Do They Know It’s Sting?

I saw a lot of pain on social media over the impromptu Chris Martin gig. People who don’t stay in Delhi anymore are regretting moving out of the city. People who have been to Delhi once in their life are asking themselves why they didn’t plan the visit so that it would’ve magically aligned with the Chris Martin gig. Everyone seems to be in pain. I don’t understand what the big deal is, reason being what Obama quoted from DDLJ. Also because I’ve been through worse when I was in Trivadrum where the quote doesn’t apply yet.

Flashing back to 2010. We were loitering at the Kanakakunnu Palace grounds on the closing day of the Hay Festival and feeling all intellectual. After aimlessly walking into a poetry reading and listening to some impactful poetry on familial dementia by mistake, we dispersed for a while. I headed over to Shreya’s place and later turned up with her and met up with my then poetry listening-lit fest loitering-partner at Kanakakunnu in time for the Bob Geldof concert. No, we are not musically inclined people although Shreya would like to disagree. Her musical prowess and wisdom can be defined with one word- Gabbalaala. And I prefer listening to the voices in my head rather than listening to music. But a Bob Geldof free concert in a concert-starved city is something else. We marveled at his energy as he stomped to and fro across the stage singing, took off his shirt at some point and borrowed someone else’s if I remember right. Of course my memory could be playing tricks on me. But I’m pretty sure that it did happen. Anyway after much marveling for an hour or two we realized that we were still in Trivandrum and if we didn’t step out of the venue soon we wouldn’t be able to catch an auto-rickshaw back home.

So around 10.45 we left. Got into an auto with a driver who was in a mood to share his existential crises with us. Reached home. Slept off, woke up the next day, read the newspaper and died inside. Apparently Sting was sitting somewhere in the front row. As Geldof was about to wind up he decided to invite Sting to perform with him. And they performed while I was probably empathizing with my auto driver’s dilemmas. So yeah.

You can read the news story here:
http://www.yentha.com/news/view/1/Geldof-Presents-A-Sting-ing-Finish-To-Hay-Fest