Metal God seen live

Since I didn't book the ticket online, I didn't even know that I would make it inside. But, where there is will there is a way and as soon as I reached Hammersmith few blokes were selling tickets in black. I enquired the cost which started with 100£ and on some bargaining came down to 50£. I was surprised with such steep haggling especially in the UK, but I didn't bother buying even at this price. I bought GA ticket for 45£(original cost being £43.5), but I was worried if this ticket is actually authentic? When I reached the gates, the bar code reader took quite long to validate the ticket, which was making me a bit nervous. But Wohoo!!! I was inside! I went inside the auditorium, which is an indoor one much like O2 arena in Brixton. There were not a lot of people inside when I reached, so I managed to get as close as 2-3 feets from the main stage. The band performing at the time was "Kobra and Lotus ", to be frank I have never heard about the band. The lady singer was singing with high pitch screams , bit too loud and shrilling for my taste(or may be it was the sound system?). Anyway, I was very hungry, so I went out searching for food. While having my sandwich I noticed that crowd was bit older and more alternatively dressed compared to the most gigs I have been to. There were people in 40s, people with a lot of tattoos and people with lot of metal jewellery and leather clothing. But I was not surprised this is what Judas are associated with anyway.

As I returned back this band finished its performance, and the stage was being reorganized for the next band. The next band to perform was the Saxon, this band is contemporary of  the Judas and these guys had preformed together for quite some time. The band was being cheered well and surprisingly by a much younger crowd. The band was pretty tight and performed about 10 songs, sadly I haven't heard any of them before. The band offered choice to crowd between two songs, but it was hard to make out what crowd actually chose. Saxon also made an announcement that they will be at the Download, there were few hands in air when they mentioned the Download. So, It's apparent that I am not the only dude obsessed with metal mayhem. Saxon finished with a great cheering from the crowd.

And now the stage was covered with epitaph curtain, while the band crew was setting up the stage. The crowd started screaming and some dude started the chants "Priest!!! Priest!!!", which didn't lasted as long as you would expect.  The feel around the place was very electrified with metal crowd getting closer to the stage and entire floor was getting crowded. The lights went off and they started playing "War pigs", crowd started singing along the war pigs. Inspite of being fully aware of  the gig rituals, It was stil very exciting and I was  anticipating some surprise. The bright halo at the Devils fork on Epitaph screen was getting prominent while the curtain was removed to reveal the entire crew. My eyes stopped right at Rob, who was wearing sunglasses and a long jacket with so much metal attached to it that it would even make the most brootal scandanavian band feel like a little girl. Rob was singing far from the crowd and facing sidewise to the stage, which is little unusual for most front men. The new guitarist Richie Faulkner was right in front trying few guitar antiques. I was trying to find the Guitar lord Glenn Tipton, who at that moment was modestly playing on right hand side. The background screen was showing British Steel while they were playing "Rapid fire" as the opening number. The song ended with Rob's signature high pitch scream. The second song "Metal god" followed immediately. It took me a while to recognize the song and I started singing along.  With every scream the sound goes louder when the chorus goes "Meeeetaaaaaallllllll god!!!".

Now Rob start talking about Judas priest style heavy metal, the crowd screams "fuck yeah!!!". Rob was now wearing a denim jacket for the next song which crowd sang along with him for the most time" and we are heading out to highway and I got nothing else to lose". While faulkner was soloing, Rob  stood next to him sticking his tongue out, lol. The background screen changed to "Angel of retribution" and faulkner started a great lead while Glenn Tipton stood in his typical metal rocking style. The screen this time went animated with a lot of lightening while crowd chorusing for "judas rising". The next song they played was from album sin after sin called as "Starbreaker", which I have never heard before. Rob's dress changed pretty much with mood of song and this time he was wearing shiny long coat and boots with cowboy spurs. The trio of rob, richie and glenn stood right at the front edge of stage while Ian hill was pretty static in his right hand corner.

The classic infamous double lead kicks off the next song "victims of change" from album "Sad wings of destiny".  In the middle of the song Lord Tipton performs a  face melting solo. The song lasted over 11 minutes and drummer Scott Travis was doing his stick in the air thing while beating snare brutally. And crowd was going "ho ho hoooooooo" with the chorus I raised both my hands in the air showing devil horns, I was completely spellbound. The song ended with signature screams and each beat followed a dry ice bursts from the stage.

The next screen change was for Rocka Rolla, the first and my fav Priest album. I was very excited thinking they will play either of the first two songs, but instead they played "Never Satisfied". It's a very classic metal track and I was not expecting it to sound heavy. Rob Halford starts talking about this song which they try to do it differently every time meanwhile the stage was set for an acoustic or unplugged song. Richie Faulkner started with the acoustic guitar without percussion and Tipton providing some basic rhythm. Later Travis played only the high hats and tom tom while rotating the drum sticks with fingers and throwing them up in air. They were playing cover of Joan Baez's Diamonds and Rust. Later a full lead guitars and heavy metal drumming kicks in, the transition was amazingly smooth. I tried to sing along with the rob, but it's hard keeping up with master. The next introduction was from the album "Nostradamus" called as dawn of creation followed by the actual song "prophecy", for the most part I can only hear the word "nostradamus!!!",  I was staring at the 3-D spherical Nostradamus display most of the times. At the end of the song, Rob was dressed in full Silver color cloak holding the Judas' devil's tuning fork and sparklers were set off from this trident. It was Spectacular!!! 

Now stage have two Judas Priest's devil fork on each side, the song was sounding astonishingly familiar but I couldn't recall the lyrics at the moment. Felt like killing myself for being so unprepared for the concert. Richie Faulkner directed the crowd to put hands in the air, while Rob Halford was going on with a voice over. The ambience for the song was red lighting with focus on forks with yellow halo. I realized by now the song is called Night crawler from Painkiller.  I must admit metal crowd is pretty amazing, there was this older(compared to me) couple standing next to me. This dude picked up the Nepalese girl up on his shoulder because being short she was struggling to see anything on the stage. Such generosity and spirit makes metalheads pretty fucking cool. Although turbo is not a great song, but lets face it, it's an easy song to remember and crowd loves it. The dude standing behind me was not pleased by it, but I sang my heart out with the song.

Rob now talks about classic heavy metal and it's origin in UK, to which there was a big "woooo"  from the audience, he then kicks off next song beyond the realms of death. The song starts with slow tempo and picks up with a lots of fast riffs and beats, with quite a lot of variation in tempo. Rob  was sweating  heavily, so he stood near to those dry ice vents, lol. The song ended with all three guitarists doing judas style headbanging stand, just fucking unreal. I have completely lost my mind in this great series of freaking amazing songs. The next song was something I always dreamt of watching live. The amazing opening riff by Glenn Tipton and following lead by Richie Faulkner was just directly hitting the center for madness in my brain. I was singing and headbanding like crazy with every riff and every beat. Sworn to avenge, condemn to hell, tempt not the blade.. fear the sentinel.............. Rob halford, ladies and gentleman is greatest heavy metal vocalist of all times, period. There are very few who can sing like him, though he is not his prime, but for the most part he is still godly good. I was too busy headbanging and showing devil horns as a mark of my gratitude, I didn't bother to look at the stage.The next song they played was from album "Ram it down", the song is called "blood red sky", I was resting my neck after the mayhem from the previous song. This song is comparatively milder even the vocals are in lower octaves. The great vocal prowess of Rob halford is very noticable in this song, he continues to amaze even at this frequency. Faulkner on the other hand kept crowd engaged with his guitar antics. The song ended with a lot of fire coming from vents on stage, This was my first show with any pyrotechnics and being quite close to stage, I can feel the actual heat. The stage now turned  to green and Rob starts talking about the Judas performing in 37 countries and for over million fans and he thanked Priest's amazing heavy metal fans calling them the life support of band. The next song was cover of Macwood Fleet's Green manalishi. The crowd was screaming along "oooooo ooooooo ... " with halford as he asked everybody to sing.

The display screen changed back to British steel, Halford started talking about the great heavy metal journey of NWOBHM bands like Maiden and Motorhead. With each name there was increasing uproar in the crowd. Rob then walks with a badass-style thumping the micstand on the stage. And the next thing you know is... shouts of "Breaking the law" and repitition of "breaking the law" for many times. As soon as the guitars riffs and drums kick in the crowd goes nuts, entire fucking song is sung by the crowd, not a single word by Rob Halford. This is one of the most amazing heavy metal anthems and this was a great moment to witness it live with the home crowd. BUT BUT, this was not it, Judas were on the killing spree, the Drum solo by Scott Travis was easy to recognize by it's pattern and I knew what is coming next. Scott travis is an insanely talented drummer who is not so widely known. For a minute I thought he was a new drummer, since he looks quite young. 4 minutes of amazing drum solo which would soon convert into one of the greatest song ever written in the history of heavy metal. Oh the great opening riff which I have heard countless times and insane drumming followed by Rob Halford's high pitched vocals... Faster than a bullet, terrifying scream.... This is the pain killer..... I was banging my head violently, while there was a mini most pit somewhere on my right.  Again, I was too busy headbanging, so I didn't bother to look up except for that skull blasting Glenn Tipton solo, which is pretty much faster than the bullet(pun intended).  What a great rush for every milisecond that my brain can resolve in each and every note. This was turning out to be most awesome set list I could imagine.

Entire band left the stage besides the drummer, who asked everyone to chant "Judas Priest", this was the first encore to the show. The band resumed with next song "Electric eye" with Hellion intro. The screen displayed an animated eye looking at the crowd while crowd sang in unison. The song finished with Travis going berserk with drums and Richie Raising his guitar in air. Fuck Fuck Fuck!!! Rob halford comes back with his bike on stage engine roaring...vroom vroom vroom, which could mean just one thing. Glenn Tipton plays 1 minute engine firing leads followed by the distortions from wah-wah padels. This day couldn't get any better. Rob Halfords starts singing Hell bent... hell bent for Leather with a leather stick in hand and fully clad in leather clothes. And again, there was a small mosh pit forming just next to me, I was quite stuck to avoid the most pit but luckily the mosh pit didn't quite reached near me. I was exhausted to the point that I have to stop to breathe while singing along, but it was such a great thrill. Richie faulkner was playing guitar with teeth and hitting the guitar on wooden steps, while Glenn touched his guitar to the ground and started jumping with it, ha ha! As the song finished Glenn came forward and raised guitar towards the crowd and I Bowed with double devil horns towards him as part of my respect to my favourite guitarist. I thought may be this is the end of the show, but crowd was not moving at all. Rob returned back with his classic biker hat still on and started singing "hey  hey" while audience sang with him. He continued this 2 minute long audience vocal warm up, What a great showman!!! and what a great command over the crowd. The next song they played was "you have got another thing coming" from "screaming for venegence". The song halted at about 3 minutes and turned into  richie faulkner's 4 minute epic solo. I must admit he is fitting into gaint shoes of KK downing very well and that too in his own style. Rob returned with union jack wrapped around shoulder while singing ... you got another thing coming... in baritone ranges, while audience echoing the line.  

While this was the first time Ian Hill came forward throwing guitar picks and Scott Travis giving drum sticks to a fellow from audience. Other members left the stage, but for the last encore Scott Travis went upto the drumset and started talking in his american accent about the DVD for this concert. The crowd started clapping with drum beats. The troupe returned back with another classic from British steel. This time the background changed to Judas priest united and Rob Halford was wearing denim jacket with Metal God written on it, how fucking appropriate!!! The crowd sang most of the song.... living after midnight rocking to the dawn.... then I am gone..... I sang as much as can since by this time I was exhausted to the limit. As the song finished band gathered together and Rob halford came with his badass walking stick with a motherfucking skull. The band bowed toward the crowd. I was clapping with both my hands in the air.  Entire auditorium was chanting "Priest" "Priest" "Priest". Rob halford stayed for a while along with the chants and made a saluting gesture towards the crowd. I had no idea weather this is the real end or not. But as soon as the auditorium lights were on and another non Judas' song started playing on speakers, I started walking with the crowd. I sms'ed one other Judas' devotee that this is the best fucking heavy metal concert I have ever attended. I was so tired and hungry, but the sound was still resonating in my head. Probably this will not die any soon as I am heading next to Download festival. \m/

From Profile Photos

A walk in Camden town

It has been a while since Sapota had a rack of Black Tshirts and NOW is the good time to revise the lost glory of metal days. Since the Festival is coming in few days, It's high time to start getting in the mood. So Sapota found about "Camden town" as one of the places to find stuff related to as-they-call-it "alternate fashion". We started strolling in the place somewhere in the afternoon. It all looked like a place where sapota assumed would find cheap T-shirts and pendants, which he was looking for. Manish was there just for the company, he didn't have any plans to buy stuff, but that would eventually change. While the skull rings and pendants were about 15£ onwards, the Tshirt market was more reasonable.
We started looking at Tshirts with guitars and dragons and skulls and ganja leaves, which were moderately priced from 10£-20£. Manish immediately made up his mind to get a Big bang theory Tshirt. While as usual, sapota was zeroing the places which can be visited again. The best Tshirt sapota found was Slayer Tshirt, which he will eventually buy, but hey, we never carry cash!!!

Next we moved out of Tshirt market and went to shops where sapota brought a jacket, which was not the plan for the day, but the salesman was pretty good and he made it sound like a great deal. Now we moved to places where we can look at the bongs and other smoking equipment, some of them was pretty wicked and some have multiple filters. Manish ended up getting something called as "black mamba", which is new stuff for him. As we moved further, there was a small market around the river( or lake?) with scooter like seating arrangement. As soon as we entered the market the turkish lady was selling something similar to parantha but with feta cheese. The food was delicious, we spent some more time strolling around food place and got smoothies for ourselves. There were a lot of different cuisines to try out, but mostly it was all street food and it was rightly priced. There were a lot of different kinds of jewellery but mostly gothic or punk stuff. We then went into this gothic shop, which has one of the most amazing collection of gothic stuff. Sapota found two good Tshirts, one gojira and one messugah, but the price was too high in comparison to the fact that same stuff can be bought from internet for much lesser. The highlight of the shop were sales people, who were completely dressed in full gothic costumes.  
The market was flooded with leather stuff, rock merchandise, black corsets and leather pants and similar stuff. There were some more shops of antiques, interiors decors, painting and other stuff. We were going around very fast to cover as much as we can, but we couldn't see other place. Manish was specially happy at this place and want to visit it again and sapota agrees. We returned back to Tshirt market after the visit from ATM to buy Ganja and Slayer Tshirt. We also checked out the equipment which was made up of a police mask(the one you see in apocalyptic movies), we couldn't buy that stuff due to it's awkward size and difficulty of carrying it with us.
Out of all places in London, sapota highly recommends this place as worth visiting which includes food, the general feel and shopping. The day was quite eventful, but sapota, while returning home saw three people dressed as Batman, Wonder Woman and Batgirl(most likely) wondering if day could have been any more eventful than this?

An Overwhelming night with Opeth

I have always obsessed with finer details when I have to go for the concert and made elaborate plans for entire thing. The idea of missing a concert due to any number of circumstances gives me a cold feet. While I came to know that Opeth are playing at O2 academy on this very Friday, It occurred to me that I may be able to attend this. On wandering a little online, it was clear that I would be able to get tickets on the gate or I can still book on-line. There is something about a rock concert which makes you plan it and there is some kind of preparation which gets you into the right mood for metal concert. I was little indecisive on this one since I have to return back to my city late at about Sunday midnight and as always there are safety concern regarding roaming at night in London. And to be frank I had zero preparation to attend a gig by The Opeth. Anyway, my confused mind decided "what the heck", lets do it.

So I quickly made it to the venue, which was not hard to spot and purchased a ticket quickly by cash. Reaching to O2 academy was not really much of an effort and nothing interesting happened until I purchased the ticket. There were few people queuing at the gate, others were just hanging around the venue casually. So, I thought lets go somewhere to eat or take a stroll. I was very happy until this moment, and that is when everything went wrong. I was thinking of keeping my ticket from back pocket of jeans to somewhere in front jacket, but I couldn't locate the ticket, my heart almost stopped beating at this point. I was going like "no way dude, you cannot loose it", its one of the times when you remember god, no matter how rational you are, times like these make you loose your shit. I was extremely angry on myself and then I started looking for ticket around. Couple of guys were selling tickets around those area, now I do not want to allege anyone of anything, but it seems to me that its possible that one of these guys nicked it from my back pocket, as it was quite easily visible. I tried searching and I talked to the people at ticket counter, but there was nothing which could be done at this moment. This is where my engineering senses started kicking in and telling me to get a good bargain and save the money, you have already paid 20£ why again? So while I stood up in the line, I was looking for those guys who sell ticket and luckily(don't want to use this word at this moment) I found a bargain for 15£, which is not bad, but I lost my tickets so I was still  a fucking loss.

Anyway, I decided to join the line, but bloody hell, line was so long, it was about a mile or so. Finally when I was standing in the line, the cops were frisking an african male for something and everyone was looking at it. Now line kept moving, until I reached about 100 meters from the venue, it started getting chilly and I put my hoodie on. For some reason, I was asked to stepped out of the line by the cops for frisking, which made me panicky all of sudden. Clearly, it was racial profiling and the cop said that they were looking for guy in grey jacket, which is funny since no one wears a grey jacket to a rock concert besides me, of course. And he tried to act funny and crap, but it was my fault to put on hoodie in London and wear a grey jacket. I tried explaining him that I am not from here and its hard for me to bear this kind of cold. This event almost ruined the night for me as it kept haunting me entire time. I was repeatedly replaying the entire event in my mind to figure out what all did I do wrong here? and it was hard for me to keep a cool head about it.
Anyway, I made inside the gig venue, there were two levels in O2 academy, I was in standing circle and there was some kind of seating arrangement at upper level. To be frank, who the fuck sits on a chair in a metal concert? I mean if people were buying tickets for such arrangement at metal gig, they should rather sit home and watch corrs or something. Anyway, venue was great, inspite of being enclosed, I didn't have any concerns for sound to be frank, I know they would have done their homework properly unlike India. The stage was well lit and there were these banners and drum kits, which were covered by some kind of cloth. I was not sure why the stage has such strange arrangement since it looked like some kind of obstacle course.
So by 8 pm, the stage went dark and this was the time when you know the band will appear on stage.  So I heard that familiar sound, ah the sounds from a live snare and distortion of metal guitar, great feeling of metal nostalgia. I have been hungry for live metal music for more than a year now. It punches a big hole through my heart that I have missed Cradle of filth, Lamb of God, BIG Four, motorhead and Gojira, all of them were at pretty much reachable, but life played a cruel trick with me. I wont say that this band( which appeared on stage next) was particularly a bad band, but it was not the kind of band, I would have spent my energy on, call me what you want, but I was here to see Opeth. I have enough gig experience to know when not to do rituals and save energy, but today this dry patch of metal in my life was taking its toll and my body was automatically responding to every beat and every riff. The band that performed next was called Pain of Salvation from Sweden.  Initially my mind wanted to believe that this be Opeth because I don't want to wait. But they played a pretty tight set of songs. The lead singer was also playing mix of lead and rhythm with some acoustic guitar thrown in. The drummer was pretty tight. Vocalist said couple of time "they did not fuck up on stage, so they wont do it this time as well". It was pretty interesting to watch them as I read about them, there are around for a long time now but they are not so popular.  However they put up some ass kicking guitar solos and then a good drumming solo for very small period of time. I guess this crowd was bit of a mixed crowd so they would have made few fans here.
After they leave, the sound engineers and other people started uncovering opeth posters and the wall now have a big art form their latest album heritage, you can read about the artwork and album here. And these guys were testing drum kits and putting in plectrums in mic stands and some guys were testing the guitar processing unit. It took them about 10-15 minutes to finish it off. And the stage went dark again, and I was having this chilly feeling which you get due to too much excitement.  This time the crowd seem to be getting a little denser, the italian chick standing ahead of me seemed to be little lost in all this. So Opeth made an entry in dark with their opening number form new album called as "The Ghost orchard" frankly speaking I didn't recognize that song since I have not heard their new album at all. But the sound of a progressive metal band is so distinct that you immediately attach yourself with it. And crowd was getting into the metal zone: headbanging, smell of weed, air guitar, devils horns, screaming and howling was complementing the great music which was playing. Mikael Akerfeldt, the lead vocalist was wearing a red Tshirt, after first song, he introduced the band and shared usual pleasantries with the crowd. Next song they played was "I feel the dark". This song is one of the most amazing song I have heard, Micheal Akerfelt's vocals are amazing on this song. The song is very typical example of varying time signatures used by opeth. The song ends with an amazing echoing voice.
So now Mikael starts talking about "how he want to see some singing with next song and want to see some breasts", lol. And then he says that can't help it he is a dirty old man and don't worry you all will get there, gosh I love this man's sense of humour.  He said next song is from album "still life", which made me little happy since I knew the next song will be "Face of Melinda" and I know this song a little better than previous ones. I must admit, they rendered live pretty tightly, given the nature of music achieving such level of accuracy is work of art. New guitarist Fredrik akerson is pretty amazing, his guitar solos on all three songs were spot on. My hands went up in air and showed my respect with devil horns and my head banged throughout entire song
The next song blew away my mind completely, this time they played "porcelain heart". The guitaring was fucking insane and then the song finished with a epic drum solo followed by another crazy face melting guitar and drum combinations with double bass and blast beats thrown on and off. The crowd was roaring and whistling and clapping simultaneously, it was a life time experience. Its not often the metal heads clap, but bloody hell this crowed rocked no matter what it did.
Then Mikeal talked about the whereabouts of each and every member of band, guess most of the band is from Stockholm, except for one guy who is from some village in Sweden.The next song they played was napthene from their new album Heritage, the song starts with very gentle riff and then drums starts progressing slowly and Mikeal started singing. And then there is complete transition with keyboards thrown in,and song picks up speed and then slows down again. The colours on stage started changing with the riffs and drums, its was site worth witnessing, beats and transition was hitting every cell in your brain, enhancing the senses.
As soon as the song finished, the set up of stage started changing and I knew that this is time for some acoustics mixed with metal sound. This is something which you will see rarely in metal concerts. Now Mikeal starts talking again, this time he says that this song has no standard structure and this may take may fuck it up a little and he then says "would you guys be okay if we fuck it up a little", crowd screamed in agreement. To which he responded "good, because we don't give a fuck anyway", and there was giggles and laughs all round. He said this song is part of sound track of God of war to which crowd responded with uproar. The song "throat of winter" was really a bit unusual but it was pretty good song and his guitaring skills are pretty amazing even on acoustic guitars. He then started strumming "faith by George micheal", and crowd responded to it by singing with it, that is when he literally did *FACEPALM* and says you guys suck, lol. He then started to introduce Akerson again by telling that his guitar has 12 motherfucking strings, I gasped in awe by the idea of 12 string on an acoustic guitar. I raised my hand to show my respect by showing devil horns. The next song they performed was  credence, oh the sweet familiar riffs and a great opening.  My entire body was enthralled by the great ambience that this song has created around me.
And then before you could recover from this song, the next song came flying right at you and hit you with such a force. Oh my god, this is probably the song I was waiting to hear live. Every fucking note resonates in my mind, the closure is probably one of the greatest song sung by opeth and its hard to describe the epicosity of this great song. My headbanged for entire song and the visceral vocals of Mikeal were intoxicating "In the rays of sun, I am longing for the darkness" leading to epic drum and guitar solo, man I felt totally out of this world, the moment was something which you can never forget.
As the song stopped Mikeal started talking about his friend from katakonia and stalker dude who took his picture and thought it was him. he says he wont mind lady stalker, but not dudes (ha ha). Next song they played was slither, which was good song, but I was still under the influence of previous song. This song was fast liked speed metal with some great riffs. Then he talked about the year he was born, it was the time when sabbath released their 5th album and asked the crowd if anyone born in that year, I guess only 2-3 people were of same age as him. He than talked about Ronnie James Dio(\m/ respect) and asked "how many people like him", and there was uproar in crowd devil horns in air. He then said that he is biggest fan since he as coffee with him, which he later said is not the reason to be his biggest fan, but he then dedicated this song to Dio which was A fair judgement. Indeed a great song for a great man, respect to Mikeal and Dio.
After finishing this song he started strumming again and this time he sang with it "shit cock anus", it was absolutely funny. And some bloke made some random comment on that to which Mikeal was like, "shut up man" and thus creating more laughs.  He then played some riffs from other band and talked about Whitesnake, the crowd responded to this song with more screaming. The song I think was "Slow and easy", they played some intro before they break into full blown metal mayhem that is called a Hex  Omega. The song has characteristic heavy drumming with a lot of metal guitaring, the lights on stage were again flipping with different colors. Mikeal Akerfelt has amazing voice and he does high pitch singing so well, its mesmerizing. But, he didn't do any songs with growls, which is my only complaint against this concert. The Guitar solo on this song were pretty sick, I was totally awe stuck .
Now they started thanking the crowd and bowed down and went back.
This is an epic crowd, so it did what it does best, started shouting and chanting opeth opeth opeth, the time for an encore. It was funny when crowd started shouting 10 more songs after encore and Micheal blew them apart by shouting back "10 more pounds", it was absolutely hilarious. He then started talking about this entire encore thing and "how its a little game we all play". Man, this dude is amazing on so many levels, I am in total awe of him. The next song they played was Folklore, the starting of this song is very much like a folk song, as told by Mikeal that its a swedish tune. With heavy heart I have to walk out of this song, I cannot believe that I was walking away from 7 more minutes of face melting music. Something I have never done before and I felt like a sinner to walk away in middle from the lords of progressive metal. With each heavy step, I walked towards the gate and then music completely disappeared. I pulled my self back to run towards the underground to catch the next train back to my accommodation. I felt so empty that entire time until I sleep, Every moment of concert was replaying in my head and I wanted it not to stop. This concert has triggered my hunger for more metal, but I have to wait until next year for some real music, until then the emptiness of live metal will be surround me.

the cynical connection

Sapota do not care about these terms or putting him self in one of these categories, But for sake of knowing new words he do familiarize himself with these terms once in a while.
So the question here is "is sapota cynical?"
Well, not really, he is not there yet.
Does he want to be a cynic?
No not at all, but is it really a choice?

 Here is the thing, from the outset he was never anything closely related to cynical and he tries hard even today not to be one. But as he knows more about the world and as he interact more with the world it grows. Its a sad thing that it cannot be escaped, he will be a bigger cynic in coming future.
he does not want to assume anything about anyone's motive, but finding inherent good in others and pursuing that belief is becoming harder and harder day by day.

The intelligent school of thought says its good to be informed than to be betrayed. But when Sapota looks back at younger people or people who do not know the dirty secrets of the world, they seem to be blissfully in love with the world. Whereas the so called know-it-all are grumpy and skeptical even about the simplest of the  things.
The other day sapota was talking to someone younger to him in age and she talked about oprah, and good philanthropist work of Oprah. And sapota just went on his usual rant on how its about business and be-fooling everyone. He has not researched about the stuff much because he doesn't really care about it. But in popular culture, she is often joked about as being uptight and glamorous. Perhaps, there is a lot of good charity work at the core of all this. But, sapota simply wont be absolutely convinced of anything. And that is when she(the friend) pointed out that sapota is just being cynical. Not that sapota was not aware of this change which slowly taking place, he was unprepared for this and he was a little awakened by it.
We have our own sense of maturity and being responsible and we tend to forget the great things about life. No one is absolutely good or bad, but we base our decision on 1 bad deed of other person and just paint the entire resume with it.
Sapota tries very hard to maintain his "look everything with good in it" perspective and don't question the underlying motives, don't try to read between the lines and don't try to over analyse it. But with one bump on this road, he immediately puts on his cynical goggles on and see everything with question marks in it. Everyone says you can not live life and be successful if you act simply on what you see, you have to dig deep. Whereas digging deep is not necessarily bad thing, but what are we looking for? And in honesty, with the cynic glasses sapota doesn't look for treasures, he looks for skeletons.
Is this behaviour unjustified, is this just overdoing it? well, no. Sapota have seen a lot of so called beliefs shred to pieces, the people who appeared to be saints turned out be devils. The falseness of this world is so monstrous that until unless you are deep rooted with your firm beliefs, you will be absorbed. You have to weigh everything and perform a quality check on it.
To sapota cynicism is merely a word and he wants it to remain that way, if it touches him, he will be unhappy. What will it bring to him? supposedly it can be a good companion for survival, but it will make him miserable. It will feed you, but you will remain unsatiated.

Wolverine or Magneto

Its a futile to even think about killing Wolverine. And its stupid to think he will die, Until unless you are Lord Magneto. For many years Sapota has been a Logan fan, to the extent that he sometimes poses with the imaginary claws and call others as "bub". Sapota's interest rose from the movies, he haven't read any comics until recently. So Hugh Jackman had been the logan,the badass which initially was face of Wolverine. On the other hand, Sir Ian Mckellen is very impressive, but he gives no competition to wolverine as Magneto. Though in second movie when he lifts the entire bridge, its one of the most impressive moment in the history of comic book movies. For many years wolverine( jackman's persona) was the cool one, the hero with the attitude, magneto was still under his shadow. Though Sapota knew that wolverine got nothing on magneto even in the series. Magnus( in movie) told logan that he better stay away because he can destroy logan without a thought.
Now the next series sapota came across was xmen evolution a teenage take on xmen. In this series logan is even a much bigger badass. For the first time it felt jackman can't capture the total awesomeness of wolverine. At the same time magneto appeared to a much stronger character and much much poweful mutant. Entire team of Xmen is useless against this one mutant. He is much much wiser and have leader ship capabilities and intelligence rivalling of professor xavier. Logan on the other hand is troubled mind single dimensional killing machine personality. Though he is a shrewd fighter a total badass, but not much of a character which will inspire a lot of awe to everyone.
As sapota watched the good old original awesome series of 1992, that is where entire perception of xmen is altered. That is where you meet the most awesome of Magneto and much better logan. Logan have a lot of personality conflicts and a lot of issues with his past. He is still the same ruthless maverick who just throws himself at any danger without caring much about himself. Even in this series logan have a very little personal life, its widely known that he had major love interest in Jean. Unlike Xmen movies, scott is not some pansy boy, here he is pretty much the leader what xmen should have. Magneto on the the other hand have an aura of someone like a president of a country. He is awe inspiring, he motivates people, he calls mutants as his children. On top of everything his mutant abilities are way beyond most other mutant.
When sapota read polls from wizard magazine magneto was rated best villain and wolverine as best hero. As much as sapota loves wolverine, he still don't think wolverine is the best hero ever. Besides he is pretty much an antihero.
To discover more, sapota read House of M, Deadly genesis, Messiah complex and other related comics. The awesomeness of Magneto kept increasing with each comics. Its strange thing that most series sapota have came across are more related to magneto. But one one the biggest conclusion(which may be partial) is that Magneto is much more of three dimensional personality as compared to wolverine.
Magnetos skills and capabilities are on much much larger scale. He even have three ultra powerful kids. Wolverine commands a respect of lot of fellow mutants, but Magneto is worshipped by an entire country of mutants. His tactical, strategic and diplomatic moves are much ahead of any other mutant, even charles is not that shrewd to command an entire race of human beings. Magneto is driven by the philosophy and motivations much much bigger than any of his personal reasons. Though Erik has horrible past, but he has turned his rage and anger into creating a dream not just for himself but for entire homo superior. But, What makes logan a lovable character is he is fearless, there have been very few times in long history of Xmen that wolvie was afraid of anything. If they were to recruit him as lantern, he would almost be as strong as Hal Jordan.

Now looking at his powerlevel, Magneto can manipulate electromagnetism to atomic level and on higher side he can lift an entire planet. He killed an entire city with one thought and created wormhole to travel across great distances. Wolverine on the other hand is indestructible, he is one of the best hand to hand combatant adept in every marshal art known. Admantium claws make his supercool plus allows him to cut anything and everything.He is very intelligent when it comes to ambush or attack plans. He is a very skilled battle tactician but he is merely an alpha level mutant.One of the biggest moment in comic book history is when Magneto goes mad in anger and rips off all the admantium from wolvies body proving his superiority as mutant. The kind of moment that sends chill across any fan and every xmen character. And funniest part is he goes on rampage lecturing about how foolish logan is.
At this point sapota has developed more liking for Erik Lensherr as compared to Logan mostly because of superior powers and intelligence. And Erik as a character has much more dimensions. Probably sapota need to dig more comics with logan's story lines.
The new movie first class has established Erik as one of the strongest fictional character ever to brace the silver screen. Micheal fassbender has been a pretty good magneto(though nothing like 1992 series) and Mathew Vaughn have presented the character in his full colours.

lets kill them.

PART 0

A: shall we kill someone?
B: What?
A: I mean how bad could it be? There is nothing bad about killing? people die all the time, killing will just be another medium to achieve it?
B: But why would you do that?
A: I am not saying we should just kill anyone?
B: so you are going to choose someone?
A: Yeah, potentially deserving candidates.
B: potentially deserving candidate? are you mental?
A: No, I am perfectly sane, Its a plot for a story!
B: Right! A bloody plot to you?
A: Look, we have this normal life which is perfectly all right in all senses. But we still crib and complain, Why not just correct it?
B: Correct it by killing? That doesn't make any sense.
A: Let me give you a bigger picture. If perfectly executed, killings will occur in different locations under different circumstances. And by the time investigation reaches a possible outcome, we can safely reach a number and this number will be proportional to the delay in each murder.
B: OK, Lets assume you can evade being caught.What are the chances that you will be successful in executing these plans and no one will know about it?
A: None, The plan is to find out 10 perfect candidate, study them and kill them while they are totally alone and send a message with each killing.
B: What? are you a serial killer who gives clues and messages?
A: ummm
B: Wait, you are trying to be a vigilante.
A: More like justice delivery girl.
B: and the candidates?
A: Corrupt politicians with records of charges against scam and history in general crime.
B: OK
A: Policeman misusing power, taking bribe leeching general public. Public servant crippling the weakest and poorest. Some sort of money lenders to farmers, who sucks their bloods from interests like a pest. Lawyers who save politicians, criminals, who have no moral fibre. A journalist whose life is dedicated in bringing misery to innocent victims of misfortune. A fake celebrity, who is linked with crime and exploitation the naive. A child rapist, who has gotten away because of loopholes in system. Son of a rich businessman who ran his car over people who were sleeping on footpath and raped a foreign tourist.
B: exquisite! But this list is too vague. Do you have any real candidate in mind?
a: Lets take an example of the scammer politician who stole money from coffins of dying soldiers. Or take example of that police officer, who raped a child and got away with it. And the son of chief minister who ran over those innocent kids and murdered the waitress in that lounge.
B: great suggestions, But these people are highly protected. Besides they are known criminals and will be punished by the law.
A: punished? the trial? its a joke. Its all a sham. These people need to be brought to the justice by chopping off their balls and sending a loud and clear message through Mass media.
B: Well, this could cause mass Chaos, besides mass media is controlled.
A: Chaos is very much desirable. And we need to kill one these bastard journalists.
B: Isn't the integrity of your plan compromised by revealing it to me?
A: No, it isn't. I need to Brainstorm and I need to find flaws in this plan.
B: ME? I am not doing it!
A: Why? you have better stuff to do?
B: No, this is insane!
A: What is this about the sanity of yours? you live life like a rat. Someone have to take responsibility.
B: who? me?
A: No, I will do the honours, I just need a partner.
B: I don't want to get caught.
A: you wont. We will not be related. I just need ears.
B: RIGHT! and how to you intend to undo what I know?
A: How about killing you in the end?
B: damn you! you will kill me?
A: Its the only worthy thing to do.
B: May be not, can we return back to our boring Normalcy.
A: Think of how much good can be done, think of it as revolution.
B: Society wont see it as revolution. It will be seen as genocide by a psychopath.
A: Its not a crime. Its not driven by money. Its driven by a bigger cause and good faith.
B: good faith? what crap?
A: Yeah, restoration the faith in honesty and human values. 10 dead wont make a difference.
B: Right, It wont change a damn thing!
A: No, it needs to be sent as a message. A clever scheme is required. If I can evade being caught until I execute 10 killing, mission is pretty much accomplished.
B: Yeah and once you are caught. you will be the part of living hell.
A: We are already living in hell. I just need a way to send reminder to everyone else.
B: Ok, for sake of it everything goes as you say, which is highly unlikely. What you do next?
A: handover myself over or commit a public suicide with a suicide note or a suicide book with extensive details like say jim.
B: Quite brave and heroic, but stupid as fuck.
A: Not stupid. All ideas are stupid in the beginning. Good work and planning can get you what you really want.
B: Really? I think all you(or anyone else) want is shit load of money and beautiful women.
A: May be. But I am not that shallow to waste myself for material crap. As joker said, "we need better class of criminals"!
B: So we are criminals?
A: No, you are missing the point. What we are planning to do can be considered as crime in legal and civil framework, but its implications are far beyond the existence of this framework. All revolutions were called crime by the authority, Later it turned out it was the struggle for freedom/republic.
B: So you are a freedom fighter now?
A: No, we already have freedom. And this is about protecting it. And its not just me, its us now.
B: Woah! I am not a part of it.
A: you are, like everyone else.
B: If you want want to execute this. What will be the plan.?
A: Good question. First the selection of candidates. A detailed study of his/her lifestyle and creation of a profile. preparing an execution method and calculating timing.Planing the budget. Create a demo. Look for associated factors and parameter in this execution plan. Find the effectiveness of this killing. Methods of sending message. Capture avoidance planning till next execution. Estimation of time frame between each execution, I want to give them time to digest it and as the fear falls down, give them another dose of death. Human minds are so used to this freedom, fear is only way to stop its misuse.
B: So you don't rule out killing women?
A: There is no discrimination here. A scum is just a scum, nothing more.
B: Budget! Where do you get the money from.
A: Initially my own money and then each dead pays for his next companion in after life.
B. What about the families?
A: target's family would be financial secure in some way.
B: Don't you know that all crimes are driven by needs generated by family.
A: Exactly, So family need to pay the price. Besides someone will be sacrificed on the road to greater glory.
B: That sounds like lenin? You will still be affecting innocent lives.
A: The idea is to portray these filthy bastards as cancer to the society, which needs to be eliminated. The media would try to make martyr out of them. This is the biggest fallacy in the plan. So I need to kill the people who are already hated and who are in trial and send the message across. Once the message is through the martyrdom is gone.
B: Whoa, really? Trying to kill someone in judicial custody or police protection. you are not capable of that?
A: No, I will start with someone whose security protocols are loose. And I will sacrifice these easy targets first.
B: So you may still leave the biggest scum in the pool and go for an easier shot.
A: I have to strike the balance.
B: More like you want to just kill someone!
A: That is the only feasible solution to this super complex problem.
B. I suppose so. So what next.............................

hindi comics and my dissappointment

Before i start, i must apologize for two reasons:
1. I may criticise some heros and storylines(and hence may offend some people)
2. This may be a long post.

I am a big fan of Nagraj and he is like the first love(in a fanboy kind of way). But to my dismay, his comics are super-silly most of the times, but his storylines especially ones which involves his origins are very interesting. Series like "nagraj ka ant", "khajana", "zahar" was fabulous, Nagayan also started wonderfully, but ended in a fiasco. They started nagaraj terrorism series two times, once they did some stupid stuff with Afganistaan and all, which was awful. The next series of "jahrila barood" and following comics were superb. The new authors and new make over was wonderful. I also like series involving Visarpi and other "Nagdweep" characters. The best part of Nagaraj series are uniqueness of its mythological origin, which is found in no other comics(there may be similar line, but not quite this). Most sideline stories of nagraj like "fuel", "venom" were pitiful. I would say that even earlier comics involving Miss killer, thodanga, nagmani, shakura were wonderful, but new villians get created in one page and get lost in other page. Its like turning around the junk to find a phoney metal. And every now and then everything and everyone in story becomes god like. and in next page they get vanished. This is stupid and annoying.
I admit Nagraj is almost as powerful as superman or lets say he is equivalent of superman for Raj Comics. But he is not a god and stop treating him like one.

Coming to Dhruv. I liked dhruv a lot during older times. I mean the first time I read grand master robo in 1995, i felt like i have discovered Pandora's box. stories like "akhiri daav" , "champion killer", "awaaz kee tabahi" were brilliant. "mene mara dhruv ko " series were very well done. His origin stories like "khooni khandaan", "Jigsaw" were marvellous., But later when they combined nagar and dhruv in THE-WORLD-WILL-END kind of series every now and then, And then Dhruv will keep doing things which are scientifically impossible plus severely flawed even from raj comics point of view. And every now and then they keep throwing "smartest man in the world" bullshit. I mean the virtues should be reflective of actions and not the other way round. To be smartest man, you don't have to say it like 100 times in a comics. I have not read dhruv's comics for a long because all new comics look repetitive with a set of formula. Only time i get to read Dhruv is with Nagraj and then also they both end up going on suicide mission like three times in a comics.

Coming to Doga, I must admit Doga is most consistent of all the superheroes. He is a no bullshitter. I haven't read a lot of old Doga comics, but I picked up a lot of his origin stories, and I must say they represents darkness, depth and pain. I was reading "doga hindu hai", "doga hai hai" series, the plots are very well crafted. I couldn't follow the series for long. But they were "the comics". you always know what to expect from Doga comics.
Other characters, i would like to mention is Bankelal. He was superb in the past, but a lot of toilet humour have sunk in his comics lately. And newer comics are driven by a synthetic laughter or forced humour. Bankelal need a really good rewrite.
My old favourite Gojo disappeared. I don't want to bring this matter. Same applies for bheria, i haven't read any comics since they separated, but lots of folks say they are still as they were, which is good.
I read couple of Tiranga comics which were utterly disappointing, i mean you want to rip of Captain, please look at his iconic stature.

Most Raj Comics fan are the old timers, who follow comics for the love of it. I am not sure how many new comics book fans are getting added??? I even recommended comics to couple of youngsters, they rejected it on the grounds of it being too silly or some kind of LIFT-OFF from DC or Marvel. We all know that is true to certain extent. A lot of fans would defend the comics in whatever way they are.
I think a lot of recent changes by Raj comics are wonderful and I am thankful to them for creating a wonderful site and revamping the franchise. But lets face it, contents need to revamped.
We need stories, which have depth and some sort of association with reality. We need somebody like Frank Miller, Mark Millar and Alan moore. And I am sure there are people who can do equally good job. Please tell me I am not being over ambitious. I guess the character of Dhruv's potential need a story which should be very complex and yet believable. There is a desperate need to remove the redundancy from his comics. He need to less verbal and stories should be self explanatory. Not everytime Dhruv has to say things in his mind. That represents a week plot and week graphics because the whole idea of comics is to understand a lot of things from the graphics. And for christ sake, stop resurrecting characters. In time period of 5 comics, characters get entirely rebooted, This is so annoying. We need some stories(or graphics novel) which can redefine the characters and story lines. No matter how good the marketing is, if your product is not good enough, the market will eventually reject it. The last thing I want is Raj comics to suffer the same fate as tulsi/manoj etc.
Another major issue is consistency, they always have wonderful starts and wonderful themes, but by the climax its all screwed up. No one gets a single scratch??? why is that so? The comics are reflections of life in exaggerated manner, so why is everything always "hunky and dory"? and why can't they keep the good story line till end. One comics is fantastic, and other total rubbish. I kinda hate it when I spend my money to find out i bought a total rip-off. As much as love Raj comics, I must say they fail to impress 5 out of 10 times. I still buy comics for the sake of it. But lets face it this may keep them alive, but wont let them grow as i would expect them to be.

the doppler shift

Have you ever wondered in your life about your strongest beliefs? The time when you believe in spite of being not judged, there is a compulsion forced upon you in order to be nice. The line between being cocky and "just trying to exhibit your ability" is so fine that you fail to take a right decision. Or worst you question your decision.
Your humility is not enough, the worst part is there is no way to measure it. Your actions are least cared about and you have no idea of what to expect. You believed "what is it that you can't tackle" but here you are struggling with the tiniest of problem.
Is your skill, experience and ability under a test to which you can easily succeed, but you still are so unsure. Your normal or in fact what you believed your mild indulgence is not really mild enough. What strength is still driving you? or are you just mad on yourself.
The adequate amount of sophistication or huge amount of savageness? what would you choose, is your goal is always to win? Are you treating everything your action to achieve an end.... or is the means; what worries you most?

There is not limit to what can puzzle you, confuse you. No matter how well versed you are with the universe, but it will throw newer scenarios at you, which will toss you like you never existed. Your quantification of unknown is always insufficient; Does it compel you to give up?
It is this time you stand up tall, you fight, you fight harder, the victory is not a matter of accomplishment, its a matter of good fight. Never give up, may be find an another way, may be try newer methods, but stand up to what you always believed in.

The TV thing

Since childhood, Sapota was watching Republic day parade on Telly except for when we have republic day celebrations in school and Sapota was among the participants. Sapota wondered how would it be to watch that thing live. Sapota somehow managed to get tickets for republic day parade last year. So this blog is more than a year late, but as always, Sapota can certainly come up with shitty reasons, but this time its just plain laziness.
Anyway, so we reached there on time, and it was early morning 6:40, bloody cold, and swarms of people coming to see the thing live. But still the turn out was low, because of terrorist threat and all that. Sapota just have one argument against that, If we are not safe at Janpath, we are not safe anywhere! Folks your houses are no fucking fortresses, get the fuck out of them to visit something worthy.
See Sapota had no overwhelming feeling of Patriotism or something. The reason is that there is literally nothing patriotic about singing patriotic songs, watching so called patriotic movies or for that matter watching parade at Janpath. Sapota wanted to see it how good our troops look when in they march in unison. All nations are equally good, so what is all that chauvinism about? Yes, Chauvinism and patriotism are two different things, but people fail to draw the line. Anyway, sorry for the gyan, but Sapota made his point clear.
So Sapota and his friend model settled on this uberchilly filthy metal bench and started discussing the program schedule for the day. So finally the Hon'ble chief guest Her Excellency the president of Democratic republic of India Mrs Prithbha Patil arrived in a black Merc limousine, waving to everyone. Following her were Guards of the president on camel. The funny thing was, there were folks, who were collecting camel dump, running just behind the camel troupe. The announcers(English and Hindi) were very typical Doordarshan style, which I prefer over anchors from private channels. So as Mrs President took her seat, the show begun. The first one to appear were Para commandos, they were on double march. Its most beautiful coordinated march I have ever witnessed in my life, they were all singing and they were fully armed with bag packs and Short machine guns. Movement of each and every foot and every elbow were in microsecond precision. Following them were Maratha regiment, they were equally good, except for the fact that they were on normal march and their uniforms were pristinely creased. Next to them were Rajputs, bloody tall and with moustaches that can make a lion pee in his pants(err lions don't wear pants).
Next there were many other marches from many units of Defence forces right from Navy to arti to Radars and what not. Then they displayed few missiles, not able to recall correctly, but it was agnee or prithvi(probably a replica). Then there were many other security forces like BSF and Delhi police and Delhi fire service. Interesting thing was seeing CRPF march, they were all tall and well built dudes with striking uniform with white boots and turban with butterfly like top yellow coloured, their march with clockwork precision was spectacular. Later the NCC cadets follow, they were playing "we shall overcome", given the fact, that they are just students, they were very good.
Most funny thing were exhibition from state. Some of them seem half hearted efforts, some of them totally disoriented. Sapota totally fail to understand if they have even made some progress to showcase. MP state's forest exhibition was totally a dumb idea, with no thoughts whatsoever.
Anyway, there were lot of school children singing and dancing, they were cute and well coordinated for their age. Sapota can't now recall the name of school or the dance they performed(see this is the disadvantage of being old).
Last portion was seeing signal guys coming on motorcycle. They are called motorcycle daredevils. Sapota have seen them in past, but seeing them live is another experience all together, these guys just steal the show. They are so well coordinated and all stunts are effortlessly performed. And all of them were of Royal enfield: army version.
Last part of the ceremony was seeing air to air fueling, which was invisible to sapota, as it was way too high in sky. Later, fighter plane soared in sky, one of them was quite low. The ceremony ended after Mrs President left in her limo.
This one was not particularly all that grand due to bomb threats and low turn out, but experience was fantastic. By this time we were too hungry, so we headed to breakfast at model's house.

an emotional affair

Before starting, Sapota admits his technical ignorance as far as game of football goes. But in recent times, sapota has been following football madly and gaining some more insight in order to appreciate the beauty of game.
So before last Euro cup, sapota randomly picked up Spain, one reason is that sapota loves spanish language and culture and as you can see, this blog is themed in noobish spanish style. So Sapota has been supporting Espana for 3 years now. Raul was one of the yesteryears star sapota always liked, mostly because he was biggest name in Real and a very prolific forward. While sapota started supporting Espana randomly, they got lucky and won Euro. while sitting between 4 people, who were supporting Deutsch, holding a catalonian flag was difficult, but sapota is an obstinate bustard and he prevailed.

Since sapota was not having TV, he lived on Fifa.com for all the info. For this season of UEFA championship, sapota followed bayern very seriously. Bayern defeated ManU and Juventus and Bordeux to finally fight internationale in final. They lost but given their state of affairs, it was an acceptable defeat. Half of my team(yeah bayern) have player which belong to either Deutsheland or The Netherlands. Now supporting spain against these favourite ones was difficult task. Seeing your boy Swansteiger getting dejected after a loss is too much.

So the very first match sapota glued himself was espana vs swiss. The swiss defeated espana. Sapotas heart sank in fear and sadness for many days without loosing his cool. Sapota stopped watching matches. While Brasil, Argentina, The netherlands and germany were sailing easy, Espana were bit stumbling. The loss was majorly due to lack of coordination and killer instinct football needs. But it was a good shocker for them, which later proved to be beneficial to them. The thought which were haunting in sapota's mind were seeing brasil and espana play each other so early. Though today I can say Espana would have outclassed Brasil. But Brasilians would have upset them if they have strong morale given espana were still finding its form, but inevitable didn't happen and both team were saved. The next match which made sapota sad was German loosing to serbs. The serbs played as if they are on some army mission and they executed it perfectly, klose's departure sealed german fate. Sapota stopped watching league matches at all. Only thing he did was looking into fifa scoresheet in the morning. Somehow, all the favs had the same ranking as expected. The fear of first loss was not still away, so Sapota avoided Espana vs portugal.
Once Espana recovered fully, sapota was all set to watch Brasil vs the netherland. The worst part of this duel was seeing two favourite fighting each other so early. Sapota was confident Brasil will edge out dutch as easily. So he went for the live. Brasilian dominated first half as if dutch were no bodies. Dutch were at that time building the schema, after second half dutch started playing a strange physical game, which made brasilains upset and the first yellow card is flaunted thanks to Robben. Initially Sapota was sad as Robben's team would be out so early, but later Robben played unlike his original self, the desperation to win was so evident. He is supremely talented, very shrewd and if required can smartly get dirty. Barring two matches he played like a champion.
In the match bommel, van parsie and dutch defence tried everything they could to disrupt the brasilian rhythm, worst part is Brasilian gave up to what dutch wanted. The self goal by Melo was one of the most hurting moment of the match. Sapota believe Cesar would have saved the goal, if it wasn't for the melo to jump. Later on the german mechanics of kyut sniejder air headers killed the brasilian. In the mean time, sapota got angry, sad and upset all at the same time. Some folks at the venue of TV made sapota further upset by arguing with him, and this lead to general outburst of high pitch screams and what not. This all later proved out to be big moment of embarrassment due to triggered arrogance. Sapota cursed dutch team for dishonesty and cursed his fav player Robben for being such a foul player. Despite the fact that his Fav team was still in run, sapota literally disassociated himself with the futbol.
This was after 13 years that sapota had such emotional outburst with sports and he was heartbroken. Slowly and gradually the emotion was wearing off, and Espana was progressing steadily towards final. Sapota was lukewarm with spanish progress, but still not ready to watch any matches for the fear of loss.
The day final was due, sapota knew that dutch would play foul, but he knew spanish can do the same, not on that physical level but they can act like morons if required. Unfortunately, sapotas net connection was down, so he couldn't get the progress of match anyway from fifa site. Later in morning while in pool, he tried to overhear people talking about match but not really result. Sapota was at this time ready for any result. Later he saw the news in paper and was instantly happy.
At this moment, support felt like a weak supporter not having full confidence in his team. Besides, Its never about wins or losses, its about standing for your team, no matter what. But the last two matches have left sapota so ajar, that this time it could have made sapota get very depressed, if Espana would have lost while he was watching the match live.
In retrospect, sapota have learned to respect a lot of players including the english ones namely Gerrard, Lampard and terry. Have hated his favourite Robben and bommel. Acted like a cry baby and recovered back to his usual composure.
Sapota don't want to shove his team is so good attitude to anyone, that is unlike being a sports fan. But yeah it is a luke warm fun. The most enjoyable part is discussing it with people, who know what is being talked about.
Now sapota is looking forward for when the world cup returns to the holy land of Estdio de Maracana and that is when he will full heartly support A selecao.

Viva Zapata

This land is yours. But you must protect it. It won't be yours long if you don't protect it. If necessary, with your lives, and your children with their lives. Don't discount your enemies. They will be back. And if your house is burned, build it again. If your corn is destroyed, replant. If your children die, bear more. If they drive you out of the valley, live on the mountain, but live. You always look for leaders, strong men without faults. There aren't any. There are only men like yourselves. They change. They desert. They die. There are no leaders but yourselves. A strong people is the only lasting strength - Emiliano Zapata Salazar

Idealism is a difficult trait, specially for the people closely surrounding the idealists. Idealist leaders may always be swarmed by followers but, those closely related to him are constant state of trouble due to their idealist behaviour. Sometimes followers would resist them when they bring change and deviation from what is otherwise understood as normal behaviour. Idealist inspire and motivate people, they are the heroes of masses. Everyone looks upto them but, no one wants to live with them. They do have logic of their own to believe in their actions and they tend to have a foresight for greater good of everyone. The vision may sometimes be short, but it bring hopes to repressed masses.
For the first time, Sapota has seen Marlon Brando as an idealist hero. His general portray of character is erratic, self indulgent and apathetic protagonist, who will arouse pity and disgust but, not heroism. Brando does it exactly the way it should have been. This may seem a bit of an overstatement; Portraying a Mexican hero in a cinema could be difficult, and Marlon Brando seems like an outrightly wrong choice, but he plays it well enough to prove that wrong. His style is engrossing and he evokes compassion.

Zapata could not read or write, but he was a wise man. He firmly believed that leader should be educated. He being a farmer himself have correct understanding of the needs of fellow men. One sequence in movie is particularly remarkable "Zapata become president and write name of the farmer, who cross questions him, this suddenly becomes a turning point where he threw away his presidency and started fighting beside the revolutionaries". This is where idealism kicks in. Like an idealist he is a constant fighter, he doesn't care for fancy suits and high offices. The dubiousness of morality of government and military official in implementing the land reforms provokes his conscience to leave the presidency. He understood that in this era of civil war, there would never be any peace and revolution will continue. So, he chooses to stay with revolutionaries.
There is an amazing synergy between Elia Kazan and Marlon Brando, where both of them builds up marvellous tempo in the movie. Both are so idiosyncratic still they align so well. No wonder all their movie as a team are wonderful.

Monogamy was not such a great virtue in times of revolution, but Zapata had a sense of being loyal to one women and he tries everything to get her. But he could have married her only when he was rich or a ranking officer. Zapata during entire course of his life never had tendency of acquiring ranks and offices. He was inclined towards obtaining the means to sustain the revolution. During the war due to constant victories, he becomes general of southern armies. This makes it easy for him to marry the women he loved. But living with an idealist was no easy deal, he demanded his wife to teach him reading. As the revolution intensifies the life becomes hard, his in-laws wanted him to leave the war posts and sit in office like a typical general. The president even offered him a ranch, but idealist never want all that, he had bigger things to worry about, his current engagement was implementation of land reforms.
When his brother gets killed in an ambush, he takes him home for a normal funeral instead of a martyr's funeral. Since he died in a personal battle and not and not in the revolution. He created a new legacy for entire Mexico, even after his death, people never believed he died. And so the Mexican revolution continued even after his death. He created a new generation of leaders and revolutionaries, whose aim was to protect the land and interests of farmers.

forgive me, forgive me not.

What is a good song?
How is it defined?
There is lot of technicalities, which can be talked about a fibre of good song.
But a good song is a great composition, which for some unknown parameter is so dear to you.
You have heard this song for 6 years, repeated it in loop for many times, you have lost track of the number of times you have heard it. You have heard it a zillion times, you have heard it so much that you got bored of it. You don't want to hear it anymore. You leave the song and move on to future musical composition. But then one fine day you feel an urge to listen to it again. And this urge is as strong as any narcotic drug. You remember every beat, every riff, every note, every pitch and all the words in the song. You lived your entire life in that song. Time stops every time you hear it. You don't care where you are, you want to get immersed in the song, its like a treasure island, where you are cluelessly wandering to find something priceless, which bloody never existed.

Sapota dont give a flying fuck what metal kids say about Metallica. Sapota had sufficiently ventured into all genres of Heavy Metal to have an opinion. And musical choices are driven by feel for it, not by coolness factor associated with it. Anyway, who the fuck cares!
Well this song is not really thrash, its more of core melodic metal. But more than its technical merits of being a metal song, this song tells a story, and story one can associate so easily with.
UnforgivenS(yes an extra "S" for the fact that there are three of them now) are one such lore of a man, who undergoes a lot in life. To be honest "unforgiven too" is my favourite in series for the plain fact that I heard it before the Super awesome original Unforgiven. Unforgiven is much more terse for a person who is new to such genre of music, whereas "Unforgiven 2" is much easy to understand. While by the time you come to "Unforgiven 3", you have heard previous unforgiven so many times, that you will never forgive Metallica, if they screw the series with a mediocre song. If it was for any other band, this song would have been easily regarded as the greatest song they could have imagine. But with Metallica, expectations are very different, they were once the GOD, and now they are God that failed. But let me assure you that "Unforgiven 3" is one of the greatest song ever created, though not comparable to originals, but priceless. It has same effect on you as the originals, the humming guitars just reverberates in you mind till you you get completely immersed in the song. The story of the man continues, but with a different angle.
The best part about any good Metallica song is Jaymz Hetfield will make you feel what he is feeling, or may be its just me, who associates so much with these songs. A lot of it is said in the way you always wanted to say, but never had right word. Metallica did it just for you and in the exact manner it was suppose to be.

There are lines in these songs, which hit you back, which haunt you in a very specific way, you feel a need to listen to them and try to understand if there is something cryptic or missing. You want to relisten to them as if you are trying to read between the lines. But I guess songs have said a lot in that small period of time.
After a very long period of time, the urge to listen to something so classic as The Unforgiven shows that it commands you by brute force which will pull you towards them. You were, for months, listening to super complex highly technical compositions which were executed in unhumanly precise manner, But you get pulled out of all that to listen to Unforgiven because "what I felt what i have know, never shine through what I have shown.... Never free never me... so be I dub thee unforgiven" and because "What I've felt, what I've known.... Sick and tired, I stand alone.... Could you be there?, 'cause I'm the one who waits for you Or are you unforgiven too?" and because "And how can I blame you When it's me I can't forgive?"

This country deserves a better class of patriotism

There are few simple things which can be done for good of this country and its people. And why only this country, but to entire world and to all humans and other living beings.

1. Don't bloody throw your waste on the road

I carried my entire waste 300 kms in the rain, since I couldn't locate any wastebins and those hills were too beautiful. To me littering is suicidal. It hurts me most, when there are no dustbins for miles and there is no way you can carry all your waste in your pockets(yes, we have fucked up systems). I can't tell others what to do, but I can ensure every toffee wrapper, every bottle, ever packet I have used get disposed properly(and if required I will carry it until I find a suitable waste bin).

2. You can carry your stuff in your own bare hands, you would still remain yourself.

I carry a packet of milk and a packet of bread almost everyday from shop to my home bare hand without the god damn polyethylene bag. Yeah, its bit inconvenient, its ugly and oh no! your bloody reputation is on stake. Whole world will know that you looked so awkward when you carried your stuff in your bare hands. And you the great descendant of Mr Attila, the Hun will be disgraced eternally. Well, there are always better way of doing it with proper foresight, but you always forget to bring your bag along.

When you litter, someone else picks up that for you, who is that person?
oh! he is paid for it.... and what about those places, where there is no one who gets paid for picking up your waste? Why are we so oblivious? we just throw our shit around, without even thinking for one damn second.
And we blatantly spit around everywhere. How pathetic? Entire country is our spit bin.

Somehow people don't think all this has to do anything with patriotism. But what is love of country(or world for that matter?) Isn't it about protecting its existence and keeping it the way it was? Consider it as war, and hence the glory of protecting your beloved motherland.

Well if you are reading this, please, I request you to follow the above two, they are not all that hard to follow. And please follow it in spirit with your heart. You are smart enough to argue against these points, but this is not about winning this debate and I am not saying something, which we already don't know.

Firstly I wanted to get this thing printed in form of handouts and distribute it to people, but that would have defeated entire purpose of this activity. Printing this on paper will lead to cutting of trees somewhere. This is definitely not the worst thing I have ever said or done. But I wish I could stay away from all the "preachy-ness" and do something worthy, and hence sharing this thought

I want to spread this word, I am not sure how? I would be glad to know some practical way of doing this. But, I wouldn't like to talk, I would like to do something. We already talk a lot and implement nothing.

The high marriage

What makes this wedding most interesting is that this is among the few last marriages of sapotas chums, which sapota will grace with his not-so auspicious presence. But you guys are bloody lucky, that Lord Sapota himself was present on the ceremony. So for the first time Sapota was traveling toward uttaranchal, so he was excited about the jouney. The dood is sapota's ex room mate, Sapota and dude had shared endless experiences in life. But Mr TATA-SUZUKI(the groom) has been around, and he has been so powerful with his entire killer personality that he made Mighty lord sapota to relocate his ass all the way to Capital from Pune, but then just anything for friends.
Sapota was quiet well in acquaintance with both merging Multi nationals(you read it right, TCS and MUL Joint Venture, i.e.). The marriage took place a bit in haste, we were expecting it in the end of the year, but somehow it took off in May(yes, right, the blog is too late, but sapota has no obligations to write, BOOM!!!). So the total turnout at marriage from the gang was low, and Mr. Groom was bit pummeled for this haste(please get us married, we can't live separate anymore, du'oh!)
Anyway, me and kanpa made it to the wedding party a night early and had discussion with one of the fellow Groom's brother in law all night and it was fun, but scary fun. In the morning Mr model as usual turn out late(yeah yeah, you r the hero, all high and mighty *rolling eyes*). So Mr Suzuki got an old olive green esteem(!!!!!) for his wedding; me model and kanpa and Mr Suzuki loaded ourselves into the SEDAN and the journey begun.
So we started out as usual discussing all the previous marriages and then drawbacks and advantages of relationship and what-not-bull-shit and then all high fundas of cinema and music. But the funny thing is in all this discussion, the only victim was Mr Naresh Suzuki Tata. He thought since he is THE groom, we will spare him(LOL, fools paradise). It was bloody hot, but thanks to AC car, we were spared. Then the discussion started venturing into the theories of bird-and-bee and stork-and-baby territory(u guys guessed it right!), again Mr. Groom was blushing and couldn't say much, which was surprising, we even discussed various elements of bee-and-bird theory to which Mr suzuki pleaded all the innocence, but we again victimized him and had good laugh. By the time we entered uttaranchal, the climate became wonderfully pleasant.
When we reached our hotel in almora, it was totally dark, so had little difficulty in locating the place. Finally we got ready for what-we-were-here-for(comon, dancing int he marriage party, Is it that hard to guess?), but at this altitude with up-the-slope walk, we hardly could keep up much. Finally we reached to marriage hall, which was one of the most awkward constructed building sapota have ever seen, but at this particular terrain, this building seems to be the only way. We entered at marriage hall, and we were overloaded with joy people had, because we danced so well(NAWTTT!). Now one more funny thing was the location of buffet, it was on the terrace of this marriage hall, and the view from the terrace made sapota dizzy.
Now all the nuptial ritual took place one after the other, sapota had the camera, which he used to his advantage, and was later caught for mis-use of camera, much to sapota's embarrassment. We retired after the photo session. We woke up early in the morning to see what is going on at marriage hall. Much to sapota's surprise, the negotiation for stealing-the-shoe ceremony was still on. Sapota knew it, extracting money from the vault of Mr. Scrooge is not that easy, and he made few chics upset with that. Later on, we had the usual chit chat with bride's family and after exchanging pleasantries, we took off from Almora. This time we were in Innova, with bride and grooms friends, return journey was fun, with loads of photographs taken at many strategic location. Finally, Sapota was invited at reception, but due to dislike for this kind of functions, sapota stayed back(Mr Suzuki-Tata already know that, but I have to come with something for groom's family, since they were expecting me).

For now sapota has asked all of his friends not to invite him for any marriage functions as long as sapota doesn't want it.

That is so fucking punk?

Well, he just saw green day, he is just a teenager finished his high school. He has traits of rebellion growing inside him, he donno what is mass, what is class, he just have an attitude, but no experience. He simply wears a tie over his T-shirt. The so-called mature people will stare him with some sort of disgust and repulsively say "fucking punks!!!". Its not about supporting punks or Goths, but he is just innocent.

Well everyone wears an attitude in someway or another. Oldies tend to be more subtle with same white shirt and black trousers and those shiny black shoes. Whereas a heavy metal rebel will don long hairs, black Tshirts, loads of Iron made jewelry. Its all about your own persona of yourself. Few have argument, this is not a suitably good looking dress; Who the fuck cares? Wear and don what you like, Fuck everything else!

With revolution started in early 70s by punk gods, Mostly speaking Sex pistols and The stooges, outrageous dress-up became so popular among the generation that it crossed all geographic boundaries and was seen everywhere. Sid vicious once wore a lock as pendant, and 40 years later its as chic as it was then. Lather Jackets with Black Rebel motorcycle Club written on back worn by Marlon brando along Aviator sun glasses riding on a customized Motorbike with long handles was first seen in 1963 and then same style was picked by Elvis Presley later on by James dean. And now we know that Leather jackets on Harleys with aviator sunglasses are rage.
Another god of style is Lemmy, prolly he inspired an entire generation of supermachos, his mutton chops can send chill across spines, and his cap, which NO-ONE and i mean no one else wears, but him. He wears a natzi cross, which has created some controversy, but a GOD like him can never be bogged by such petty nonsense. His stature as a rock n roll icon is so big that, he has undivided cult following, who are all Motorhead fanatics(Heil Lemmy \m/). Lemmy's influence is quite evident on Son of gun Like Jaymz Hetfield. Hetfield dons a brand new set of mustache and beard in every other concert, right from mutton chops to goat like beard. Jaymz and party even wore entire cowboy style costume with old school beard and as they call Metallica Goatee.

Wearing the attitude is not a new thing, ancient times people use to wear their own symbol of identity, Bapu for example wore a plain white cloth and the stick. He is nothing sort of an icon of popular culture, but he is a mass hysteria. The man, who is most relevant in todays society. Even rock videos made by marilyn Manson features him.

So than he told sapota may be dude you wear your attitude, these punks are bunch of looser wannabes. It made sapota delve deeper into the thoughts that he knows sapota and his remark is not for flattery, but apathy for herd behavior, when entire crop try to ape some one shot to glory star. But there is nothing which can stop people from following what they like, even if later it seems silly.

Talking of goths, I guess earliest sign of face make up comes from KISS, sapota never liked kiss, but Gene Simmons has inspired a lot of musician, and as they say, he is one of biggest womanizer of all times; you can say he is in the league of Steven tyler and Jack Nicholson. Later on entire generation of extreme metal bands wore face makeups, nails, studds, metal belts, and bullet cartridge straps.Most of death Metal bands, viking metal, black metal(Scandanavian bands) are racing to be next most brutal thing seen.

One of the subtle gothic getup was worn by shock rocker Alice copper, Marliyn manson took to next extreme. But as he says, its him and his music, other parameters are immaterial.

One of reason why there has been revolution in imagery of rock n roll albums, video making and lyrics is consequence of pop culture and punk attitude, it is when one thinks beyond the obvious. Pushing yourself beyond conventional. Videos made by Pink Floyds are so metaphoric in nature, at the outset, they hardly convey anything, but a closer look reveal so much. Iron maiden always use gory album cover, which is full of immensely well created art work. But they were once banned at many place on religious ground, since the album cover is dark, but band has no such persona.
On similar grounds, RHCP make videos which has this "rebel teenage dude" attitude trying to break away. Other bands dont paint, dont film obscure videos but their lyrics has been doing it all, one such example is Jim Morrison, probably one of the greatest lyricist of all times.

Why are sneakers such a popular footwear among youngsters. Without doubt Kurt Cobain has made them popular making them a symbol of freedom. They are part of entire grunge attitude.
skull rings are yet another popular accessory among Metal fans. Cliff burton wore them and after his death, James wore them as a love for the greatest rock bassist world has ever seen.

Sapota has his own bits and pieces of rock emblems and his own punk style. Few items sapota possess and few he desires. The original Led zep buckle is one of the most beloved possession. Few crosses, but I would like to have the same large plain cross ozzy and Tommi wore. The British steel blade pendant worn by Dimbag Darrel, I read somewhere, it mean that not to fuck with the owner. Motorhead helmet!!! man a motorhead helmet on Indian chief is utmost Nirvana. Same skull rings as Cliff burton, I have skull ring but not the bloody same. One possession is my Accadacaa keychain with beaded chain, some people find it awkward, but fuck them, as if I care! One more blasphemy is wearing natzi cross the same one lemmy wear, oh lord pardon thy humble fan, as he dare to ape the lord.

From kernel_barbarian