When winter comes, so does Christmas!

When winter comes, so does Christmas! It’s cold but it’s also fun. You can almost bite the feeling, a feeling of warmness, that sense of joy, just like an ant who has toiled long and hard just to keep itself warm and content during a very long winter ahead. I certainly feel a sense of accomplishment and although we have gone through good and bad times right through the year but the coming few weeks and months are days to feel happy and glee. Soon we will take out our thickest furs and ware our warmest shoes and although you have to brace the cold winter breeze, yet your soul is filled with the spirit of Christmas. A season enjoyed by all, irrespective of religion and believes, it unites our souls in one universal spirit and we share and make merry, we exchange gifts and we help out. As the saying goes “there is no place like home during Christmas”; many who are away from their beloved families will get ready and make plans to visit their near and dear ones. Families are occupied in prepping their house, stitching up new garments, planning for celebrations, young kids shout out with glee as they are almost done with their yearly school activities and it’s time for them to have fun to the fullest and not have to worry about studies for at least a couple of months. Every corner shop has signs and decorations of their fondness of the season; you can hear Christmas bells ringing, carol singing, market place booming with activity. People buying Christmas trees, Christmas cakes fills up the bakers shop e and although it’s cold outside, not snow or a cold breeze can stop people from coming out and visiting their families and dear ones. It’s a time for joy, a time to rejoice and a time to be happy, a time to forget all our differences, a time to put an end to any arguments and make peace with your fellow men and most importantly with one self.
I hope this winter brings out the best in all of us and although I will be missing not being home for Christmas this time around, I will surely remember everyone and what it’s like to be home for Christmas. So until Christmas, enjoy the winter and Happy Holidays.

Metallica in Bangalore

Finally the much anticipated event of the year came by; so me, my brother, a couple of his friends and two of my temporary roommates got ready and headed out to the show. The ever so popular, one of the most influential bands of the last two decades was here in town and was ready to rock the city off their ass. The iconic band “Metallica” who has been churning out classics and ever green numbers for so many years were not only awesome but they were encouraging. A band that has gone through a lot, with changing of band members, their personal struggle with addiction and their recent struggle of not being able to bring out superb albums as they have done in their twilight years, was not only superb on that day but was also all awe inspiring. To see them performing with such zeal and finesse at their age gave me the encouragement to not let go of what you truly believe in and keep working towards whatever your goals are.

Most of us have grown up listening to rock and metal bands of the 80’s; Metallica was always one of our favorites. I remember finding the album “And Justice for All” at my uncle’s cassette drawer for the first time, although I have heard Metallica before, at that time I was only a kid and I didn’t understand or knew the epicness of Metallica as a band and the “And Justice for All” as an album. For someone who have listened to Metallica they will surely know what I’m talking about; with its rawness and fast rhythm guitars and crazy double bass drums, one can only imagine the technicality involve during the artistic process while creating this album. This album still remains one of the best Heavy Metal albums of all time and also one of my favorite. A band that has brought out albums like “Master of Puppets” which is undoubtedly the most influential Heavy Metal albums of all time was not only blowing our minds off but was giving as the shivers with the set list they had in store for us that evening. No one was expecting them to be as good as they were and at least for me I had big doubts if they could even give me the same chills I experienced when I heard the album “and Justice for all” for the first time. They churned out classics after classics making the crowd go mad and the crowd only hoped that the night would last forever. It was evident in the way the band was performing; they were out for vengeance; for all the bad press they have received in the last few years. They played out of their skin and in the same time always lifting the crowd to different levels throughout the concert. James Hetfield in particular was super amazing; his voice sounded sober and sounded like he wanted to give his 101 % at any cost come what may. Maybe the cancellation of the show in Delhi had its effects on the band and they were out to please the crowd to their level best, which was only great for the crowd in Bangalore.



Although there was much confusion going into the concert due to the fact that the show which was supposed to happen in Delhi got cancelled, lots of people have flown from different parts of the country to witness this once in a lifetime event. Needless to say the fans in Bangalore were amazing; more than 20,000 fans turned out for the concert; a sea of black T-Shirts filled the concert arena and no rain or thunder could stop us from having a good time. Although we had mud all over our shoes and the grounds was slippery and wet, but this couldn’t stop us from head banging and singing along with the band.

We slipped we fell, we tripped on 5 inch of mud, our throat sore, back aching, neck hurting, but it was worth all the pain. People who never saw them this time must only hope for a better one next time, but I can only say that the first show will always be remembered and one of the best concerts I have attended till date. Kudos to Metallica and thanks for a killer show; and ending up in the words of Chuck Schuldiner – “ support music not rumors” & “let the metal flow”.

Cheers.

Festival of lights and labor!

It’s the festival of lights here in our beloved country of ours called India; fire crackers bursting everywhere, scaring off the poor dogs on the street. Although I love fireworks displays, they all look grand and all awe inspiring to me; but we shun our self from realizing that there are children in India who toiled day and night in the hundreds of these firework industry just to earn their whatever daily means they can. It is estimated that 135,000 children work in the Indian fireworks Industry and the town of Sivakasi in South India is suppose to be the capital of child labor in fireworks manufacturing sector.

Most of us won’t see a stop on child labor, not at least in the near future. With inflation in every sector of the market and fuel price surging, we can only see small scale industries like the fire work industry which comprises of mostly medium size and cottage industry sorting out for cheap labor and sadly children are the victims of this vicious cycle.

Unless the consumers in India stop buying these crackers etc. we can only hope and pray that these poor children are at least provided safe and healthy conditions to work, which is not the case when it comes to the firework industry; the harmful effects of the various type of chemicals which are used in these fireworks have only been debated in various forums and media but not really looked into or even educate these children on the seriousness of their effects.

India as a nation in its 64th year of Independence has only seen issues such as child labor spiraling backwards and eradicating this problem now is not only a government matter but an issue that each and every individual should look into and think seriously of how we can eradicate this problem. It would require a huge consensus between various levels of society and a co-operation from each one of us; if we want to see the fruit of our labor trickle down to the very bottom end of the society we need to remain corrupt free, we need to suppress oppression whenever it tries to show its ugly head and not let greed and mere believes that loud noises can chase off the evil that men do.

2002 RIOTS and present day Saints.

We are at the 9th and a half years post the riots of 2002 and the resulting communal differences in Gujarat which left indelible scars in the minds and hearts of a majority of the Muslim community; few would want to re-collect the horror they witness and the pain they had gone through. Like a bad medicine, one has to swallow it all up and hope that such atrocities should never ever happen again and not even in their wildest dreams ever want to go through such horror.

Death came on swift wings for a whole lot of unfortunate souls; the tyranny of a system which failed to embrace it’s people when they needed it the most; the sheer audacity of man himself to brutally butcher, hack and murder innocent men, women and children. One would say, we should leave these memories behind and move on; it might be easier for an outsider like me who never witness the atrocities which happened in those fateful couple of months and to just let go and carry on with my life; however this is not the same with the so many who have actually lost their near and dear ones and in some cases a whole generation has been wiped out. These evil men had no second thoughts and without any remorse headed out to seek and spill blood and spilled blood they did. A system that propagated hatred among deferent level of society, leaders who gave a blind eye to the wrong doers and at times even being forerunners of the campaign itself.

History can only outline these facts but the real truth is still yet to be unearthed. A few men are supposedly being hailed as great men and being dubbed saints and men who are bringing changes and development to the country and Gujarat as a whole; these men presently are going on “yatras” and the so called “sadbhavana” (Goodwill Fast) are also the very men who where the holder of law during the riots .

We can only speak so much about the consequences that innocent people faced after those dreaded days. Man can only question why it happened but the ultimate judgment will surely come; if not by this world but surely by God.

Footsteps in the Sand.

Once I and a friend were all high in hippy country Goa, I had lost all my bearings and was almost freaking out; it was in the wee hours of the morning and the chilling sea breeze was penetrating my bones; all I knew was I wanted to get back to the place I was staying for the night. I can recollect that we had a crazy night laying on that hard beach bench until the fire died, accompanying another lost soul who was in search of a place to stay for the night since he was turned down by his employer. Unable to take the cold no more I asked my friend that we need to leave; it was dark, a moonless sky, cold breeze, a roaring sea, I felt haunted and lost. I experience this feeling for the first time; as we started treading back along the sea shore; I realize that it’s taking a much longer time to get to the point where we had to trespass a few beach restaurant in order to get into a path which would lead us to our place. I stopped and told my friend that we were lost. Now my friend is relying solely on me to lead the way back to the place where we were staying. The only thing I could think of was to track back to the direction where we came from and try to retrace my route. So we walked back until I was stopped by these footsteps in the sand. They were freshly imprinted; I don’t remember seeing these footsteps while coming the same way a few minutes back and they were heading the opposite directions. These foot steps were almost the size of a young female or maybe tennage boy feet. I told my friend that we are heading in the wrong direction and lets follow these foot steps; so we followed the footsteps tracing them feet by feet until they just stop dead on track and I could not see any more foot print beyond that; I stop and looked around and was unsure of what to do, so I just told my friend that we are on the right path and asked to follow me; I couldn’t turn left cause that’s the sea, so the only thing is to turn right and head into the beach restaurant; however to my surprise, the moment I was inside the canopy of one of the dimly lit beach shacks, I immediately spotted the way back to our place which was just parallel to this particular restaurant.

Now, I’m not sure how to explain about these footsteps; maybe they were already there and I just didn’t noticed or maybe they were meant to show us the way, which they surely did; I don’t know, but I can only say that those foot steps in the sand that night saved me from a lot of frustration.

Writers block!!

Hello again,

I was watching this standup comedian the other day on YouTube and she was talking about how a writer can go through these period of what they call a "writer's block" and really it's not a new topic but the interesting thing about what she was saying is that how the mind purposely imposes or block out flowing thoughts by introducing contradicting argument to the whole scheme of things and thus leaving the person incapable of moving forward. For e.g. I can imagine that the girl I really like would somehow just give me a call and say hey how you doing and it’s been a while and would you like to come for a coffee and we would spend an evening that would last till the end; that’s when my mind again say’s wtf! That’s not going to happen, that girl is way ahead of the curve and you still hear dreaming about her; ultimately I give up and I doze off to sleep. Many a time this has happened to me and though I’m not an ardent blogger or writer, in those moments of a mental block where you just can’t seem to even ejaculate a single interesting thought out of your mind, I just tend to give up and shut down my system and just retire to my own cell of thoughts.

it ain't real..

well, it's like missing the biggest call of your life but only it was a damn miss call, all those years I thought they were for me, that smile; I don't remember anyone being behind me!! just seems like a prank that you played on me. All that I felt was they seem real to me and was hoping for the real thing; guess heaven seems the next best thing, just like the song "would you know my name if I saw you in Heaven :) lol..

MUSIC!!!

The Script taught me how to move on.

Greenday taught me that government's gonna fail someday.

Bruno Mars taught me to do anything for that one person I love

Eminem taught me that life is hard but you can make it through

Travis taught me to be generous

Taylor Swift taught me not every girl is going to treat me right

30 Seconds to Mars taught me to speak whats on my mind

Michael Jackson taught me to always love the people around me

Music taught me to live

she's preety and my new fav artist!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LINNFmU-BCo

Dying Blog

The Dying Blog...ma first entry for this year, it's a shame; at the moment I feel like I could just go on typing and not stop cause I got like so many interesting things in ma mind that no one would even care to listen to them; I feel good about things at the moment but I just have a bad tummy and I need to sleep as well..so later ..Adios ...