25 too soon

I'll be 25 in a day's time and what should really be scary is how irresponsible I feel about the path my life is taking. Even more moronic is the glee I feel at this lack of an aim, the twig like tendency to float in the tides of fate! Do I feel extremely thrilled at where I am at this point of my life? Hardly. Do I feel the need to turn back the clock and start over again? Over my dead body, no frigging way!

I definitely cannot continue in the line of work that I am in, the boredom would choke me yet I am horrified by the thought of entering another educational institution for the purpose of actual education and have not even dipped my pinky into the wide ocean of offbeat jobs that are out there. I do not wish to win a lottery or tons of easy money either. That's really something that'd really really suck. What's the thrill in that? I do occasionally dream of being a globe trotting author but even that illusion is not strong enough to make me go all out with that aim in mind. I want to go skydiving every afternoon but then I also wouldn't forgo the evening cigarette break with my colleagues cursing the supposed "inefficiencies" of the powers-that-be in our behemoth of our company for anything. I wish to meet new people in new situations everyday yet am terribly nostalgic about familiar friends and familiar conversations.

Folks tell me that its been long enough sitting around making time crawl, now's my time and age to seize opportunity by the scruff of its slippery neck. Most people do by this point in life have a fair idea of where they are headed. I on the other hand do not know and am not enthused enough to find out.

When Pink Floyd sings:

"And then one day you find... 10 years have gone behind!

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun!"

I say screw Floyd and their paranoid, depression soaked songs of perennial gloom. Get a life! Must be the terrible British weather playing on their minds or something!

There is that indefinable something that I am on the lookout for yet not being able to identify it does not bug me at all. Many people actively search for their mission in life. I must be one of the really lazy happy-go-lucky buggers who are praying for their mission to find them. Life is holding her cards really close to her heart and I ain't even putting in the effort to stretch and peek.

Hangover

Is it natural to break into "She moves... IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS... It's all right it's all right, alll rightt" at 10:30 AM at your workplace? Or go humming into "You've got to get yourself together, you got stuck in a moment and you can't get out of it" when the usual afternoon sleep attack strikes? Last year around this time (October 4th to be precise) I went skydiving and was then very sure that nothing on earth could have a longer lasting impact on my life than that. I figure out that I might have been wrong.

60000 people turned up in Gillette Stadium this Sunday to watch Bono, the Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton do their stuff on stage and every one is sure to have been afflicted by the U2 virus as much as I have. What a night, what a stage and what a show! In a true re-iteration of their rockstar credentials, not a single member of the audience sat down for the entire duration of their 2 and a half hour stint. There were seats for the taking but who on earth would want to sit when there was a such a spectacular display of concert lighting and infectious music being played. The stage itself was a creature from outer space with psychedelic mutations that need to be seen to be believed. The colours, the images and the effects complemented very ably the powerful music. How crazy must it feel to be part of such a legendary rock band? The fans, the adulation, the money, the freedom to explore only what you enjoy in life - all definitely beyond the pale of the daily office worker, their core fan base.

Going to the concert really sucked out a lot of energy from my innards. I was pooped but still pleased. For a change, this was a music hangover and I almost am wishing for it to stay forever - that silly kind of lazy haze that I currently find myself frolicking about in.

Build up

"With or without you"

"Angel of Harlem"

"I still haven't found what I am looking for"

"All I want is you"

"Where the streets have no name"

"Walk on"

"Elevation"

"Mysterious ways"

....

And so on goes my playlist right now, randomly looping and repeating itself till every guitar stroke is an expected guest. It is so difficult to grasp onto the reality that I am about see U2 perform live! After a bad day at school, after a term paper sure to be flunked, when the really kickin' kicks of a hostel party binge raged through heads - their music has been a constant solace and inspiration. Tonight at the Gillette Stadium, 70000 voices will all be swelling into the songs everyone of them knows by heart, all tied together by their awe and worship of the 4 guys on stage & their unique ability of tapping into the melody of their lives sometimes gray, sometimes green but always in tune, always in sync.

Opening U2's act will be a Scottish/Irish band Snow Patrol whose song "Chasing cars" is a beautiful shade of melancholy. When I first heard the song on a Wednesday night in Someplace Else being performed by a Calcutta band Span, I was instantly sucked into it. "What is this incredibly awesome song?", was my first thought. In fact, it was the first original MP3 song that I had ever purchased. Completing the circle, I shall hear them today... this time live!

To catch U2 live in the Irish heartland of Boston is a rare privilege. In the build-up to this landmark event in my life I am getting really nervy. There's just one word to describe how I feel right now... blessed!