The Gods of Rock

I’ve been a big fan of Metallica for a really long time. I remember playing my first Metallica songs on my guitar and getting extremely thrilled. Those guys were easily one of the best live acts in their genre. Hetfield on stage gives me goose bumps even now.

Now that its been established that I don’t hate Metallica, let me divert your attention to the lyrics of one of their songs. This is the opening track on their 1986 album, Master of Puppets.

God knows how they got down to write this shite down.

Lashing out the action (is this porn now?), returning the reaction (what? I mean, what?)
Weak are ripped and torn away
Hypnotizing power, crushing all that cower
Battery is here to stay


Smashing through the boundaries
Lunacy has found me (ya that’s true)
Cannot stop the Battery
Pounding out aggression
Turns into obsession
Cannot kill the Battery
Cannot kill the family (!!!!!)
Battery has found in me (come on man, what is this?)
Battery
Battery


Crushing all deceivers, smashing non-believers
Never ending potency
Hungry violence seeker, feeding off the weaker
Breeding on insanity


Circle of Destruction, Hammer comes crushing
Powerhouse of energy
Whipping up a fury, Dominating flurry (flurry? Seriously?)
We create the Battery (Metallica when they were working in Duracell)

Bye Al Khuzama?

It's saturday night and i'm sitting in my room, after a few episodes of That 70s Show and getting excited when limewire manages to leach onto hosts to provide me with entertainment in the form of Scrubs. As a friend put it, Kelso and Fez have been the high point of my last few days. However, thanks to another friend, who happens to be very enterprising, arabia has turned into a land of possibilities. Quote the right price and one can land up with things you never dreamed possible on this side of the Arabian sea (and no, I'm not talking about anything related to women, please). Anyway, due to this dear friend, I have managed to be happy for the past few days, and god willing, will remain so till my remaining days here (which I think are coming to an end pretty darn soon).
 

Come to think of it, now I have second thoughts about the excitement attached to a trip back to Bombay. That city man. A lousy house (which hopefully we'll do something about soon), the horrible train rides (which no one can do anything about), the never-stopping thunder showers & auto drivers who will take you only to places that's at least 10 kms away (yes, again, no luck in these two cases as well). Yuck. To give up a great villa, ironed shirts lying in the closet, an aircon cab ride to work, food waiting for you when you get back from work, a Jacuzzi, blah, blah. Damn.

I’ve been getting too used to the land of no intoxication. I wonder, could this be because of my industrious friends? All said and done, if one manages to subtract the dumb arabs, the fact that wine and women are part of your wildest fantasies & that one’s in a desert, this place is aint half bad.

Back in the Gelf

I’ve been meaning to jot down something for sometime now. Anyway, now that I’m back in the desert, I have found time to do this, once again. Luckily, thanks to an expiring visa and a company that feels sorry for employees who’re stuck in the middle east for too long, I was in Bombay for a week. And, yes, I made sure that I made utmost use of each and every second I was there. Regularly indulged in inebriation and other sorts of intoxication on very very regular basis. Managed to make sure there were more than two nights when I had no clue how I came back home, and oh ya, even ensured a drunken entry into office at 4 p.m. on the last day. All the things that I was looking forward to so badly, the rain, the Bombay crowds, friends, intoxication, etc, etc, was enjoyed to the fullest.

Got back to Riyadh on Sunday morning, and needed 2 days to get used to the fact that I was back here. Damn. Life’s fallen into the same ole groove now – early morning work, lunch at the mallu restaurant, evening football and pretty much nothing else. So I was decided that this time around, I’d go around the city and have something to say about the city when people asked me about the damn place. Following along these lines, all of us headed out to Al Faisaliyah today, the second tallest tower in Riyadh. A massive construction that doesn’t look half bad, although when I found out that the shape of the building was inspired from a ball point pen I was amused.

So we walk in in our casual sort of clothes and check out some extremely rich Arabs and their extremely hot wives (or whoever), and yes, we did manage to sneak peeks through the burqahs  Anyway, it was decided to check out the restaurant at the top of the tower inside the ball (of the ball-point pen remember). The view from the top was breath-taking, obviously, and then I realize I forgot my camera at home. Damn. Kept cursing myself for a long time and then found out that dinner would come upto 5 grant per head. And that’s without any alcohol. What the hell. so we grumble and bitch a bit about the Arabs and enjoy extremely expensive gourmet French food (consisting of a pina colada with no alcohol, crab caniloni and a wagyu beef {apparently one of the softest and most tender in the world} steak) looking down on a city that was lit up quite beautifully. The most upsetting part was that I was with 7 guys and not my non-existant girlfriend. That behind us, we decided we’d be laying low on the shopping / spending front for quite sometime now. Although, I have to say, it was definitely a spectacular experience.

I have one day left during the weekend, and I cant think of exciting things to do. As you can see, the Bombay spirit’s still a bit alive inside me. Looks like I should be stuck here for another month or so. Let’s see how this works out. I’m sure even the pessimistic me can pull through this with a little help from Mr. Marlboro and the (very) occasional arrack.