Aersosmith Concert Adventures

The great, gorgeous, sexy, adorable, hot, intelligent Jyothi Ramakrishnan writes:


I. Elderly Sex God

On Saturday night, Shumit and I went to the Aerosmith concert along with friends. The lead singer Steve Tyler is 60 years old, and lead guitarist Joe Perry is 57. But Tyler is not relinquishing his role as rock star, nor should he

Tyler gyrated and humped his microphone stand all night. He would press his face to the video camera and his face would project over the large screens, a skull with deep set eyes and skin drawn tightly over wrinkled mouth. At one point, he pulled up his shirt with his teeth to reveal "Lick me" written in marker on his stomach.

Once, Joe Perry started to drawl over the microphone:

"You know, we love India. And not for the usual reasons! We don't like India because of the elephants, or the food, or that paint-stuff you put on your hands ..."
[A pause. Audience waits with baited breath, thinking maybe these ferungis would break the mold of the usual tourists coming to see superficial "colorful Indian culture," and would want to see something deeper, like art or history or politics]
"We like India because of ... the Kama Sutra!!" [Audience Cheers. Ferungis will be ferungis!]

The concert ended in 2 hours. Personally, I am quite happy that a 60 year old is still strutting around like a sex god, and gyrating. American society highly discriminates against the elderly, as though once you hit 50 you become this non-sexual creature not allowed to say or do anything controversial. Very cool to see Tyler break the mold

II. Murderous Monkeys

On Sunday, Shumit and I made plans, and then rejected the plans, to visit the local police station to report my lost digital camera. [Shumit: "It's lunchtime. Cops will be eating lunch for another 3, 4 hours"] and visited Bannerghatta "National Park."

After an excruciating 2-hour wait in line, we were crammed like sardines into a jail-like bus with cage windows. The bus bumped through a variety of reserves, where ("drugged," Shumit told me) lions, bears and tigers lolled around, looking indeed rather drugged, and some were in horribly small cages. Some of the tigers looked really, really pissed off we were there

After that, Shum and I, equipped with our bright orange Frooti bottles, headed to the Butterfly Park. We entered. There was a monkey faaaaar ahead of us. It moved like 2 inches towards us, still sitting in its tree, minding its own business. Shumit is convinced this is a Monkey From Hell who wants his Frooti bottle and will go to any length (murder, extortion) to get it. Shumit hurls the Frooti bottle at foot of monkey's tree. Monkey, nonplussed, scampers down, ingeniuously opens the bottle, and starts to lap up the juice.

Shumit: Jyothi, throw down your Frooti. Throw it down. The monkey is going to attack you
Me: No.
Random man: It's okay, don't worry about the monkeys
Me: I'll hide the Frooti under my shirt
Shumit: He'll smell the Frooti!
Me: Does he even have a nose?

In the end, intoxicated with fears, we scurried out of the park, got a refund, and left.

III. Ride of Death

Later that night, we went to TGIF to meet a childhood friend of Shumit's. There were no free tables, but a kind stranger let us share his. He is Michael from South Africa, who was studying his MBA in Delhi and frankly shared that he does not like most Indians, although he claimed he liked us. Shumit's good friend Sainag arrived, and his girlfriend Kalpana, and we all launched into a discussion about whether South Africans or Indians had a better chance of kicking the other's ass.

All the camaraderie led us to lose track of time. We realized we had 30 minutes to reach a far off bus station. Shumit told the auto driver he'd receive 200 rupees if he got us to our bus on time.

What followed was the Stupidest Thing I've Done In My Life. The auto driver drove like we were in a Hollywood/Bollywood movie. Two trucks would be moving closer to each other and we'd zoom between with just inches to spare. Pedestrians crossing the street started to run like hell to avoid being hit by this devil driver. We rounded corners at speeds such that I was certain centripedal forces just could not kick in.

We HIT a bicyclist, but luckily the Mob Opinion (random guys on steps) was that the biker had been in the wrong (?!). Poor biker slunk off, dejected, as though it were his fault.

The most surreal part was Shumit's calm assurances: "If we die, it's okay. I think I'm ready to die. It would be in a pretty cool way too, don't you think?"

We reached our bus on time, slept on the overnight bus, and went to work the next morning.