Lakshya - a goal

-- an old post from my old blog --
What do you want to do when you wake up every morning? Is there an overriding aim in your life that you strive towards every day .. one that governs your priorities and your actions? Or are you just going through life based on short-term choices, peer pressure and base desires?

You want your life to mean something. Like any journey, life has a final destination. It is NOT just something you have to get through. If you think that, you might as well kill yourself right now. Don't live for others, because chances are they living for you, and there's not much going on there.

CHOOSE to set aside time to decide where you want to be. Be the pilot driver owner of your life .. there's no other way to live through it meaningfully. Let your aim decide your choices your associations your relationships your MORALS. To quote from Serenity, "I don't care what you believe, just believe"

The joys of disagreements

-- an old post from my old blog --
Whoever said a perfect relationship is one with no fights must have been living in utopia. Good for him, but for us ordinary people, 'major disageements' are a part of the deal. It's at that point in the relationship where you leave your mask of agreeability and take a stand on something as if it truly mattered to you that the other person see your point of view.

It's not how major the disagreement is, or how vehemently you argue about it, but how you achieve closure on the issue that determines the strength of the relationship and its potential to last. Open issues mean open doors to the same conflict cropping up again, and if there's no understood way of dealing with it, you are back to either fighting about it, or masking your point of view for the sake of peace. The former is actually better, because you are at least open enough, but closing the issues when they come up .. that's the way to go.

Here's to more fights and better understanding between you and those you love.

I tear my heart open ... just to feel

-- An old post on my old blog site --
At the funeral service of one of my colleagues, and later at the cemetery while the casket was lowered, I saw the look of grief on the faces of his widow and parents. The widow was standing to one side of the casket, holding a photo of him. I looked at them, and at the people around me, and suddenly I felt my eyes fill up. I didn't want to hold it back either, and here's the kicker... I liked it! It may seem a terrible thing to say, but its not. I genuinely felt sorrow for their loss, and sad because of the loss of a good coworker and a good friend, but at the same time felt good to feel .. something! People *live to feel*. I'd rather feel sorrow, pain, anger, grief than to not feel anything at all. The emptiness of our lives are filled up by emotions - they are the points we remember looking back. At that moment, standing at the cemetery remembering my departed friend, I felt good to feel, to hurt, to grieve. It's been said that it is not our thinking power or our opposable thumbs that make us human, it is our ability to feel and express complex emotions. I now see why.

Red Hot Chili Peppers @ Seattle, Sat 8/12/2006

I went into the RHCP concert with one thought prominent in my mind: "These guys will have to put up an awe-friggin-some show to top IO (Indian Ocean) for me". And this is what happened ...

We reached the venue - white river amphitheater - at 3:30pm to take in some of the other music playing as part of EndFest 15. Modest mouse and snow patrol cancelled, the latter on the last day due to a terrorist threat - they're irish. The main stage wasn't due to start belting out music till 5, so we hung around the second stage and caught some of the subways and eagles of death metal - the eagles were good, the subways were subpar. wolfmother started playing on the main stage before we got to our seats, and we caught their last song. i'm just sorry we missed the rest of their act - they were good.

here's the fun part - the mars volta came in belting out some weird number. then, when they be done with words, they start jamming - but not the good sort of jam, the repeat-the-same-notes-till-we-cant-bear-it sort. after a minute of that sh*t, we walked off to get some food in. turns out we missed out on the good part of their act ..

while we were eating in the food area, some idiot threw a bottle filled with warm urine on one of the band members, understandably pissing the band off. the cops took him roughly off the moshpit, cuffs and hair pulled back and everything, but the damage was done - the band completed their song and shut off, so we had a nice 45-minute break to wait for the peppers to show up. and that's when things got really interesting ..

It was an amazing set, with more than a few beautiful jams between Flea & Frusciante. Throughout the set, I was high like I was on coke or something, jumping around and headbanging. I thought the songs from their new album were slower and poppier than I expected, and I wish they had more funk in 'em - with more flea and with stronger basslines - but i can't complain about the quality of the music, which was fantastic. The encore shoutout had us screaming and banging seats for like 5 minutes - awesome cardio/aerobic workout ;). It was that good.

Here, in brief, were the highlights:
- the concert started with 'cant stop', and i went nuclear (again, thank you 40hz)
- not more than 15 seconds of pause between songs during the entire set, if even that
- a lot of new material from their new Stadium Arcadium album (5 songs)
- 3-4 jams, the last one going on for close to 10 minutes and including the drummer (chad) for the first 5
- frusciante doing beautiful lead improvs on all songs
- 'throw away your television'
- frusciante soloing on "how deep is your love" by the bee gees .. nothing but vocals and lead guitar
- the noise level for the encore call by the audience was deafening .. and we contributed
- chad drum solo in encore -- supi you would have gone crazy!
- 'give it away' in encore, with the final jam
- the group behind us telling me 'your rock, dude', presumably because of my enthusiasm ;)

A couple of fest regulars told me the main act generally performs for an hour, but I got the feeling that they would carry on for at least 1.5 hrs, if not 2. i was not disappointed ==> 9:15 to 10:50, with the only real pause being the 5-minute screaming and seat-thumping before the encore.

The verdict: For the sheer concert experience, this was better than IO. Of course this excludes the IO night-jam part of things :)

Sleeptime. gnite all.

~setlist~
intro jam
can't stop
dani california
scar tissue
charlie
otherside
warlocks
flea guitar solo, into
throw away your television (with long jam ending)
snow (hey oh)
me & my friends
stadium arcadium
right on time
flea guitar solo, into
don't forget me
how deep is your love (john vocal solo)
tell me baby
californication (with long flea & john intro)
by the way

~encore~
chad drum solo
98 oldsmobile intro, into
give it away
long jam (awesome!)

Indian Ocean @ Seattle, Friday 8/11/2006

We reached the indian ocean concert venue - a club by the name of Neumos - at 7 sharp. Of course, things were running on IST, which meant things started happening around 7:45. Brief intro by CRY spokesperson, and things were rolling!
The setlist included the favorites - Jhini, bol wievel, maa reva, hille re, leaving home, kandisa - and some not-so-well-known - bhor, kaun, bandheh. The concert finished off with Kandisa and - on encore - Kaun. Extremely high-energy, with each song taking more than double the time, with improvs and tukbandis. Amazingly wild .. and I was with a group of people right at the moshpit.

Funny thing .. a couple came up into the small space between me and another group in front of us in between songs. I told them straight-up - "i must warn you guys, this is a high-energy area, with lots of flailing arms and legs". They thought I was giving them attitude (i was not), and the girl went "oh, i'm scared. don't i look scared?". Well, they were out of there in a rush before the first song reached its improv section. dumbasses.

The music stopped at 11:30, and we were drained babay! I thought that was the end of that, but ....

After the concert, I mill around and get my photo taken with the band and all the CRY volunteers - by virtue of my roomie being one, nothing more :). I thought THAT was the end of that, but ....

So I head out with friends for a late - 1am - dinner at Denny's, and get home by 1:30, all set to sleep in preparation for the next day's RHCP thing. As luck would have it, I was listening to some dream theater, and decided to let the album finish in the car before getting out and heading into the house. At about 2 I step out to see a cavalcade of cars entering my aptment complex, one of them playing an Indian ocean song. Now I knew these guys were staying at a CRY volunteer's place in my complex, but to meet them as i'm about to get OUT of the streets ... pure luck! And I thought that REALLY was the end of that, but ....

My roomie was there along with 10-15 other CRYers, and i tagged along with him to help these guys unload their stuff and take it up to the aptment. So we're hanging out discussing first music, then global politics, then indian politics and the reservation/caste system - and all the while Rahul, Susmit, Amit and Asheem are downing rum like coke and keeping a straight face about it.

Rahul (bass, vocals) in particular is incredibly animated and vocal about his views, with very intelligent observations. His energy is absolutely infectious, and seems almost limitless. Amit (percussion, other instruments) is very laid-back and gives a fresh-out-of-college impression of himself. I didn't interact a lot with Susmit (lead guitar) 'cause he had a lunch appointment today and had to sleep early (early??), but we talked about how the best virtuosos in guitar don't jump around the stage, but stand in place and concentrate on the layerings. So friggin true - even kirk hammet who runs around when burning the guitar stands still when playing compositions. I felt stupid not realizing this earlier. Asheem is quieter than the rest, but has a great style of speaking.

This went on for an hour or so, and that I thought was the end of that, BUT ....

Out comes Elvis with his guitar. Heh, that's the name of one of the CRYer with whom these guys were staying (the other - Venkat, who graciously photographed some of the goings-on). He's a musician in his own right, with a sound recording system and mixer ensemble hooked up in his room. He takes out his acoustic, and starts off with December right? And I jump in (thank you 40Hz) and take the song to the finishing line. All this time we have these IO dudes watching us. We go into Black by PJ, and a couple other songs like Smells like teen spirit and Hotel C. We start on Wonderwall and Amit jumps in singin with us all, and when Knockin' on heaven's door comes on, Rahul jumps in towards the end. Now Rahul, Elvis and Amit are in tukbandi mode - Rahul heavily adapting the chorus first in a Jamaican accent, then a southie and then a bengali accent, with Amit playing on the tabletop and then on Elvis's guitar body, and Elvis just trying to keep up with the improvs and the varying pace and doing a great job of it. Then we do a completely weird song made on the spot by Rahul with us giving supporting vocals whereever we can figure out what's the current theme - and Elvis is still going at it! We break off around 6am, and I thought that was the end of that, BUT BUT BUT ...

Amit and Asheem tell me after this is all over that I'm a good singer, and that I have a very nice voice - Asheem asks me if i've had professional training! I'm flooooooooorrred! Where are these guys getting this from?? Asheem telling me I sing well is like .. u know what im saying supi :).

And THAT was really the end of that, so is THIS this end of this.

Sleeptime - RHCP await.