Massacre of the innocents

“This place was a treat”
“We’ll come back”, he said
Her heart skipped a beat
“This is where we’ll be wed”

Unfortunately, he remembers
The beauty is now gone
Memories are but embers
“It is time to move on”

“I’ll think about you everyday”
Her eyes said she was true
“I don’t know what to say?
What will I do without you?”

This power he abuses
Too many words spoken
The dagger she uses
Promises broken

They’d be together forever
Until the ends of time
Their love was so tender
Separation a crime

They both do repent
Inevitable, I suppose
Both parties innocent
Yet the blood freely flows

The anatomy of a nation - Part I

My 8 months in the US have been filled with traveling and people and comfort and loneliness and promises to go back home some day soon. I intend to experience as much of this crazy country as I can while I am here - an observer who outwardly laughs with the world at the many things so wrong about America but at the same time is impressed by the pervasiveness of their "Western" culture.

One of the things that my current situation as a moderately well-off 22-year old with no immediate family in America has given me is the money and the freedom to listen to all the bands I grew up idolising. Through these concerts I have seen slices of Americana which I wish to remember. Here goes.

The Eagles
Venue - Baltimore, MD

I spent my first 3 months in America figuring out how things worked. Once I found my feet (and a credit card), I set off on my concert spree. My roomie and I discovered that we shared a similar taste in music and we decided to catch the Eagles when they came to Baltimore (3 hours from our place).

From my second year at college, when I realised that there was music beyond Floyd, the Eagles have been a favourite. In India, rock is the music of my generation. Although I had been warned that things were very different in America, I still didn't expect to walk into a Southern American party 20 years too late. A quick look around confirmed that we were probably the ONLY non-white people at the concert and almost the only people younger than 25. Turns out that the average Joes in America today listen almost exclusively to hip-hop, R & B and rap. Snooty America listens to jazz and classical music. Rock is fading and fading fast.

Be that as it may, I had come here for some good music and I was treated to a feast. The Eagles performed all their greatest hits for 3 hours and 15 minutes straight. No mean achievement for any band, let alone one on the wrong side of 50.

The one thing I took away from this show was that the Eagles are distinctly likeable. They started by thanking the audience for being a part of "Farewell Tour - I", a self-deprecating take at the concept of multiple Farewell tours nowadays.

Apart from the music, they kept slipping some stand-up comedy into the performance. Joe Walsh modified the lyrics of "Life is Good" to include -

"I have a limo
Ride in the back
I watch the Lakers
They stink without Shaq"

Aaah, I wish Kobe hears that. :D

Music - 9/10
Overall Experience - 10/10

Mamma Mia
Venue - Richmond, VA

"Mamma Mia" is a Broadway musical which is currently touring the US. The entire plot of the musical is woven around 22 Abba hits!!! My dad loved Abba so I grew up a passive Abba listener.

The most interesting thing about the show is that it really is quite like a travelling circus. The cast and crew goes from city to city with all the paraphernalia and perform at different theatres. Each role has a main performer and an apprentice who steps in if the main performer can't perform for any reason. The performances and the music were incredible. The whole gang did this huge dance at the end of the show. They just seemed so happy and chilled out. :)

Most of the audience were dressed fancy - tuxedos and evening gowns. We were a bunch of 10 odd ex-IITians - synonymous for lack of dressing sense. Let me just say that we didn't quite fit in. :) The good bit about being an ex-IITian is that we also didn't really care.

Music - 8/10
Overall Experience - 8/10

Potter's Pub "Battle of the Bands"
Venue - Richmond, VA

One lazy Wednesday, me and my roomie wandered over to a local pub which has an annual "Battle of the Bands". It epitomised the state of rock in this country. There were more 40-something ex-rocker judges around than audience members.

One of the bands had TWO cute female guitarists - not something I have seen before. The music was above-average country rock, the atmosphere was chilled out, the beer was good. :)

Music - 6/10
Overall Experience - 7/10

Santana
Venue - Small town, MD

I walk into the concert stadium and something is different. I just can't put my finger on it. And then it hit me. There were women. Not the dressed-in-black, pierced-as-hell zombie types who frequent the concerts I normally go to, these were actual Latino babes. :)

The atmosphere was mind-blowing. Much younger than the Eagles concert and much, much more diverse. We had lawn tickets so we just lazed around with our beer as the opening band Los Lonely Boys played their music. Decent band, not my kinda music. When Santana, dressed as usual in his garish worst, got on stage the crowd exploded. These people worship him.

And when he got into the flow with the salsa beat, couples of all ages were salsaing all over the place. Far from the male, testosterone-driven rock concert atmospheres I was more used to, all I wanted that day was a cute chiquita to salsa with. Sigh!! :)

Music - 7.5/10
Overall Experience - 8/10

Deep Purple
Venue - Norfolk, VA

It was Austin Powers in reverse. From the moment we arrived it felt like we had gone back in time to the 70s. We get out of our car and the minivan next to us was purple and plastered with anti-war slogans and outrageous hippie colours and the owner had his/her name on the windscreen - Pearl. :) The crowd was mainly made of ex-hippies re-living their glory days with long hair and jazzy clothes.

The venue was an open-air arena on the seafront. We had great seats - some 40 feet from the performers, bang in the centre. The sea breeze and Deep Purple live right in front of you. :)

The atmosphere was very sentimental. The entire crowd sang along with a rendition of "Blowing in the wind". And when they performed a tribute to the people who died when the space shuttle Columbia crashed, you could see tears in so many eyes.

The only downer was that Purple only performed for about an hour and a half which put the Eagles marathon in perspective. The saving grace was that they had a great opening band which played for about an hour so that kinda made up for it. We hit a monster traffic jam (Norfolk is an island with only one bridge which connects it to the mainland) on the way back, so we got back home only around 3:30 a.m.

Music - 9/10
Overall Experience - 8.5/10

If music be the food of life.......... I sure am gorging. :)

In case you are wondering, the post is titled Part I because I have tickets booked for performances by Judas Priest, Dave Matthews Band, Mark Knopfler, Hootie and the Blowfish, Coldplay, U2, Megadeth and Dream Theatre. This is a summer I will never forget.

Old habits die hard

Note: You have to be familiar with the basic dynamics of softball and cricket to fully understand this post.

With the advent of summer, office sports is the new in thing and a softball league has been set up. A bunch of desis here at work decided that if they spent their entire childhood playing cricket, softball can't be too hard. Lagaan-style they got a team together and joined the league. Little did they realise that this was going to be a whole new ball game. :)

Practice was a premonition of things to come. Confused fielders vowing that they would field better if they took their gloves off. Americans trying to convince them that if they tried that they would re-arrange their fingers. Fielders throwing in the softball to the people at base... on the bounce. :)

The high point was however when R2, a goodish cricket batsman, came to the plate. His first time at bat. A clean hit and the ball goes flying. After the initial moment of shock, he starts running straight at the pitcher...... with the bat in his hand. :) The pitcher is petrified. People are clutching their stomachs laughing. Like they say, everything's cricket.

Oh and BTW the route might have been circuitous but he made it to first base :)

Things I have stumbled across

Work and the lack of internet at home has kept this blog inactive for a good while now. Here are a coupla things to read/hear this weekend. Will re-start blogging soon.

"Why so Pale and Wan?"

Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?

Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Prithee, why so mute?
Will, when speaking well can't win her,
Saying nothing do 't?
Prithee, why so mute?

Quit, quit for shame! This will not move;
This cannot take her.
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her:
The devil take her!

-- John Suckling

This is always worth a smile.

And if you have the time, download every.mp3 from

http://www.thesunscreenman.com/html/sonn0600.htm

It is the "Sunscreen" song :)

Enjoy!
Kram

Ac"corporat"ization

Corporate America prides itself on valuing it's diversity as well as it's tolerance. One inadvertent politically incorrect statement often means tumbling down the ladder. A common source of amusement to us corporates is to see newbies struggle with the rules of the game. And by far the most interesting location to see the drama play out is at the lunch table.

Newbie after the US election results: "Bush is such an idiot. I can't imagine why you would vote for anyone but Kerry!!"

Red-stater: "Kerry is worse than Hitler. More innocent souls have been murdered by abortion than during the Holocaust." :O

OR

Newbie trying to show some empathy for a colleague's country: "So what is the Taiwan-China diplomatic battle really about?"

Chinese colleague with a blank stare: "Taiwan does not exist. It is a part of China, not a separate country."

Hence, since every topic with even the slightest importance quickly goes off limits, the experienced corporate learns pretty soon that the only two things which are on the table at lunch are sports .......... and girls.

Yesterday at noon, six guys were sitting at a table and making random conversation. Coincidentally, 5 of them are single and bemoaning their lack of action. From SG (Single Guy) 1 who has resigned himself to a life without dating to SG2 who has had 1 date in the last year to SG3 who has had 12 dates with 7 different women in 3 months (without a single third date!!), we realised that our love lives were varied with the common theme of not getting any.

Just as silence descended on this scene of abject misery, SG3 gets a wistful look in his eyes and goes, "Man!! Things were so much easier in college."

And 5 voices shout, "Exactly".

The icing on the cake. SG4 quips, "Why do you think people stop working, give up the cashflow and go back to grad school? EDUCATION???"

Oh and in case you were wondering, I am SG1. Yes, I lead a miserable, single existence and am consoled by the fact that I am not the only one. :) And you wonder why I am up at 1:30 a.m blogging.

P.S: NO it is not to meet interesting women who might read this while doing random walks on the internet. Although that would be a fringe benefit I could do with. ;)

P.P.S: A quick clarification. Self is loserly enough to have had that train of thought (the one in the P.S) but not quite at the stage where the train of thought is the truth.

P.P.P.S: Friends have been telling me that I am trying to paint a "cool personality" on my blog. Now that this posting is done, I would like us all to take a moment of silence to acknowledge it's demise. :)

Which side of the fence do you sit on?

Unless you are very geeky, please do not read this posting. I do not want to be responsible for wasting your time. Please come back to this blog in a coupla days and God promise, Mother promise, normalcy will return. Also, NO MORE GEEKY COMMENTS ON MY BLOG. Please :)

In the comments section of my last post, Viral and Golu are arguing about whether negative numbers can be a part of a Pythagorean triplet. And since I was the one who started this whole thing in the first place, here are my tuppence.

Viral's POV mainly comes from the idea that the Pythagorean triplet concept came from Pythagoras and was w.r.t right angled triangles. However, in today's world, with math making time go backwards, Golu's idea of negative numbers in a Pythagorean triplet is not too far-fetched.

Now that I think about it, which side you are on in this argument might say a lot about you. Given that you are geeky enough to understand the argument that is.

If you think that negative numbers can be part of a Pythagorean triplet your fundamental instinct is mathematical.

If you think that the fundamental idea of the Pythagorean triplet comes from the historical caricature of a Greek guy in a toga drawing triangles in the sand, then you would say that your fundamental instinct is artsy.

Oh and just in case you have no idea what I am talking about, then too your fundamental instinct is artsy. :)

What say? :D

This will be my last geeky posting for a bit. The number of people who have started to call me a geek has alarmingly gone up. Damage control must be done. :)

One in a thousand

I never laid any claims to being normal. So it came as quite a shock when I took a geek test on the internet a month back and was rated "Average geekiness". Turns out all geeks play X Box and write open source code.

When I was a kid I had three library memberships. I was caught reading a book in class and sent to the headmistress's office. My headmistress came to my rescue saying that I did well in my exams because I read so much.

In my first year of college, I used to walk back from Hostel 10 to Hostel 3 every night @ 11 p.m reading a novel from streetlight to streetlight. I studied Electrical Engineering in college and now work as an analyst.

Every second Wednesday of the month I go to a scrabble club. I print out crosswords from the internet and carry them around in my pocket. Discussing a grad student's research on adaptive MRI scanning is normal conversation. I do NOT like to shop.

I swim 3 times a week and diligently note down my timings for 50 and 100 metres, the number of laps I swam and if that isn't enough, I plot graphs. I cannot cook without a recipe. I think Ph.D students are cool. :) I have had the same haircut for 6 years.

My first real mathematical proof was in the 9th standard. Every integer >= 3 can be expressed as part of a Pythagorean triplet involving other integers. And I remember thinking to myself that the girl I end up with should be able to prove this from first principle.

Fast forward to college. I was with a bunch of Xavierite friends one day when we were ordering pizza. And they figure that if 2 6 inch pizzas cost less than a 12 incher, they are getting a good deal - like, duh, do the math. And there I am foaming at the mouth, screaming Pi R square.

I blog.

When I see a spelling mistake, I Google for the various spellings and ponder on the results. I really hope for your sake that you don't know what I mean. A friend of mine types "an year". I google "an year" - 85 thousand pages. I then google "a year" - 85 million pages. And now I am thinking one in a thousand people gets it wrong. What symmetry!

There, it's done. Now, anonymous stranger, you know me for what I am. :) You decide.

Sometimes, I scare me.

Crushed

For years now, poets have waxed eloquent about the magic of falling in love - the first time your eyes meet, the skipped heartbeat and all that jazz.

What hogwash! When I am in a relationship, I can buy all that melodrama, but singleness tends to wear on you.

However, jaded as I am, there is one phase which is absolutely magical and I will always look forward to - the magic of "falling in crush". Sigh!

My first crush, like most first crushes was special. I was this geeky 12 year old who had just had a back fracture. The doctor insisted on 2 months of bedrest and 6 months with a back brace. Indian 12 year old boys don't really believe that there is life beyond cricket. And as an Indian 12 year old boy, my world had come to an end.

It was then that I really got to know her. Games of scrabble, intellectual discussions on comics, copying homework, (confession alert) playing girly games in the local playground and before I knew it, my best friend was, as unbelievable as it seemed, A GIRL!!

However, even backs heal and 13 year old Indian boys have to play cricket. We were still good friends but it almost seemed like a phase had passed.

And then she left town, just like that.

And I missed her.

Life goes on. 3 years hence, I was a dysfunctional teenager who knew next to nothing about girls.

And then, just like that, she was back.

Needless to say, I did nothing about it - dysfunctional teenager remember. 2 whole years of nothing. And out of the blue, it happened. A month before our 12th standard board examinations. It was a normal conversation. We were talking about hindi movies - being cool and 17 and dissing them. And then she said, "I saw John Abraham at the airport last week and he was my 5th crush in life." Before I knew it, I had popped the question - "So, who was your first crush?"

"You".

Sigh!