Never too late to act 'crazy'!!

It is never too late to get wild in life, one can do that whenever you want to! I went over to an A.R Rehman concert yesterday, it happened at the backdrop of the international airport in Hyderabad, which I must say is one of the best airports if not the best in India. It was supposed to be a huge concert with 50000 people expected.

The ticket prices ranged from 500 to 25000, which gives you an indication that if you buy the cheapest tickets, you are going to be in a hopeless situation of being able to watch the concert. Unlike the flight prices, concert prices come down as the D-day approaches, and this was no different although this was happening next to the airport!

Initially reluctant, but when the Rs. 500 tickets became worth Rs. 350, I decided, I can take it to experience this "Once in a lifetime" concert, and so I convinced my two friends to join in as well. Well after a drive of 1 hour and 30 minutes, we reached the venue. First thing to catch my eyes, rather should say 'ears' were the acoustics, considering that this was an open concert, they were really good, then there were the high-tech gadgets to recognise the bar-codes of the tickets, we are going the super fast IT lane baby!

But the arrangements for the people watching in the Rs. 500 gallery was as good as listening to the concert from the car park, as nothing was visible, the people on the stage seemed no bigger than insects. Interestingly there were no large screens near this gallery. We walked towards the railing(the farthest we could go), and started soaking in the atmosphere, it seemed so much like a-l-a the TITANIC ship, and as if we were the third class passengers in there! While folks in the higer ticket ranges were having chairs to sit and enjoy the show, we were standing and trying to figure out what was happening.

Then a 'GOD-SEND' guy, started walking along the boundaries of the Rs. 1000 gallery, also the border of our gallery, and asked if someone was interested in the tickets. No one was really asking questions of him, thinking he might be wanting to sell the tickets. But I am never a step away from the next question, and there I went, if he would give it to us, and would also charge us for it. Bang came the answer "FOR FREE"! Boy do we still enjoy getting something for free, even when we can afford the same by paying. We said we are three and he threw the tickets to us.

Super excited like teenagers we jumped and grabbed the tickets only to find, that there were only 2 valid tickets, as the third one was without the counterfoil, which would not be valid for entering. Now we have a situation where there are 3 guys and tickets only 2. If we get out of the 500 gallery, and don't manage to get into the 1000 gallery, then we loose the oppurtunity of watching anything at all.

A meeting took place, nothing similar to the ones we have in our offices, where they last for hours and we get no results, this one was for 5 minutes and all plans up there to make the operation 'Rahman' succesfull.

We convinced the gallery 500 guards that we needed to pick up the video camera and would be back in 5 minutes. After a hard deliberation which defied logic, 3 guys going to get a videocam, we were let off. Now was the bigger challenge of getting into gallery 1000. One guy on the phone, with 2 tickets and his 'checked' ticket. Two guys supposedly late to the concert, meet and greet th first guy, and swipe the two tickets and 3 people inside the gallery 1000. High fives exchanged as if a major victory was achieved.

Suddenly the concert seemed larger than life, not knowing if it was because we managed to save 650 bucks per ticket, or because we could see better. Whatever it was, the next 2 and half hours were quite electrifying, if we leave aside the political diplomacy of the introduction of the guests on the front row, while we were busy catching up on some food during that time.

This was the time when I should have been getting into the 2500 gallery, but I was doing something that I would have been proud of doing during my college days, but do I not enjoy doing it now, the answer is a resounding yes! Why not, who said that with age, everything you do has to reflect maturity!!

Two learnings, never book the cheapest tickets to a concert, rather not go! If you still make the mistake, never hesitate to get a promotion, at a cheap cost if you can, dont bring your self-esteem or ego in the way!!