying out loud, don't abuse the sanctity of an already corrupt game. Don't make it preposterously inept. I am simply not interested in watching half-assed players wanking on the wicket with their clumsy display of swinging the bat randomly.

In a one day game of cricket, the match starts after 30 overs. The one with endurance and superior decision making wins. And thats how it should be, because, to get that extra kick, I'd rather watch football or pornography. Cricket is just not exciting enough, and should not be tampered with. The real fans will remain.

The know-it-all idiot

My usual pass time here in India is the TV. So tonight while surfing the prime time channels i uncannily stopped on 'Sahara One'. My stars were all in the right places i guess for i had the fortune to see Swami Baba Ramdev himself in all his glory and no it wasnt his regular yoga camp. He was lecturing about the booming indian economy, multi national influx, foreign exchange, the whole nine yards.

Fine. I dont have any problem as such when this ascetic fool cons NRIs with his yoga skills. Or, when he claims to have cured cancer and AIDS patients with the help of his "spiritual science". But for the love of himalayas, do not try getting into real life issues. A godman is to preach, and to improve the life that we would have after we die. But to tackle the present situations, we have politicians, businessmen, scientists

Getting back to the TV program. You actually would not expect much from a news channel where people say grace with the desi version of Sieg Heil (Sahara pranaam!).

So a sahara skinhead looking achingly neat and in awe of the swamiji interviews the man. After the expected criticisms to the churches of england swamiji almost made adam smith roll in his grave. Hereafter starts his inane drivel of patriotism.

"India is one of the greatest and the richest countries in the world. Why else do you think all these american companies are investing here? "

*A big jingoistic roar from the crowd*

He went on incessantly. The random roars encouraging him further and the skinhead basking in the glory of baba sucking up better than a vacuum cleaner.

Skin: "Baba is just incredible. I thought that he d be talking mainly about yoga but he s just demonstrated his genius by all this"

Whats wrong in all this? The gullible people of our country need a mere push to form opinions. Babas and booboos bullshitting them will have an adverse effect. We need people who are slightly more educated than ramdev(who skipped school after standard VIIIth) as leaders. If we stick to status quo, the future sure looks brighter than a thousand suns.


And a few words of wisdom for ramdev- Learn to shut the fuck up.

*All the quotes are paraphrased.

The Dead End

Recently I have been driving quite a lot in and around delhi. It comes naturally to a lot of us. I ve seen 15 years old kids handling a four wheeler. Driving a car has to be the easiest of all man-machine interactions because everyone i know has somewhere push-buttoned a car and they are all still far from even getting in the vicinity of a Slingsby T-67 Firefly. So to sum it up, its an easy job, more than half of the controls are operated by the subconscious and any tom, dick or hari could do the job.
WRONG

Its the most dangerous task in the whole shebang. It requires the stamina of a Navy Seal. Cognitive abilities of a space shuttle pilot. A to B navigation requires thorough strategic planning and execution. Each and every overtake needs a good amount of honking and a fair amount of luck. Be it riding along on the freeway with the measly 150cc engines of your pathetic indian bike or sitting in the pretentious realm of safety and luxury of your god awful indian car. You have a good chance to potentially die to death everyday you are out on the tarmac. Yet, it seems like a facile activity to most of us.

An aircraft pilot needs to understand the control equipments, radio, navigation, etc. properly and the airplane is in total control of his and of course their lies a horde of experts on the ground to help get the plane safely to the destination. Driving is still primordial as compared to flying.
Here we need anticipations, mutual understanding. No body assisting, no navigators, no backups, no clever equipments. Its solely dependent on the driver with a few hydraulic pedals and shafts providing control. Imagine millions of machines out on the road at one time and a simple law of probability predicts about 400,000 mistakes committed at one point of time, which might lead to a minimum of about 800,000 accidents at one point of time. A car is driven not according to the driver but also to the others present on the road. In a city where lanes are an alien concept, people make their own ways out and 'might' has the right to way. 40% of the drivers out there have no regards whatsoever for the rules and regulations and the rest 60% are not aware of them. A minor confusion could lead to a catastrophe.

I ve spoken to people in the west who have had the misfortune to drive in delhi. Most of them
have gone bonkers and now live in a premise named 'home for loonies', the rest are dead. Delhi and say, London are incommensurable in terms of driving ethics and traffic laws. A popular maxim states that anyone who can drive in delhi can drive anywhere else in the world. This strikes another chord and tosses another big question which i shall deal with in my very next blog...

Coming back to the topic at hand..
The numbers and stats make it even more daunting. The vicious delhi roads claim about 5 people each day. The buses and trucks contributing whole-heartedly in this figure. And thats just delhi. Most of the indian metros are no exception and are notoriously dangerous.

As a summation to all of the above, I' d like to quote a leading journalist who'd just completed an Indo-Pak road trip:

"In Pakistan, bandits have been known to kidnap foreigners. In India it’s the roads themselves that are the country’s murderers"

Maiden Sofia - The transcending tale of excellence

The day started quite early for me at around 4am. Perhaps it was the anxiety that wouldn't let me sleep. Spent 6 hours of the morning at the college. No lunch, no sleep, all bleary I reached the venue with one of my friends at 5 in the evening. A football stadium. It was the same one where sabbath had played a few years back. Surprisingly they had upgraded the security this time so we payed minimal attention to the pissheads surrounding us.

The fans, majority of them dressed in black, had an impromptu metal karaoke right outside the gates as they waited for another hour. Finally the gates open. The security reminded me of airports with all that frisking (they made you taste any fluids/food items to be carried inside). The view inside was refreshing with that huge stage under the clear blue sky.After browsing through the rip-off merchandise outlets with those 50e maiden tees and 20 for a bloody coffee mug we settled on a couple of beers.

The front section seemed chock full already but to our delight we found that ours was another section which was right next to the stage. So, there we were finally claiming our spot in the fifth row from the front. Now starts the real ordeal. Wating for maiden to take stage. The sound check lasted for around 90 minutes and i was already starting to run out of steam.

The first band started at around 7 30. It was a local band by the name of 'ahat'. Pointless to even mention about the music. The lyrics went over my head. Vocals seemed out of place, keys were inaudible, the guitar player didnt deserve to have a JEM (*droool*). But no second thoughts that they were much better than the following act.

LAUREN HARRIS. WTF. Steve harris produced this? She is an absolute disgrace to her last name. She played about 4 songs, one of which they played twice and apologised later for that. Her irrtating shrill voice was like a rusty tenpenny nail on my eardums. The crowd started booing her after a couple of songs which instigated her to finally use her 'ace in the hole'. Yes, her boobs. She starts flaunting the cleavage like anything ,which, needless to say, got her all the attention of the crowd, hell, i was screaming for an encore later on. The guitar player reminded me of zack wylde, just the looks though. The snooze-fest went on for another half an hour.

It was 9, i was totally jaded. The roadie crew was out re-examining the setup, equipment and meanwhile they played a kickass cover of back in black which was a treat after the harmonical wankery of the previous acts. Excitement was building up. The stadium was packed. Chants of "Maiden Maiden" were sung with full force.

Silence for a jiffy. Then came that colossal thrust from the back simultanously with the starting riff of 'DIFFERENT WORLD'. We were squished, couldnt see a thing apart from the random butts in front of me as the wave had taken the form of a massive mosh. Half way through the song i came back to my senses and lost them again, for i was 20 feet away from Bruce Dickinson. OMFG. They were here. The crowd went apeshit as Bruce sings the chorus and we all sang along. A little push to the left and I could see Murray and Harris. Smith stood at the centre of the stage with Gers. Nicko was veiled behind his humongous drumkit. Finally the crowd settled a bit and got the full view and boy was i moved.

They go straight to the next 'THESE COLOURS DONT RUN'. Amazing amazing song. I adore the chorus. Bruce looked in full form. Full of energy, running all over the stage. And that voice is better than ever. He goes "How are ya sofeeaa???" ROOOAAAAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Murray stood right in front with that trademark grin and kicksoff the classic WRATHCHILD. 'I m comin to get you oooooh yeah!!' It was fuckin madness. We sang along to the guitar solos.
I had forgotten about everything at that point. Nothing was beyond this.

Bruce Turns up with a red jacket and the union jack as the rest of them kick start 'THE TROOPER'. They played it faster than the album version like always. The song triggered the mosh mania once again and by this time I d started to enjoy it all. Nothing bothered me, I was completely engrossed in the music.

'REINCARNATION OF BENJAMIN BREEG' mellowed things down a bit and i finally managed to get some okayish photographs followed by 'FOR THE GREATER GOOD OF GOD'.

A voice on the PA goes "Woe to you, oh earth and sea...." which resulted in a deafening roar. 'NUMBER OF THE BEAST'. The first song I heard of the band was this one and that made it overwhelming. I was still making myself believe that it was actually happening.

Bruce said "...Hell and fire was spawned to be released" and damn right he was, 'FEAR OF THE DARK' was next. I was watching Rock in Rio and they played fotd. It was breathtaking to see everyone in the stadium singing along with the melody and i always thought what it would be like to be there. Take my word for it, its immense.

'RUN TO THE HILLS'. Played to perfection(so was every other song). Eddie was here!!!! Aboard a huge tank. Cameras out! After the blistering solo by Dave and Harris's 'machine gun bass' stunt the song was over and the lights were out. "Maiden Maiden!!!".

"scream for me sofia!"..."SCREAM FOR ME SOFIA!!!!!!!!!!"
I am getting goose bumps as i write this. 'IRON MAIDEN'. The wonderful song played live made it even better.

Maiden had left the stage. The chants went on. 5 minutes later they take positions and Bruce: "What time is it in sofia right now?" and some buffoons actually shouted the real time "Its 10:10 pm" lol. "TWO MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT".

Just when i was hoping they do something from SSoaSS 'THE EVIL THAT MEN DO'. And on came the giant eddie again shooting people with a laser beam. Gers/Smith did an awesome solo.

What better way to end a grand show with the grandeur of 'HALLOWED BE THY NAME'. I was in fuckin heaven. By the time it all finished i was inundated with emotions. It was all so surreal.

It was the biggest and the best concert of life and i will cherish it forever. Every moment was magical, i lost every single ounce of energy at the end of it and it was all worth it. A horrible horrible day ended with one of the most beautiful evenings of all times.

At the end my friend very rightly asked me - "Dude maiden's gone. Now what happens?"

Of life, and all things 'Iron Maiden' - Prelude

One solitary day to pass by and i will have myself in front of the greatest band in the whole wide world - Iron Maiden. Three decades and fourteen albums later, they still remain the epitome of anything and everything 'heavy-metal'. Its the only band in the history to produce classics beelining one after the other for the past 32 years and havnt failed to amuse the metal audience and critics alike.

My introduction to this phenomenon was back when I was much more of a 'grunge rock kid' and Kurt Cobain was only prior to Jesus for me. One fine morning I saw these 5 haglike guys on TV playing a song - 'Hallowed be thy name'. And that did it for me i guess. I was so intrigued by the music. It was unlike anything I d ever heard. A bizzare energy, a mystique surrounded it all and little did i know that it was soon gonna be a part of the next 'metal' years of my life. I got trapped in the 'Iron Maiden' for good. I wanted to pick up the guitar and play that blistering solo but it only added to my misery (if only guitar playing was as simple as the unification theory). Everything went through a transition. As if a divine revelation. My view, towards everything surrounding me, was now radically different.

Tomorrow is the day zero. I will find myself right in front of the gods. I get to see them while they churn out the tunes I ve been attached to for years now. Calling it an emotional experience would be insulting and a spiritual experience would be unconvincing. What so ever it be, I am more than sure that it would be something that i d carry on for the rest of my time and an event to perpetuate in my thoughts and memories.

All set. Front Section tickets. Worn out maiden tee. Eight months long unkempt hair. Eight years of longing and obsession. Iron Maiden here I come!

UP THE IRONS!!!

Lokhandwaala debacle

Keeping it brief because a movie this pathetic does not deserve more than ten lines of text let alone watching it and potentially ruining your friday night and the rest of the weekend, as in my case. It has around a dozen actors and I use the term 'actors' loosely. About a few cops no wait, its about those gangsters.. errr.. about the ATS Dept.? encounter killings ? family crisis???baah i give up. Juxtapose all the above and throw in item numbers for good measure and you have a 'lokhandwala'.

The director/writer has basically tried to re-do an overdone subject in bollywood - The Mafia/Underworld. Its an absolute load of tripe. Watching vivek oberoi, tushar kapoor, and the rest of the sideys act made me cringe to the foetal position. The inclusion of bacchans was superflous. Sanjay Dutt is better off attending those court summons than trying to perform on screen with that deadpanned look.

One of the sequences is an atrocious ripoff from the Ed Norton starrer American History X and further proves that there is a paucity of imagination and creativity in an industry whose two basic elements are imagination and creativity.

Primo!

OK

My $0.02 about the horrors and the wonders of this quaint little creation called the world and everything surrounding it. Actually its just the boredom and a tremendous yearning to voice my highly irrational and rather loony opinons.



Disclaimer: I am a below average engineer stereotype, hence people taking my rants seriously either have an insignificant amount of intelligence or a disastrous sex life.