This entry started out as a description of my first guitar lesson, but it turned into something else. So please bear with me coz the flow is messed up. It seems as if I have jumped from one random topic to another...and I have...coz I was gonna talk about something else.

So, here goes:

I had my first real guitar lesson y'day! I was soooo excited about it!!! And herez how it went.

But perhaps, a little about my tutor first: He is this pretty random guy I met on orkut. Hez the cousin of my junior from undergrad. A few scraps spread over about 2 years with random discussions about obsure (to me) north European heavy metal bands.

Now I am completely clueless about the music scene. Whatever I know is from these random (again, for lack of a better word) songs I downloaded back in the US. I don’t even know the different genres or which genres the stuff I listen to belongs. My CDs from those days are titled “Shakes” and “Smoothies” to differentiate between the fast and the more melodious songs. (Cudnt help the food allusion, tho…I’m a die-hard lover of FOOD, as anyone whoz seen me can tell…)

While thatz me, our man tried to educate me about vampires and unicorns and dragon blood. I read up about this strange Swedish (or was it Finnish?) band called Mayhem, whose hit album’s cover was the gory photograph of their lead singer’s suicide. I kinda didn’t know how to react coz I have this stereotypical image bout rockers. I see them as fascinating black-wearing, scary-looking, drug-taking, Satan-worshippers. You get the picture. They prolly wud only shop at Hot Topic if it was in India. I don’t know if that is now seen as ‘mainstreamized’ and is being shunned as pseudo-goth or whatever u call it, by the hardcore true-blue (BLACK!) Goths.

Anywayz, getting back to my tutor, I always had this idea of him and he would talk bout these crazy bands and educated me about the local rock scene.

Oh, that reminds me…back on HCU campus, we had something called a ‘Rock Show’ for our campus fest. These bands would show up and start growling into the mike (its called something…with G…appropriate, but I forget) and we would barely decipher words like “death”, “blood”, “evil”, “burn”, “acid” and of course, “Satan”. This show would usually be on the day after what we call “DJ NITE”.

On DJ Nite, the entire campus crowd would show up and shake whatever they find shakeworthy in their body (plz don’t go graphic here. I pity you if you have an overly visual imagination.) to the regular dance numbers known to anyone with a semi-working-FM Radio. This regular crowd to which I belong, made up mostly of commercial-movie-going, hip-shaking-hand-lolling mass of people, not knowing what to make of this music, would just stand and stare hoping their bodies would just do the necessary without the necessary info from the top compartment.

Meanwhile, the performers—poor guys—after umpteen “are you ready!!”s, which whittle down to “are you (even)with me??”s try to inspire themselves. Here begins the strange phenomenon which only that creed can understand. The Rockers gang up right in front of the stage…about 15 big, burly boys in black (pardon the alliteration, just couldn’t help it) and form a huge circle and sway…sorry, thtz too elegant a term for what they do, but then I’m ignorant of rock lingo…in a trance and sing (scream!) with the dood growling into the mike. A coupla minutes later, since the collective growling is just not working for them, they decide to smash into each other and collide, practically sweaty-torso to sweaty-torse, as if they were aimless electrons. Its truly a fascinating and maybe even a sublime experience watching the raw bestiality of this phenomenon, which I later learnt is called “MOSHING”!

However, on a campus like HCU, there can be only one conclusion to fun like this. The crowd moves in closer to vicariously experience the moshing, getting closer and closer to something so fearsome and fascinating at the same time and finally gets smashed (literally) into the experience. The moshers, in their frenzy, smOsh into the unsuspecting audience nd WHAM! The bubble bursts, the spell of the dark side suddenly lifts and the crowd switches into HCU-mode. Great stupendous roars ensue and the moshers are shoved back angrily. The mob gears up nd the lead singer on stage, lost in his ecstatic growling, gradually comes back to earth as his voice is drowned by the mob. After vigorous yelling and accusing matches, some big shot appears on stage, pacifies the majority, forcing the bands to apologize. The evening gradually dwindles down to eventual silence, as the spectators finally leave—having finally witnessed the excitement they were waiting for. :)

1. I am incredibly lazy. In fact, it shud be my middle name or something.
2. My life is divided into 2 phases: Pre-US and Post-US....the during doesnt really exist. I spent all my Post-US life essentially yearning for my Pre-US life.
3. Oh yea...I'm obese...and its such an issue with me that it has seeped into every aspect of my life. But I dont do anything to get rid of it.
4. I believe I am a pretty good writer :D My one ticket to something meaningful, my one hope :)
5. I havent really worked hard for anything in the last 8 years atleast, if not longer.
6. I talk to myself...OUT LOUD! Some of the BESTEST conversations I've had are with ME ME ME ME!
7. I can exist without knowing or bothering to know what is going on around in the world.
8. Oooooooooh! this onez good. Back in my school days, I managed for an entire year without doing any homework or even classwork. I just didnt. Everyday, I would start on a fresh page, so the incompleteness of the earlier pages wouldn't show. I managed to score pretty darn good tho, that year...:) I shocked myself :D
9. I havent grown any taller since I was 13...which was 10 years ago.
10. At heart, I think I'm a total tomboy...always craving that just-one-more-adventure. I just dont want to grow up :D I'll prolly do pretty much any crazy thing for that high...of life! :)
11. I am just learning to exist crush-less. Its boring but liberating(?).
12. I took a whole year to learn cycling. I was beaten and threatened into learning it. I finally mastered it on my own, without any help because I was too incensed and had to prove a bloody point, dammit! I was 8-9 years old.
13. I think I have a Catcher-complex. I am perpetually disillusioned and now I'm desperately trying to reverse-Catcher myself. Life has become insane.
14. I am terribly scared of ghosts, lizards and all reptiles. Well, reptiles even more so, coz they repulse me. I leave the entire bathroom and squeeze myself into a corner almost daily when I'm bathing. I'm mortally afraid that the lizard will fall on my head.
15. I have pending work from 6 years ago. 
16. I havent said 'no' to temptation in the last 3 years.
17. I like to eat my pizza slices crust first...from the back coz I believe the best should be saved for the last. 
18. I want to live the hippie way for a while. 
19. I was taught how to polish my nails by a boy. I still dont do a good job, but he really knew what he was doing :D
20. I fed an egg to a pig once...one of the grossest moments of my life.
21. I'm partially deaf.
22. I can sleep for 24, and even 48, hours straight. My one and only claim for fame so far :D
23. There was a point when I was seriously considering becoming a detective...but then, I switched to hypnotism. Now I'm an editor.
24. I need to groan out of pleasure if I'm eating something ambrosial. 
25. I get periodic "hyper-energetic" possessions. At different phases in my life, I dealt with them differently. During teenage, I locked myself in my room and used to seriously mutilate my bed. In degree, I would put on music and walk the corridors of the hostel like a maniac. (I scared one of my friends so much that she didnt come near me for a month!) In PG, I would put on loud music and ride my bike (again, like a maniac) at 2 in the morning. Now, I just go to sleep.