Last Sunday this time...

I and Binny are in the Cathedral School ground where "Deep Purple" is playing their final songs of their 2 hour concert. The concert is loud. As I stand close to the stage some 30 metres away leaving Binny seated behind on the grounds, I can feel the pound of Ian's Bass drum on my heart. I am screaming for some of their big hits "Smoke on the Water" and "Black Night" which was their concluding song. So was it a big concert? Yes, because watching them live was a great feeling but the sound was too loud to enjoy the music. And since all the instruments sounded as loud as the Gillan on lead vocal the music wasn't clean as it sound on my home stereo. Some may argue that the home stereo is not real live music but then I prefer the home stereo in this scenario where I can control the aspects of music that sound best. Certainly some equaliser work by the sound engineers would have made a big difference. The original guys have aged. Ian Pace has a small tummy, Glover looks more like the french guy from "Godzilla" and "The Hitman" and Gillan lacked a presence. By the time DP went on stage it was 8.00 P.M but the crowd was waiting for them. It was DP's second visit to the city. The last time they came here John Lord, their original keyboardist was with them. But the replacement Don Airey was good too. On his solos he even played some classical and the theme from Star Wars perfectly. Glover bass solo and Ian's drum solos might have been brief but Steve Morse compensated for all that with a great solo that includes pieces from Led Zepp's "Heartbreaker", ACDC's "Back in Black" and GNR's "Sweet Child O' mine". None of the paper's reported this the next day but DP even played a song they had written for Kalpana Chawla who was a big fan of DP. Gillan introduced the song mentioning her name. It is sad no one got it or did someone? Kalpana incidentally had taken Deep Purple's CD's with her when she had gone "space trucking". What I missed was taking a photograph with Binny with the concert as a backdrop on Binny's Nokia. How dumb?

The lonely trip to Central station on 16'th Saturday was also very nostalgic. Once in a while a trip like that (instead of taking the auto) helps expand your consciousness. Guindy station where I used to park my bicycle to go to college has undergone so much change. How different the electric train looked from the trains of the late 80's. I was reminded of the late nights returning from M.C.C with friends. I also remembered the very first day at college in 1985 when our seniors welcomed us and we joined them in the late night journey home by train. I also recalled vividly the day when we returned from the convocation three years later. All those lovely days when we were so young. The silence of the cool night's journey is broken abruptly by the ringtones of mobile phones. At 9.00 P.M there are very few talkers. I also recalled the trips to ITC at Thiruvottiyur where I worked for about 10 months in 1995 when I used to take 2 trains and a bus one way to the place....

The day after the concert I visited my principal again with her favourite flowers. A shorter trip but worth it. Princy told me about P.P Girish, my classmate who had visited her with his family. I am yet to call him.

...David, thanks for pushing me to get this post out...