Put your Hands Together..

Back in Manipal, while trying to salvage a degree, I happened to attend a lot of inter collegiate culturals. The participation was divided into two groups, one the geeky category which took part in the quizzes, pot pourri's, dumb charades and the like, while the alternate groups satisfied the senses by being part of the dance and the music performances. I am not divulging where I tread, but the highlight of these cultural fetes and a part I enjoyed the most were the rock shows/ battle of the bands as it was popularly known.

I am not a metalhead but I do believe I have a sound ear for music of different genres. A small bunch of us ( not many were fans and the rest had to get up for class the following day) made sure we stayed till the very end of these culturals when these rock shows were scheduled. Everything about the show amazed me, right from the sound checks to the final performances, taking it to a new level. Talent was in abundance and there were many a times when I have imagined myself on stage trying to be the next best thing in guitar history. Manipal had a number of bands who were exceptionally good and things kept getting better when bands from all over the state competed. As part of our own college culturals, we had Euphoria visit Manipal in 2002 and Shaan in 2003. I remember Euphoria's performance distinctly as they performed on my birthday. As part of the festivities early morning, my friends doused me with water and left me in my shorts and Tee's in a corner of the city, right when the band were performing their sound checks. Here I am, at 2 in the morning, wet and wasted, listening to Palash Sen and his guys perform their take on Collective Soul's Shine. I was never this charged for their concert that evening. Needless to say, Euphoria did not disappoint. Right from AR Rahman's vande mataram to Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water interspersed with their own hits, It was worth the 100 Rs paid for the tickets.

Watching ROCK ON this weekend took me on this trip down memory lane. The movie itself is a fine watch and has much more to say than just about a band's rise, fall and resurrection, and I would love to talk about it soon. This little trip that I ventured into had a lot of my college buddies, trying to squeeze through every possible gap while inching towards the podium, moving to the riffs and the drum beats and showing off our half baked knowledge of music. In short, we were having the time of our lives..even though it might have lasted a little over 15 minutes and three songs.

On a different note, I have missed doing a lot of things that I love and I will be making up for most of them soon. I just got started.

Driven!!

What drives you?

I have woken up a lot of mornings with this persistence in my head,spent hours trying to find the easy way out, but of no avail. For a period of time, there were only questions, no answers. When I get up tomorrow, the familiar feeling will be back, but I hope to salvage some pride.

The ball is in your court. Tell me what drives you.