One Night Stand

It wasnt particularly a hell raising inferno that friday evening. But a week of traveling and hunting wizards and witches across the Finnish land wasn't quite a hey day in the sun either. We crawled with the bats at night and slept with the first rays of the sun. Vampires lurking around the corner had new human stalkers in the Nat Geo team breathing down their decomposing flesh with lenses, flash guns and microphones. Now I have had my share of the Finnish Hillbilly. But the only thing connecting me to the Scandinavian nation was the blond metal heads of Children of Bodom with perhaps a faint memory of Smack or the very screeching presence of Rasmus at home.

But nothing could ever prepare me for the chaos and banter of the bay. Helsinki was screaming redemption and revenge with a 24 hour cycle of pagan worship and keys crying notes of death. I was in Hades paradise. Scouting for music and bands was as easy as getting down to the nearest drugstore to pick up Lithium . (Oh yeah! the drug is non-prescription there). And musical inspiration is what really drove and knit our story together. Every underground warmwood ritual we simmered to night after night, had an organ placed is some vague corner, venting out their own melodies of cymbals, strings and shattering vocals. A new found rock greeted us at every corner. In a group of foreigners, Jaiveer and I were two lost cadets on a ship sailing through the black waters into white shores. Paddeling the boat with frames of film, pages of notes and scripts and of course bites from the animals (visual pieces that is. not literal in case you're wondering!).

We needed a night of quiet connecting on familar grounds and let the cranial fluids stay intact. We were all willing to go as far as possible without actually losing our minds. And we were on the brink.

"Club Hiatus on the bay. Tonight. We need this and you know it," is all Jaiveer said. I did. I knew it. We had to get drunk, we needed to party, we needed to heal our claws and teeth.

And we picked the wrong place......

Hiatus on the Piere is a rock club with bands coming for trials every night. But we didn't kow that until we reached. "Oh! its perfect for our story. You need to got get the camera here. Quick," was what I ordered the Sardar next to me (yes yes, we were the only two Indians. And two lost sardars as well....) But we waited.

And within seconds...........the judges for the night were on stage. Finland's raunchiest 3 member punk outift LAPKO............

The lead, belted and plucked sounds reminiscent of Sex Pistols, but tweeked to carry Tom Morello's style. The basist seemed a misfit and looked like Kurt Cobain lurking in the shadows. Surreal, very surreal.......It could also be those mutliple shooters swimming in my head now. But a sound to remember it was. Never had I heard anything like that. Its sheer power blew me apart and my soul seemed far away stuck to the back of the pub with the blast of the speakers.

Ten minutes..........is all it took. Ten minutes. Had to get their shots. And Jaiveer was rolling the lens. The magic was over. They were off stage and I was stuck to my seet.

"Move. Theyre getting away," jaiveer was thrusting the microphone in my hand. I leapt, ran and did what I do best. Talk. And the next half hour. We talked. The camera rolled. Wine, music, life, backstage, sounds, inspiration, unplugged, rage, rock, travel, experience, death, hate, love, passion, sex, kids, food, soul............the battery ran out, the tape rolled its last film............but we still talked.

We walked on the bay. The five of us, took off our shoes and let the waves crash into our bits of the millions of things we had to discuss. The sun rose and the Aurora broke (breaks thrice a day) It was time to go home. Hugs, kisses and those goodbye. "Maybe we should see each other again..."

Maybe.......maybe somethings are not meant to last beyond one night.

We had worked out night off too.........Jaiveer and I went back to our room without a look back, but with contended hearts and tired eyes.

We slept that morning as we had'nt slept for a week. We had found humans in the dark waters.