Kolkata: Bangdu Wedding

This was our first unofficial trip to Kolkata. We thankfully had one before while working on a project together in office way back in 2010, and wanted to make a personal trip ever since, and this is how it finally happened.

We got to Kolkata on Jan 23, Monday afternoon, a little too late for the fancy 6 Ballygunge lunch that Boka planned with everyone, and a little too early for the Sundown party with the to-be married couple.
So Geet and I caught lunch at a place called Malgudi, right opposite Relax Inn hotel where we stayed, and turned out to be just what the doctor ordered as we got hot Rasam, which was perfect for the sore throat I've been nursing.

By 'sundown', the boys got ready in their blacks with white shoes that we'd planned and headed to Nocturne.
I had prepared a video for Bangdu and Nocturne offered a nice big screen to show it, but that was the end of the benefits the club offered, as I went literally insane trying to get the video to actually play.
First it wouldn't work off my laptop as the DJ only had HDMI cables that my laptop wasn't compatible with. So we arranged another laptop, but then realised my office laptop screws up any pen drive I insert into it. So only option was to upload the file and then download on the other laptop. Now I had to do this twice coz our fancy DJ needed Audio and Video files separately.
Anyway, while in the process of transferring, the second laptop runs out of charge, so now I had to get a third laptop, and repeat the whole process again. By this time lots of people were trying to help, including Mihir who was risking his life holding the laptop charger within the socket given a loose connection to ensure the transfer happens.
After all of that, the DJ plays the files separately, introducing a lag that ruined the output. I anyway was too tired to care by then and just glad I got the video out of the way.

But then, I went and shot a mannequin after that, which actually turned out well, so there began my video editing work right again.

Anyway we sat up a bit at Relax Inn after that till Thakur went nuts and then called it a night, only to hear him break the door next to ours trying to get Kataria out to join him for a drink. What a seriously insane guy!

Next day we rushed to the venue for Baarat which was to start at 9am, but only after a mouth watering road side breakfast of Poori Bhajji and Jalebi.
Bangdu soon came on a Harley Fat Boy and we danced around till he wed Poonam.
Lots of photos later, we got back to Relax Inn as the last of the friends to leave the venue and Geet immediately left shopping with (thankfully) Ritika for company while I caught some shut eye and thankfully a slightly better situation to attend a very fancy reception at Calcutta Golf Club where we had to choose between cuisines rather than dishes that were on offer.

After much Japanese and Punjabi food with Bengali sweets and chaat, we called it a night to get back to work straight the next day. However, Bangdu dropped in to give us our return gifts which ensured I only slept 2 hours before work; but well worth the wait as he doled out some really fancy silverware.
Perfect finishing touches to an already perfect wedding.

Guns n Roses, Netherlands

My first concert alone. Would have never expected to undergo this experience solitary, but turned out there were many others like me on the ground. Far more than the solitary individuals I see in movie halls. 

And as the night went by, people began to have a lot of fun. It's just ironical that I can't get high these days to enjoy things like this that I always wanted to experience. 

Anyway, I bought the concert tickets through resale on the day of the concert itself, and paid €110, which was nearly the cost of the front row if purchased on time, but couldn't manage to decide earlier, as is the case with most things in my life. 

Thereafter made the long 2 hour trip from Rotterdam to Goffert Park, Nijmegen to watch the show, and had sufficient time to grab a Vietnamese Gyoka and move ahead to a spot where there weren't any tall Dutch in front of me, allowing clear LOS of the stage. 

What I didn't know was that I was right at the epicenter of a moshpit that only grew bigger with every song, which included women and kids too. I entered it a couple of times from the side, but not whole heartedly, and only towards the end did I give in, only to fall twice in quick succession, realizing that it was the reason I didn't enter earlier. 

 

However, the way moshpit works here, people pick you up with a smile the second you fall, so everyone is out to help and actually have a fun time. 

I was completely enjoying myself. My favourite, Estranged, played right at the start, and simply watching Slash and Axl together was a high. 

But the crescendo was at the end when AC/DC guitarist, Angus Young jammed with the rest, which was followed by Sweet Child Of Mine that Axl wore a white leather jacket for. Then Slash performs a solo of Floyd's Wish You Were Here. Then Axl takes it higher with a classic November Rain on his piano, and follows it up with a dedication to Chris Cornell with Black Hole Sun, and finally there was Knocking On Heavens Door. 

It was high after high, and by this time, the concert was done for me. Band took a break but clearly there was an encore on the cards. I started to walk back though as the last 2 hour train was 22:55 and the ones later would take 4 hours. But by the time I waded through the crowd, I was late. So I decided to have a beer, which as usual I couldn't finish, so then had fries with curry sauce that tasted terrible, and made it to the station among people partying so much that at one stage, a girl even holds my arm saying Hoi. I was too embarrassed and just smiled and said Hoi in return and she let me be. 

Then followed the long journey that ended up taking 5 hours, coz I met Diletta at Utrecht and we decided to take an Uber that never showed up, causing us to miss the 1:10 train and take the next one at 2:17. 

 

Finally made it home by 4:30 and could barely sleep after that. But can't deny that the effort was worth it. Head banging to the last part of November Rain was the highlight of highlights at the concert for me.