Trip to the Dark Side of the moon.

As promised I am back to share my Floyd experience with you all.

A hot Sunday afternoon in Mumbai totally devoid of trees made all of us traveling in a Maruti-Suzuki Alto sweat as if we were playing football in the sun. Fortunately we reached the venue MMRDA grounds, quickly and parked our vehicle.

Time of first assessment… We went around seeing if at all any tickets were still being sold as my friend wanted his special friend not to miss the spectacle. There weren’t any being sold, so we started contemplating about other possible ways in the hot sun.

Now I know why Bangalore is fun even with hot sun. “Save trees to keep the feeling for long”!

But this sunny feeling wasn’t there to stay for long as my friends got cans of fermented brew. Yea Kingfisher… what else?? And that’s the end of the uncomfortable hot feeling we had.

It’s not simply that T shirts have quotes on them saying ‘Save water drink beer’!
Some 3 cans of beer later when it was 5.30 the gates opened. For the uninitiated like me it was just being on beer and waiting for 7 amidst seeing nice Bombay chiquititas and listening to Floyd being played by the organizers in the background. Of course there are some Floydians who belong to a school of thought that listening to Floyd without being on joints was like watching Godfather without Marlon Brando.

By the way, let me tell you Bombay chicks are truly worth a second look!!!

7.20 and there was a display on the big screen. A radio, an ashtray, a whisky bottle, a pistol and a man with his arm operating the setup. We got to know that the things were these, only after 5 mins when the man started tuning the radio for different frequencies skipping tunes from ‘Dancing queen’ to some Beatles numbers etc until he hit the first Floyd number. This was the central theme of the show where the man kept pistol down and tuned and tuned.

It was one hell of a beginning to the show which started with the song Mother and ended after some 10 songs with comfortably numb. I really got comfortably numb. The first half of the show was totally message driven; Roger played an assorted collection of his repertoire. The fist half ended with one his new songs condemning the American attack on Iraq ‘Leaving Beirut’ which he beautifully camouflaged it with his childhood tales.

Mr. Bush was impeached here from Bombay thru a mercenary that happens to be customary in Floyd music. Pig!!! Yea the pig’s tail wagged on the wordings “Impeach Bush” much to the delight of thousands of fans.

Fifteen minutes from then, it was truly like being on the “dark side of the moon” listening to time, money, us and them so on and so forth. I don’t remember how time passed until 9.45 when he said adieu. Don’t know about others but I for sure was left wanting for more.

But in all I opine that it was trip well traveled.
Hope for more….
Sanj

Some videos I shot from my cellphone

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1274180708154024674 - Shine on U crazy diamond.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3012064203967692285 - Leaving Beruit.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2538732406883666851 - Leaving Beruit(Contd).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-145995113808110199 - Time.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6413250912135351466 - time(Contd).
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3722048510618020247 - Us and Them.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7115131752871073649 - Comfortably numb.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3703852242372106841 - Band Intro by Mr. waters

Waiting for the Gods....

Ooooh, you cannot reach me now

Ooooh, no matter how you try

Goodbye, cruel world, it's over

Walk on by.

Sitting in a bunker here behind my wall

Waiting for the worms to come.

In perfect isolation here behind my wall

Waiting for the worms to come.

Can someone else apart from the Gods themselves write lyrics like these ?

The more I hear of them the more i scratch my head thinking why I wasn't born earlier?

Who cares... we are in the technology age and have access to everything, good or bad!!!

Let me get a bit nostalgic here when i first heard Floyd. Oh! Those classes of my 2nd sem when not many people but for a few, in my class knew about Floyd. There would be no stopping us chatting in the class about the sheer impact it made on bright not so young minds.

Late 2001 and early 2002, my tenant then doing his BE from UVCE introduced me to Floyd with songs like Coming back to life, Comfortably numb, Learning to fly and Money.

I just went gaga over Learning to fly and Coming back to life. The magic that david Gilmour weaved on the strings is unthinkable. I for one, was truly learning the high's of Psychedelic music.



2002 - Wud keep Listening to all shows on radio city while completing some practical records and endlessly hope they play some Floyd songs. Man those were days of desperation when there were not much resources and also the gizmo friends who would have music you think of. How can I ever forget those days when I would be waiting to answer questions to win tickets to the Floyd show in Bangalore? Its a different thing that I never managed to win one, but attempts are something greater than results ... aren't they???

The silky soothening voice of Priya Ganapathi on the 10'o clock show, I think that went a long way to plant the psychedelic bug in my mind. A certain enigma oozed out of her voice when she spoke about Floydian music and i don't think she put it up. You can never bring out the best in you until you love what you are doing, and priya was creating magic on the radio waves. Did she love Floyd... or what??

2003 - My cuz gave me the most precious b'day gift that she could have given me at that point in time. A cd full of Floyd songs and i felt instantly connected to my soul music.

David Gilmour, Bob Dylan, Syd Barret, Roger Waters.... Surely, there is something about Rockstars that amazes you by their lives like their music.

Come to think of it, four years since then, 2007 and now its finally happening.

I am going to Mumbai to attend a live Floyd concert.

I think there is going to be an other post following the concert, as i will know what Floydian music really means to me.Till then .... like my friend says,

meet you on the dark side of the moon.

~Sanj

Life’s turned a full circle in kanakapura Sangama!!!

Some 4 years ago, had been to Sangama in kanakapura, Chunchi falls with a party of SBM employees and their families.

I wonder if life has completed a full circle since then. There I was thinking what I’d do after my final year of graduation and now I am thinking of what to do, to break the mundane routine that I am in.

Anyways, on the occasion of ‘Gandhi Jayanthi’ or probably just an other occasion when we wanted to hit out of Bangalore, around 10 guys in 2 cars decided to head towards Sangama which basically is a confluence of two rivers – Arkavathi and Kaveri(Cauvery) and further to Mekedaatu(5 kms from Sangama).

This place has always given me memories of losses. Be it personal or materialistic…

If at all, he had not ventured into the water, if at all he wasn’t so adventurous. But I know … ifs and buts’ do not count in real life. It can happen only in flashback. A lively fun-loving guy is what I vividly remember Vinay Sreedhar as. He was my PU classmate and a good volleyball player. But now when I think about him, and the place which took him away from us, I can only say… “Who is bigger than nature”? Alas, if he’d only understood this!!!

Materialistic loss, well it’s nothing comparable to this grave loss of life. But since I am talking about losses here I rather include this one too. I lost a wallet here, right in front of my eyes, when my over enthusiasm got better of my senses that made me think my cousin was a good catcher. Don’t know if my throw was bad or it was she who dropped the wallet into the flowing water. Like a fish that doesn’t leave a trail, there was not a clue left behind. I could only stare at the gushing water helplessly.

This was all last time. This time around I started the trip thinking, four years would have brought in lots of changes in me regarding my outlook towards life. I had sort of forgotten the sense of loss of this place had given me. We embarked on our journey with gaiety and excitement reached the place and had fun. We went to mekedaatu after going around Sangama. Everything completed and we started to leave, when I realized the loss syndrome that had hit me again. I found my favorite sunglasses missing, as usual the sense of dejavu haunting me now. Anyways, like some people have happy hunting grounds I have some sad losing grounds of which this is one.

Signin off by dedicating this passage to my deceased friends Vinay Sreedhar(in the pic) and Arvind. Hope their souls rest in peace.

~Sanj

Life's Caricature !!!

Recently I was faced with a situation that many if you might have come across. Yea... the usual childhood crushes and romances... thing.

We have all had infatuations, crushes some which get turned into full blooded romances and some that don't. I passed this phase too, with my attempts largely falling under the later part.

I am a great believer that everything happens for a cause, was evident when i found the caricature artist convey this message to me with my caricature.

And the next day I hear one after the other, that all of them thus involved in my life, have got or are getting married. Thinking about it now, when i have remained away from the crush syndrome for a while now, I can only laugh heartily and wish them all the luck for their big step. As for me I think on.... "for sure this ain't happenin for me"!!!

~Sanju