This opening paragraph business has been reduced to a space for convenient and banal explanation as to why I can't seem to post more regularly. Has blogging become such an indulgence that I have to save as much material as possible for a monthly post, as if to justify the bloody exercise? A more appropriate term for 'writer's block' would be 'laziness'.
So I turned 25 a couple of weeks ago, my face smeared in cake and my body soundly kicked from all sides, as if to make up for the relatively sedate celebrations of the last two years in Austin. I barely escaped being flung into the apartment pool, despite actually playing along and protesting. A year ago, I woke up the day after my birthday feeling strangely miserable and empty, and decided the solution to all my problems was to get a haircut. In twelve months, nothing's changed. The long hair remains (with a lousy haircut looming large), the sleeping through classroom lectures (with date and topic neatly scribbled in my notebook) continues, and I am still oblivious to the happenings of the world outside. The problem then, with 25, is expectation. It may be a mere number but it gives people (including myself) a license to ask questions about my life to which 'I don't know' or 'we'll see' are not acceptable answers. In that regard, maybe I do feel old. But then age is just a state of mind right? Whatever.
Another occasion which made me feel old (or shall we say, 'dated') was, strangely enough, a heavy metal concert I attended a couple of months back. It was one of those 'Metal Masters Tour' sort of things, with an all star lineup of Testament, Motorhead, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. With stalls outside selling beer on tap (a blessing in the oppressive summer heat) and food, which you were allowed to bring in to the arena, this was the sort of concert experience I could only dream of having earlier seen live acts only at the comparatively repressive Palace Grounds in Bangalore. But the crowd was an eye-opener. If the same lineup were to be playing at Palace Grounds, your entire Engineering/ St.Josephs Commerce College metal contingent would have shown up in all their black finery (making sure their t-shirt featured a band other than the ones on show), and suitably wasted to the point of being at their savage and anti-social best). Here, apart from the precious few at the half-full mosh pit right in front, the place was packed with forty-somethings, presumably wallowing in nostalgia and ready to put away their band t-shirts for a Halloween party. Nevertheless, the show was a great one, and a gentleman named Ruben Palomo was nice enough to send us a few snaps like the one above (we had forgotten to bring our cameras).
It sometimes concerns me that after coming here I haven't expanded my musical tastes as much as I used to during my earlier college days, and it's difficult to stay contemporary when you don't own a TV and your friends listen to mostly retro stuff too. But then again, one of the things I've come to like about the college crowd in this country is their attitude towards musical tastes; everybody listens to a wide range and nobody really tries to typecast themselves or anyone else because of it. I mean, on a typical Indian campus you find people using musical leanings to make a connection, and even friendships. Whether it's your guy-girl gangs who spend endless hours playing Antakshari and Guess the Shayari, or your guys-only Metal 'til Death groups, music seemed to polarise people. I'm not saying that sort of thing doesn't happen here, but (having gotten to know and work with a few American undergrads), it's just far less noticeable. Although I've always been something of a classic rock loyalist, I no longer cringe when hip-hop is played on the radio, I sing along when the desi junta blast out Himesh and mindless Punju ditties, and I've come to appreciate (thanks to a few people I've met at the music department) that DJing is an art, and a difficult one at that. I don't know whether this gradual attitude shift is due to evolving of my musical senses, or simply growing up. But I'm happier for it.
Mentally, I feel exactly the same as I did four years ago, circa final year of undergrad. But the crucial difference then was I already had a job to walk into as soon as I graduated. I wonder if that was a good thing, after all. If I was forced to actually hunt for a job and make myself *ahem* marketable, I would have probably learned a good deal about job hunting (and myself). That particular challenge has finally come up (given that I don't feel as if I've learnt a thing in the last four years), what with an economic slowdown here and all. Depending on how it pans out, I will probably get a small taste of what Will Smith's character must have felt like in his pursuit of happyness.
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