Tears of glory;
Tears of pain.
Contrasting people:
Some agonized, some insane.
Hatred, cruelty, destruction –
In the path of humanity, an obstruction.
Cries of anguish;
Cries of joy.
Playing with terror
As though a child’s toy.
Shattered, tortured, hurt hearts –
Terrorizing people, part by part.
Shouts of horror;
Shouts of cheer.
Horrifying the innocent,
Attacking peace with a spear.
Anger, retaliation, revenge –
The only sane way to avenge?
Smoke from blasts;
Smoke from fire;
With everyone in it together,
Peace had to retire.
Pain, horror, tears: the common trend.
Insanity, hereon, shall lead to the end…
*note: this is a poem I wrote a day after 9/11.
Behind the veils of injustice,
Do you feel, as do I?
Do you feel the passions, aches and needs;
Do you then feel humiliated, ashamed, shy…?
Do you see the blurry world outside
And sometimes, silently cry?
Do you look beyond yours,
Wish, hope, pray; then just heave a heavy sigh?
Do you feel the need to break free;
Do you want to sometimes fly…?
Do you sometimes look at you
And simply wonder: why…?
Do you sometimes wish that you,
Yourself could go real high?
Do you feel the lack of privacy,
The presence of someone always there to pry…?
Does life seem very unfair to you,
Does it appear awfully sly?
Do you feel you can help yourself;
At least give it a try?
Do you let it all get to you;
Let the tear escape your eye?
Hidden behind the veils of coyness,
Do you sometimes feel, as do I…?As a child, I always associated particular smells with the city I was in. We moved a lot, thankfully. Every new place I went to, I associated a smell with it. Seasons too. Every season has a smell…Delhi’s winters, Mumbai’s summers, Bangalore’s all-year evenings, Kuwait’s bone chilling cold, Budapest’s flowery June…
Every time I revisited that city in that season, I smiled. I related ‘where and when’ with the smells around me. As an adult, I thank childhood me’s curiosity for this gift I carry now.
The best part about winters in UAE is that I can finally associate smells to this country.
As I roll down the windows in my car, I take in what this city is made of. As I go through the last underpass on Sheikh Zayed Road towards Garhoud Bridge, I can hear the city buzzing and echoing – literally. The blaring music in my car is shushed by the zipping cars, screeching ahead, hazards flashing. I hear the slightest brakes being applied by trucks around me, as I cringe my nose trying not to inhale the ugly smoke they let out as they halt in the traffic. What does Sheikh Zayed Road smell like? Smoke. Metal. And finally, character.
I zip past the airport towards Khawaneej and hear the gentle roar of a flight about to land. A subtle gush of dust flies around me and I take I can smell the versitility of nature. I glance up, smile, and take it all in.
As I enter Sharjah, the smells around me become far more profound. As my C30 crawls ahead on Al Khan, I glance to my left. I smell grass, sometimes freshly cut, on the mini-hill asking me to smile because I’m in Sharjah. And involuntarily, my lips curve into a lopsided grin.
Rolla, smelling like tandoori chicken, shows me what it’s made of. My elbow on the ‘window sill’, if I may, and eyes all around, I see the transition that Sharjah makes from tandoori chicken to…well, manure. As I drive towards my house, the four lane road divided by a broad stretch of concrete screams to me in agony. And why not, when it is being overloaded with manure, forcing a man made chunk of land to suddenly turn fertile?
In a few months this smell will become more pleasant. The stench of manure will be taken over by a pleasant, flowery one.
Unfortunately, in a few months when I drive past the same road, all I’ll smell is my car.
With windows rolled up, the air conditioner on high, I’ll drive past everything around me, and miss out on all of UAE’s summer smells.
As is the law of nature, everything evolves. We evolved from monkeys – although some would contest that a few of us haven’t quite evolved all the way.
Regardless, as everything around us evolves, so must #AwesomeHandles.
Not so much in the handles themselves, but in the way I blog them.
It’s interesting. I was going through titles of my archived MS word copies of #AwesomeHandles editions (OCD? Yes.), and saw that I didn’t quite foresee this becoming a regular feature at the time. At least not in terms of the blog titles. The first one should’ve had some kinda “first” or “numero uno” kinda annotation or something of the sort. But it doesn’t. It’s very simply called: Twits and their #AwesomeHandles.
I did become a tad more, umm, shall we say perceptive? Yeah, I like that. It’s a 50 dollar word, at least.
So yeah, the next couple of rounds saw me being a bit more perceptive (*grin*) and titling them ‘Twits and their #AwesomeHandles – Second Edition’ and ‘Twits and their #AwesomeHandles – Third Edition’.
When I was formatting and reformatting my excel document with the fourth and fifth editions (yep, 14 handles down, 36 more to go for the next blog!) while I simultaneously updated the ‘Master List’ (one that has all #AwesomeHandles so far, arranged alphabetically), I said to myself, nah…this isn’t working.
What sounds more…what’s the word I’m looking for – futuristic! – what sounds more futuristic than just numbering out the editions? And that’s when I came up with this point-oh system.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present you with Twits and their #AwesomeHandles 4.0!
There it is - the first point-oh edition of #AwesomeHandles.
Like I said, 36 more to go for Twits and their #AwesomeHandles 5.0 to be blogged!
Think you have an #AwesomHandle or know of someone else who does? Drop in a comment below of send me a tweet (@silv3rglee) and I’ll put your recommendations on the next blog!
=)
So anyway, I’ll get to Axl and Bryan details in just a bit. But to start off, the month began with a lot of adrenaline and excitement over the crazy line up of artists. Creamfields, you say? Well, yeah, that too. But you see, for someone like me, Creamfields is equivalent to
or Kanye West
or even Justin Bieber.
That is to say that whist they might be fantastic musicians, and even the best in their genre, I don’t quite relate to their music.
I have nothing except the highest regard for these people for having achieved tremendous success in their careers doing what they’ve done. And they must’ve done something right to be where they are.
But yeah, no, doesn’t work for me.
This is just like when people turn around to me and say, “I’m not a big chocolate fan. In fact, I don’t even like it that much”. I know, right. Yeah, such people do exist. *rolling eyes*
Moving right along, then.
So yeah, to cut a long story short, Creamfields isn’t what got my knickers in a knot (I know it doesn’t fit, but I wanna use it! humph); it was two artists / bands playing on two consecutive days: Guns n’ Roses and Bryan Adams.
It all started when I accidentally spotted a tweet on Gn’R performing in Abu Dhabi. And the rest, well, wasn’t quite history. I was willing to do anything to get to Abu Dhabi on that fateful Thursday evening, but there was too much to consider. Organizing tickets, getting people together for the drive, the drive…oh man, the drive! And that’s when @dollz87 came to our rescue and agreed to not just organize the tickets for a few of us for the concert, but she agreed to drive us to and back from the concert. Bless her!
Now, some last minute SOS calls were being made by friends and some of their friends for tickets. Were there any left? “Could we get some?” “Just one?” “Is there place in your car to take us with?” “Yeah, just one” “Promise we’ll be there on time” “No no no, you won’t have to wait for us!”
And so on. =)
Finally, those who tried hard enough managed to get their tickets and on the fateful day of the concert, @pAaTsHaLa and I (@silv3rglee) met up with Ekta (@dollz87), Radhicka (@RadhickaKC) and Mel (he isn’t on twitter – gasp!!!).
Radhicka ditched us for her other girlfriends (*humph*) but no worries, we had a great drive into Abu Dhabi – with drinks and snacks in store. *wink* We were the lucky few that got parking on time. =)
We had a weeeee bit of an issue with our ticket cuz the morons who gave us the tickets had cut off the darn bar-code, but hey, we sorted that out and pushed our way right through. =)
Oh yeah!
\m/
Mel can't get that smile off his face!
From shy and sober I went on to...well, to what no words can describe!
The next batch of rockers showed up shortly, namely Surekha [@iyerina], Mithun, Minie and Vicky [@Vickyeda].
Deer and headlight moment for Mithun!
Woodstock, baaaaabie!
There's two of my most favourite people - Minie and Rohit!
Once the “OMG, I haven’t seen you in for-EVA” ‘s were exchanged, we got to venting our excitement! Well, our excitement was legit. The opening band had just finished and they’d announced our big boys were up next! So we stood there, screaming out and ‘oh-maaaaaan’-ing a ginormous list of songs we wished they’d play! Some of us felt they could’ve charged us extra to cover up the bribe amount to pay Slash for showing up.
Ok, so that was just me saying it over and over again. pfffft They could’ve at least tried.
Anyhow, as I was saying, we kept talking about how much we were gonna miss Slash, but hey, they’d still do November Rain, wouldn’t they? Sweet child? DUH! Live and Let Die? Not popular enough.
And so we went on and on and on.
But ya know what the darn icing on the cake was? They played EVERY SINGLE song on our list!!!
Axl doing what he does best - making me go week in the knees!
We managed to spot @Khaledtron , @mzaher , @metallicsmile at some point during the evening. =) How I wish we'd had the sense to take some pictures.
On second thought...naaah...it was better this way cuz booooooy did we scream and shout!
And we head-banged and air-guitared. We hugged each other and screamed out the lyrics. We drunk-dialed our friends who weren’t there and we sang to them. We jumped and spilled our drinks. We laughed, but we didn’t cry tonight. =)
C'est moi
As the end of the night inched closer, I turned towards Mithun and said these simple yet utterly honest words to him: Paradise City dude. That’s all I need to die happy. I promise you I will die happy.
And when Gn’R closed the night with Paradise City, I could’ve sworn I had one thought in my head: kill me, kill me now so I can die with this smile on my face. =)
Surreal? Oh yeah. =)
Whoever said Gn’R isn’t the same without Slash is, well, probably correct. But if that’s the reason you didn’t show up for their gig then ---> *points and laughs*
For me the night ended as soon as I got back into Ekta’s car. I passed out almost instantly. I slept through the drive from Abu Dhabi to Dubai and then from Dubai to Sharjah.
Big hugs going out to Ekta for driving us to and from Abu Dhabi…and another one going to Rohit for driving me home.
And another one going out to Mel for stealing that Gn'R flag for me. Man, I coulda never mustered up enough balls to do that.
Not this particular one, but a flag mounted on one such pole was what Mel grabbed for me!
You're my rock start! *muuuah*
Love you guys! =)
The night behind me, home and safely in bed, all that I remember next is waking up at noon the following day thinking I’d missed the Bryan Adams concert! *yikes*
But wait, I hadn’t.
*snicker snicker*
As I staggered out of bed, I had a smile plastered on my face. From last night. And for the night that was to come.
Bryan Adams, Bangalore. The first concert of my life. Ever. In the best city in the world. With the best set of friends. =)
Bryan Adams at Bangalore = no pictures.
Yeah it was long before we could afford cameras at college! Hell, when he played there, the world was still on a Nokia 3315 craze! =)
Oh…the nostalgia! =) Just the thought of going for his concert brought back oh-so-many memories. Memories of a time when there wasn’t anything sweeter than skipping college and sitting in Styx on MG Road, sipping on screw drivers, listening to music in it’s greatest element. At noon. =)
Yeah…those were the days. =)
As I left home with Rohit, I started coordinating with @PolarBent on how and where we were going to meet up. Inside the arena, it was decided! =)
Personally, I'd've preferred to be in the 'regular' area and not the VIP area. But hey, there's only so much you can do when you win VIP tickets on air! *giggle*
And as a very mature Rohit portrays here, there's nothing better than the feeling you get when you cut the queue to get to your seats cuz, well, you're a winner with VIP tickets. *wink*
We won VIP tickets - nanee nanee poo poo!
*eeeeeeeeeeeee*
As we gloated, the crowd outside was getting thicker by the minute. Tweets were flying around from @NikitaTJM @AkankshaGoel @presch stating that they were going to be there. While we tried to figure out where each of us was, I suppose we ended up cozy and comfy wherever we found the space.
Crowd starting to trickle in
Rohit and I managed to get Elham to leave her nice little cozy spot in the 4th of 5th row to join us back-benchers.
Aaaaand we go shutterbug crazy!
Bryan, you've got some seriously crazy women-fans in the audience! *tsk tsk*
And I couldn’t stop clicking pictures of her hair!
Elham's gorgeous hair!
We did run into some annoying bit of “oh you can’t be here because I said so and because I’m Security because that’s what it says on my shirt and because I can’t understand what you’re saying because that’s just the way life is” kinda nonsense. But nothing we couldn’t handle. Rather, nothing Elham couldn’t handle. *wink*
And then, just like that, Bryan came on and started playing…and boy did he play! There we were, back-benched during the concert, screaming, shouting and singing! And boy, were we singing! Every song…every stanza…we just couldn’t get those smiles off our face!
And when he played Summer of ’69 – yeah, clichéd, but boy did the entire arena go crazy or did they go crazy! =)
Where were you during the Summer of '69?
I got my phone out and made that much expected long distance call to Anamika. This song, like Sweet Child, had to be screamed on the phone. It was a given. Well, I’d’ve rather sung Heaven to her, but it didn’t kinda go with my mood of wanting to yell over the phone! =)
Cameras (and a few old-school Zippo's) in the air for 'Heaven'
Cameras (and a few old-school Zippo's) in the air for 'Heaven'
He sang his heart out and in the bargain, we ended up losing our voices!
Since I last saw him (perform) in Bangalore, he's gotten older. Much, much older. But I'd be damned if he didn't kill the stage that night!
You still turn the fire on, Bryan
And when he finally came around to singing 'Baby When You're Gone', I jumped and screamed and shouted my lungs out in the lamest ever attempt to get him to pick me to get on stage for that duet.
Like that was gonna happen! *sigh*
Plant or not, I must admit, that Jill girl from Goa did a fantabulous job at the song! Well done, you! =)
As Bryan finally walked off the stage and the lights came on, you could see people tucking their lighters back into their pockets, hugging their other half and walking out with satisfied looks on their faces.
The night ended with Nikita bringing a mile wide smile to my face when she tweeted:
“Shoutouts to @AkankshaGoel @silv3rglee @presch ! Although we couldn't meet, felt good to know you were somewhere in the crowd!”
And that, strangely enough, summed up those crazy couple of days.
The weekend wasn’t over yet! Another night, another day to go. And yet, nothing in store could compare to the last couple of days. Nothing.
And these are going in my collection - with Iron Maiden (Bangalore) and Aerosmith (Bangalore).
The year couldn’t have been ending on a better note. =)
They call this thing ‘writer’s block’
When words come out as a shock.
There is no rhyme scheme anywhere
And all I see is facial hair.
The thoughts are stuck, trapped and tied
And the beauty seems to have dried.
Not actually, for it’s just colder,
And I no more am the beholder.
The pen moves without any grace,
And of decent writing, there is not trace.
Spellings seem to go hay-wire
And I seem to quickly tire.
Eyes locked onto the pen and pad,
I feel immense gloom and sad.
When, oh, when will I write again
With that same feel and lots of pain?
This question today I cannot answer,
For as of now, I’d much rather be a dancer.
It’s been a while since I posted the last #AwesomeHandles edition. I'm through with two editions and this is the third of the lot!
Now, the thing is, if you haven’t read the other two editions – well firstly, why haven’t you?!? The links are right there! *pffft*
Anywhoooooo, in case you haven’t read the last edition specifically, you won’t quite know why this edition has only 40 entries. To catch up on the reasoning, read up here. =)
Also, the next editions will feature 50 handles each, making it a perfectly even number. And a multiple of 5. And 2.
Oh, just read the previous damn post already!
Now, as tradition holds, it’s time for shout outs to those who dropped in their suggestions and recommendations! My man @PremPiyush and my babe @md610 never fail to contribute, and not just contribute, but spread the word so other can contribute and then they drop in their suggestions, so technically, if there were any royalty attached to the recos, then these guys would be getting it! You get the drift. =)
So guys - big shout out to you both! *huuuuugs*
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand…here goes “Twits and their #AwesomeHandles – Third Edition”:
| 1 | @2morrowknight |
| 2 | @abeychup |
| 3 | @badinsomniac |
| 4 | @BeAGirl_Today |
| 5 | @behenchod |
| 6 | @blackrosegal |
| 7 | @blahssome |
| 8 | @BunnyMandala |
| 9 | @chootiya |
| 10 | @Cleverjackal |
| 11 | @complicateur |
| 12 | @ConfinedWisdom |
| 13 | @Decloned_Taz |
| 14 | @flamelily3 |
| 15 | @indigocat |
| 16 | @indigypsy |
| 17 | @jugni_on_acid |
| 18 | @NameFieldEmpty |
| 19 | @OhTeri_BhenDi |
| 20 | @overrated_me |
| 21 | @p_a_r_a_d_o_x |
| 22 | @PariahWisdom |
| 23 | @peachbiscuit |
| 24 | @punkster101 |
| 25 | @RaapChick |
| 26 | @Ramblinggeek |
| 27 | @rockstah |
| 28 | @saffrontrail |
| 29 | @sixtematik |
| 30 | @SoundofDementia |
| 31 | @TheSolutionBaba |
| 32 | @vSAMosa |
| 33 | @Your_Boss |
| 34 | @thejunebug |
| 35 | @raagwasgood |
| 36 | @MaidyCook |
| 37 | @Athingofjoy |
| 38 | @OldFunnyJoker |
| 39 | @itssotweet |
| 40 | @Shortpitched |
If you’re featured here then, well, bravo! =)
And if you aren't and want to be or know of others with #AwesomeHandles that aren’t featured in the first edition, second edition or this one, then drop in your / their handles in the comment box below, or lemme know on twitter (@silv3rglee).
=)
