Close encounters of the furry kind

Having not been able to complete my run mileage the previous week, I was very determined to get it done by hook or crook. And the events of the week further gave this run a whole different meaning.

So you find yourself in the early morn, quickly doing your warm up while others (with the exception of runners) are fast asleep tucked in their bed, enjoying their Sunday sleep. 

You patiently wait for the gates to open , and when it does you scurry through it and into the dark park.

Darkness immediately engulfs you. Ok, it’s not that dark. There are those few street lamps (can you even call it that, or should it be park lights) that try their best to keep the darkness at bay. Luckily you have your headlamp, which would help you navigate through the darkness till dawn lights up your way.

You start off cautiously not wanting to trip on potholes or speed breakers (cause falling in the park is what your burgers and fires does best, and you don’t want to add to the craters in the park).

Your headlamp does its best to light up your way through the light drizzle and mist. You squint to see what’s ahead of you.

As you slowly make your way through the darkness you note a couple of dots that light up as you look at them, glowing in the dark.

You know what they are and are not perturbed by their presence. Well they too don’t seem perturbed by your presence. They just glance your way wondering what type of strange creature is this who’s running at such an odd hour when they should have in fact be in bed (you could the same thing about them too). But then they are used to seeing such crazy fools in the early hours. So they just glance and return to what they were doing before the light shone on them. There was no way you disturb or distract them from what they were doing in the dark, which was eating grass (what did you think they were doing in the dark!!!).

You continue on your run and come up to Gandhi Tekadi. Wanting to cover it at least once in the morning so you don’t have to slog through it in the heat of day, you take the turn up the Tekadi.

So up you go, running slowly up the slope cause hills and slope have never been kind to you. Somehow you have this feeling that  you struggle with them, but then this is not always true. You try your best to avoid being smacked in the face by the branches of the overgrown shrubbery which have thrived in the rains.

Then suddenly out of nowhere you see another pair of glowing eyes that quickly scurries away across the path ahead and into the shrubbery, making you wonder what exactly was it.

It wasn’t a deer cause it didn’t feel like it or moved like one. It couldn’t be a cat cause it was bit bigger than the usual stray feline that you have notice in the park.

And then it comes to you causing your heart to skip a thousand beats. Could it be the furry one? But you didn’t hear any calls to indicate its presence, and then there were the deer that were grazing at the base of the Tekadi. They wouldn’t be there if they knew it was this close.

So you look in the direction that it went , your head lamp lighting up the area. And then you see a silhouette of it, on top of the ridge. You can make out a shape that’s a little bigger than a common cat, and those glowing eyes staring at you, watching you from high ground, almost as if it was stalking you.

And in the moment you wonder if you should be brave and continue running up that hill, or do the wise thing and slowly turnaround, without showing any signs of fear (which in the moment is the most difficult thing you could do), and go back down to the safety of the road below.

You choose to do the later, slowly trying to make your way down, but  your insides are all terrified of what you’ve seen and what could happen. But then considering the week you had this wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to you.  

As you slowly make your way back (cause your trying hard not to go into full panic mode and burst into a sprint) you see this elderly gentleman on his morning walk without a flashlight with just a stick in hand, unperturbed by the darkness.

You stop and try to warn him about what lies ahead (or you think lies ahead). However, he seems agitated by you and screams at you. Thats when you realise that you’re actually blinding him with your headlamp. You quickly switch off your headlamp but he doesn’t seem to heed your warning and continues with his walk.

You wonder should you continue doing what you were doing which was getting the hell out there as fast as you could, or do the so called gentlemanly thing and follow him to ensure he’s safe.

You being you, you decide to do the later and follow him a little behind as he waddled his way to the top.

As go past the place of your sighting of those glowing eyes stalking you from its perch, you nervously look around and then look ahead for any sign of what lay hiding in the darkness. You are anxious and in full alert mode, trying hard not to panic. Somehow the presence of this elderly gentleman ahead of you gives you reassurance and calms you down to a good extent.

You realise though you were trying to do the noble thing and ensuring that this person was safe, but in reality it was the other way around. It was his presence that reassured you and made you feel safe.

So you quietly walk behind as he continues without showing any sign of anything.

Suddenly you see this other gentleman coming down the slopes, probably doing hill repeats in the dark. 

He gets scolded by our gentleman as he had squeezed through the gates even before time and the security was whistling for him to stop.

After this brief conversation your knight in shinning armour continues on his walks while the other gentleman continues with his runs while you continue to walk silently behind your knight.

When you finally reach the top you go round the monument like you always do while your knight checks if anyone is there.

You realise it’s finally time to part way and continue with your run and complete your mileage.

You thank your knight for his company and to your surprise he thanks you too.

It’s finally time to go on your way, so you cautiously make your back down the hill in a nice  and slow jog, looking all around wondering what’s lurking in the dark. 

You breathe a sigh of relief on reaching the base and you continue on your run.

The rest of your run proved to be quite uneventful , if not boring as you brave the elements of the initial rains followed by the heat and humidity later in the morning.

Though you managed to complete the mileage you set out to do, the events, or if I could call it adventures, of the first hour would stick with you more than your achievement of completing 29k mostly on your own.

The Crying Necessitation

It’s never easy to see the ones you love, the ones you care about the most, the one who mean the most to you in tears, let alone to hear them crying. But how prudent is it to try to stop them from crying?

It’s hard to see them in tears. And to just hear them  and not be there in person for them drives a dagger through your heart knowing that there’s nothing you can do, making you feel so helpless and blue.

But how right is it to tell them not to cry, saying everything will be alright, no matter how noble your intention maybe?

Sometimes the best thing is getting it all out of the system.

Just like when your stomach is upset from a thing that you may have ate, the best thing to do is get all out of your system so that you can start to feel better.

And so it is with crying, you need to get it all out of your system. 

You need to drain yourself of the sadness and hurt you feel in order to begin the healing. Cause when you keep it bottled up inside, it’ll curdle and fester into something unpleasant. And when it finds its way out, it’s never going to be good, amplifying into something much greater than what it should.

So let them cry. Let them get it all out of their system. Let them mourn and drain themselves of the hurt and the pain.

It’s not going to be easy. It’s never easy. It’s never ever easy to stand there and do nothing or say nothing. But in doing so you are doing so much more for them.

It’s going to hurt you so bad (but not as much as they are hurting) but you’ve got to be patient and let them cry. 

Be there for them, let them let out all that they feel. Be the ear that they need. Be the shoulder for them to lean on to.

But don’t tell them to stop. Cause sometimes in tears and sadness you begin to heal and that is the best thing you’ll ever do.

To LOVE and be LOVED: The greatest thing you will ever do

Everyone deserves to be loved no matter who you are, or where you’re from, or what you do. If you can love, then you deserve to be loved.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a boy or girl, man or woman, black, brown or white, or if you’re gay or straight, bi-sexual or asexual or identify as transgender or just queer. It doesn’t matter how you identify yourself and what your preference is. If you have a pulse running through your vein, then you deserve to be loved.

It doesn’t matter if you are tall or short, what’s your shape or size, or even your length or breath (now please don’t ask me what is being measured). Neither does your ethnicity and nationality and what you do matters.

You are deserving to be loved, even when you are at your lowest, when you’re at your worst, when you’re no longer young and beautiful. When you feel you’re unlovable.

In these moments you especially deserve to be loved.

Yes you can buy yourself flowers. Yes you can right your name in the sand. Yes you can talk to yourself for hours. But then wouldn’t that be more beautiful and meaningful if you could shared this with someone. If someone got you flowers. And talking to yourself even for a couple of minutes (forget hours), is never a good sign.

Yes you can pamper yourself, buy yourself expensive things. But sometimes it’s a bit nicer to be at the receiving end of someone’s love, or even be a giver.

Yes we can take care of ourselves and stand  on our own independent feet without needing anyone else, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But once in a while it’s good to be taken care of.

To love and be loved is the greatest thing we can ever do.

You may be hurting and smarting from heart breaks and heart aches or you just want to give up on love and finding love, never ever wanting to go down that road ever again.

But know this, that love will find its way to you. Cause even though you may give up on love, love will never give up. And just when  you least expect it love will creep into your life and into your heart and surprise and wrap you, hugging you tight, in its arms with delight. And next thing you know it has you all wrapped around its little finger.

You just can’t help yourself and love and be loved, cause the greatest thing you’ll ever do is just to love and be loved in return.

Try a little kindness

If there’s anything you can be  in the world, how about being kind? In a world that’s smarting from hate and whataboutery, how about choosing to be kind.

We all have our opinions and it’s so easy to be snarky, bitchy, curt, all in the name of being frank and in your face and saying it as you see it, being brutally honest. But how about being a little kind.

If you don’t have anything good to say, how about not saying anything at all, cause words can cut like a knife. Words can bring someone down. Words can trigger, words can push someone over the edge. 

Everyone’s going through something to another. Some able to express it others just bottling it all up. Some are able to cope with it, others struggle to make it through the day.

And when they aren’t able to hold all it in, there’s no way of telling how it will manifest itself, there’s no telling what they could do.

So be kind. There’s not telling what the person next to you is going through. There’s no telling what burden they’re caring or what they are healing from. 

You just got be KIND… it doesn’t take too much.

Father and Son: An unspoken conversation

They sat there eating in silence, trying hard not to make an already awkward situation even more awkward. 

The air between them was so rife and thick  with tension that you could cut it with a knife. The silence between them was deafening.

Given a chance they would rather be anywhere but here. But then they had made a promise to her, after she managed to broker an uneasy truce, and so they chose to honour the promise even after she was gone.

Why couldn’t he be like other boys, he thought as he glanced at the boy sitting opposite him. Why couldn’t he just be normal. But no he had to go and be someone different. 

He remembered that long ago he too was once like he was now, wanting to be different, wanting to be someone who would make his mark, someone who would standout form the crowd. But this was not what he did!

He’s still young , he thought, and had his whole life in front of him to do whatever he chose to do, maybe even find a girl and settle down. If he wanted he could marry. But no, he had to go and choose to be something different, someone different. He had to go and make life difficult, make his life complicated. 

Like his wife he too was worried what was in store for him cause he knew life wouldn’t be easy and the world and society wouldn’t be kind to someone like him, in fact it can be cruel to someone like him.

How he wished he would just slow down and be calm, take some  time to think and think a lot. He could  think of everything what he got. He would still be here tomorrow but his dreams may not.

He’s still young and eager and easily malleable, and this was not his fault. But it was not the time to make a change cause there’s a lot he would have to go through. 

Oh only if he could be a normal boy like any other boy, he thought.

As he sat there eating  in silence he felt this uneasiness in his system. He felt uncomfortable. But he had promised his mother, and he was here to honour his promise to her.

How he wished he would just understand, he thought, as he tried to glance to the older man sitting across from him. Why couldn’t he just listen to what he had to say. But when he tried to explain, he would just turn and walk away.

He could understand all his hopes and dreams, but these were not his dreams, it was not the one that he dreamt. This was not who he was. This was who he chose to be.

He knew it would be difficult to accept it but he had to accept it, there were no two ways  about it. 

From the moment he could talk he was ordered to listen, not being allowed to say what he wanted to say, not being heard what he had to say.

This was always going to be same as along as he refused to listen, as long as he refused to understand, as long as he refused to see his point of view. 

This was going to be same old story no matter how much he tried, no matter how they tried to change the narrative.

So they ate in silence, exchanged a few forced pleasantries, a forced hug and went their way hoping they would never have to do this again, but knowing they would do it again cause they had promised her, cause they knew there was a thread, though fragile, bound them together, kept pulling them back to each other.

The Hateful Quagmire

There’s so much hate in the world today. It’s everywhere you go. You just can’t escape it. You just can’t hide from it. Even you lived under a rock, you can’t escape it.

In a world that’s obsessed with its social media presence even a little hate gets amplified a million times.

Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, you find hate in some form or the other. Even the sacred and the holy aren’t spared. Knowingly or unknowingly they too have become the symbol of the hate that we give.  A hate that’s so vile that it makes you sick to the core. That can be triggering.

Even an ordinary and unsuspecting salutation has a hateful and mocking undertones.

Just when you thought the notion of divide and rule was abandoned when the British left the country, it comes back with a vengeance, raring its ugly head. But then it was never ever gone. It has always been there, right beneath the surface, making an appearance every now and then, and more often in our current times. After all you don’t always forget the tricks you’ve been taught, the only thing that’s change are the ones who employ this ploy. 

So now the once victims have now become the perpetrators, and with the elections it’s all the more employed to spread hate and fear.

So rather than talking about what they will do for the country to reduce the economic divide and help everyone prosper, you hear more of hate and speech laced with hate. 

How you wish for simpler time when everyone lived in harmony no matter what religion they followed. 

In the present more complex world there’s this religious divide along with this economic divide. There is this uneasiness and fear due  to all the hate that’s spewed, especially by the high and mighty.

Sometime you wonder how do all these perpetrators of hate live with themselves, don’t their conscience ever prick? Don’t they fear the god that they say they are defending? I am sure there’s a special place in hell for all of them.

But then it’s sad to see so many following them, blindly, with this hate inside them, embolden by the hate speech of those who wield power. And with social media, there’s this outpouring of it that chills you to the bone leaving you disturbed and a bit shaken.

How you pray and wish that these people could actual you some of their brains and rational thinking and look beyond the coloured tapestry that’s front of their eyes.

How you wish you lived in a world where there was no hate, no politicians to leverage this hate, no fundamentalist to fan this hate, no social media to spread it. 

If this was the case then world would indeed be a better place, cause there wouldn’t be any hate to give!

The Mathematical Music

To be honest, when you’ve never been to a concert before, (that’s if you can discount the Whigfield concert that you had been to when you were in college, before your English paper, which . But didn’t quite feel like one), you seize any opportunity to attend one that comes your way. So let’s say this was your first one.

Where others take solo trips to exotic locales, you do solo concerts and movies, the life of a single soul.

As you had always liked Ed Sheeran, so it was never question that you would pass an opportunity to see him perform live in concert. And after hearing about it from your sisters who had been for his show in Dubai, you just knew you had to go. But then seeing the ticket price, caused most of your friends to choose to skip it, including your burgers and fries. Nobody wanted to pay so much just to be on your feet for hours under the sun and coping with the Mumbai weather, just to watch Ed play on a screen, as they felt the stage wouldn’t be quite visible for the people with the tickets that was in our budget.

All this didn’t quite justify the price of the ticket for them. To good extent this rationale also seemed valid to you, after all you are always trying to save though you are never been quite successful at it.

But then there’s also the thing like you only live once and you need to make the most when an opportunity presents itself. Besides there are things you need to do for yourself when for the longest time you’ve been paying EMIs or putting things on hold cause somehow you always found yourself having other pressing things.

So now that you could afford to spend on it, you just went ahead purchased the ticket. Prateek Kuhhad being one of the opening act was just the cherry on the cake.

So you find yourself at the venue at 3. Although you planned to reach by 4 but somehow you managed to reach an hour early, and you are grateful you did.

Firstly, there’s a line to get into the venue. And though it did move kind of faster than the Mumbai traffic during peak hours, it did take its time to get you to where you were supposed to be.

And there comes the second reason why you are grateful that you reached the venue early. To your surprise and delight, you find that you have access that’s closest to the stage. This meant that those who brought least expensive tickets were the ones closest to the stage, and could see Ed and the other performers clearly, whereas the ones who shelled out big bucks had to view him from the screens. 

On the hindsight this was good arrangement as the ones around the stage were the actual fans than those hoity toity ones.

All this made you feel glad that you decided to go for the concert.

But now you had quite a long wait before the start of the concert, spending time on your feet under the unobstructed Mumbai sun. 

So you found yourself amongst a sea of youth, mostly of the fairer sex. An uncle in the between all the youth. But then you are ok with it.

Finally at 5, Prateek and his band took to the stage, kicking off the proceeding the song called CO2, a song you hadn’t heard before but hearing it made you want to go and give it a listen on repeat.

It was beautiful. His voice had this beautiful soothing quality that wrapped you up it in its warmth, making you feel all so light hearted and elated like you just had a shot of dopamine.

And then you heard those familiar chords play, and you know you were in for treat as he began singing Kasoor, a song that you not just hear, but you need to feel it, and at the concert you had to hear it.

It felt surreal, it felt something different something beautiful, not just hearing it live but hearing those thousands of people sing it together with him. It was indeed a surreal moment that moved you (cause the song always moved you and left you with this lump in your throat cause of the memory it holds for you). 

You just wanted him to go on and on and never stop cause that moment felt so beautiful and surreal.

He then sang a brand new song that wasn’t released as yet and he was performing it for the very first time. Sadly, it didn’t leave a good impression on you. But then any song following Kasoor would always be eclipsed by the beauty and awesomeness of the later  song. 

How you wish he would sing the song that actually sealed the deal and made you purchase the ticket (even if it was an Ed Sheeran concert). That song was all you needed.

Alas it wasn’t to be so. He introduced his band mentioned that the next one would be the last of his set list. 

This wasn’t fair. He just performed for 30 minutes and he didn’t sing the song that you came here to hear. Yeah, it was the song that got him on the Obama year-end list, it was no All I Need.

So with Cold/Mess he completed his set list, took a bow and exited not quiet stage left ( what would be stage left on a circular stage?), leaving you a little wanting more and bit disappointed with the brevity of his performance and the fact that he didn’t know how to work the circular stage and for the entire performance had his back to half the audience.

Anyway, that’s that, what’s done cannot be undone. You could only hope that Callum Scott could do better than him.

So once again you had to wait as the stage was frantically being set for the next act to come.

At round six Callum’s band takes the stage. You funnily mistake his pianist to be Callum only to realise your mistake when Callum takes the stage dressed in all white, belting out Lighthouse, bringing the crowd alive that probably kind of hit snooze button during the gap between the two act (or maybe the weather and Prateek did it). 

Whatever it maybe, the crowd was once more alive and on their feet, singing along to Callum’s tunes as he belted them on the stage.

Callum, on his part, worked the crowd, effectively using the circular stage to reach each every end, charming the crowd with not just his music but also with his personality, with his heart.

So whether he was singing tunes that had the crowd  dancing along to upbeat songs like “Where are you know”, or then mesmerised like “Heaven” and “Biblical”. And then his attempt at speaking a few words of Hindi like “Shukriya” and “Main aap say bahut pyaar karta ho” was simply charming. And not to forget how much he loved the city, besides its traffic (now who would love the Mumbai traffic, except if you were in Bangalore).

And then he sings “You are the reason” which causes you to melt, and not just by the Mumbai heat. He dedicates to anyone who’s been in love and love in all its form and not just the romantic form.

Seeing the way he got overwhelmed when he heard the crowd sang along with him probably was the highlight of your evening (and you still had Ed Sheeran to come)

He finally ended his with the song that earned him Simon Cowell’s Golden Buzzer, “Dancing on my own”, seamlessly transitioning into “I want to dance with somebody”. And with that he ended his 40 minutes set list, but in those 40 minutes he won over many hearts (even yours truly), making every minute of those minutes beautiful and count. And he wasn’t even the main act!

So now it was back to waiting for Ed Sheeran to take the stage as the crew quickly and quite effortlessly dismantled the band and got the rotating part of the stage ready, much to yours and those around you delight.

So you once again you had to wait patiently before the main event could start, waiting patiently under the glow of red form the stage and its LED screens, in the Mumbai heat with very little breeze, even though you were close to the sea, a reminder that summer will be soon setting in.

You try to stay hydrated and stay patient, constantly hoping from one foot to another, looking at your watching wondering how long till Ed would take the stage, wondering wouldn’t it be better running outside than standing here on a not so hot night, hoping that it would be worth it. So far only Callum lived up to it and then some more.

You begin to worry if you would soon run out of patient.

7:15 comes and goes and there’s still no sign of Ed. You wonder if he got bitten by the Indian Standard Time, or like Callum he was caught in traffic? 

As if an answer to your question, the screen brings up the timer indicating the minutes to the start of his performance.

By this time crowd were getting a bit restless (who wouldn’t be when you been on your feet for this long in the Mumbai heat). They took to singing songs that were being played over the system, breaking into Blinded by the light by The Weekend. 

They let out a big cheer when the clock came on and began counting down as soon it was 20 seconds to show time.

And at exactly 7:30, Ed took the stage from within the stage, much to the screaming delight of all those there, especially the women. 

You had seen these scenes in countless footage of concerts but it was something else to actually be there in person. At one point you were sure that one of those ladies would throw their bra or panties on the stage.

He effortlessly moved around the stage  thanks to the revolving section, while pyro fireworks and flames went off all around him, giving a feel like your were in a rock concert (cooking those who happened to be close to it).

You anyway are here for the music along with the experience, so you take it all in as part of your concert experience.

You try to figure the song Ed is singing, not because he’s not clear but you don’t know the song. You do like his music and you have  been fan, but you cannot boast that you know or have heard each and every song. But then this doesn’t really matter cause at the end of the day you’re enjoying the music.

You marvel at the fact that he’s on the stage by himself. He doesn’t need a band to accompany him. He doesn’t need any pre-recorded track, so there’s no question of lip-syncing. In fact he creating music on the fly, a musical loop, as he would explain how he would create a loop by layering musical sections over each other, to play in a loop, that would cease to exist at the end of the song (how very Mission Impossible like).

So it’s just him and what looks like a keyboard and his constantly changing guitars. You actually marvel at the fact that after each song his stage help (that’s a terminology for me) comes and give him a new guitar.

What’s amazing is how his energy never dips. He’s like this amazing amazing energiser bunny that goes on and on and on and on without tiring , without boring you (well there were moments where you tried to stifle a yawn, checked your watch, shuffled from one feet to the other, but then you’ll put it down to being one of the senior citizens out there and you needing your sleep). It all made you wonder what was in that drink that he was continuously sipping.

He commanded the stage and enthralled his audience by getting them to sing along (as they even needed a push to do that, in fact the girls next to me knew the lyrics of every song). He even tried to get them harmonise to Gimme Love (a song that you loved and somewhere forgotten that was sung by him) to decent success. 

He shared anecdotes that led to songs like how he wrote Eyes Closed when he lost his friend, or singing one of his earliest singles  in empty bars and Open Mics hoping to be discovered, which initially was a small hit, but when re-released become a hit and got him the recognition that he deserved, leading to A-Team (another song that had made you fall in love with him but somewhere got lost in all his current music).

He had crowd swooning to songs like Tenerife sea, and the wedding first dance staple Perfect and Thinking Out Loud, asking the crowd to put on the torch on their mobile phone creating a surreal moment. You are sure that somewhere in the crowd some guy is proposing to his girlfriend to this song (and as you would learn latter, someone actually did just that).

Listening to these songs made you yearn to share this moment with someone special (and the couples around you didn’t help either as they slow danced to the song culminating into a kiss).

Ed was not always on his own on stage. He got a gorgeous, leggy violinist to join him for Galloway Girl (and God could she high kick and play the violin). 

You also had a couple of Indian artists making cameos. So you had Arman Mallick adding his Indian touch to Two Steps. 

And then you had Diljit Dosanj joined him on stage to perform Diljit’s song, Lover, sending the crowd into a frenzy (as if they needed any reason to do that). So you had a perfect blend of Diljit’s swagger and Ed singing in Punjabi, what more could you want! This amazing performance left the crowd wanting more of this collaboration, and instinctively started chanting for the same. Sadly that wasn’t to be.

For most of the show it was just Ed, his keyboard, the loop machine (a term you coined cause you can’t think of any other name for it), and his ever changing guitar, creating music. However, he did have band when he sang a medley of songs on which he had collaborated with others artists.

So you had a medley of songs from Beautiful People, Let the River Run, South of the Border, Peru, ending it with I Don’t Care (which instinctively had you counting steps in your head).

But that didn’t stop there, he ended it with a song which had written for another artist. So there he was, singing Love Yourself which he had written for Justin Beiber.

Though you are enjoying yourself you start to look at your watch not because you’re bored but because a bit of fatigue is getting to you, and you’re a runner who needs to be in bed to wake up in time for your Sunday long run. Plus you realise that you have been on your feet as long as you took to run the Tata ultra. 

So there you are, the only person in the crowd who’s constantly looking at his , trying hard to stifle a yawn, to very little success.

And then Ed disappears under the stage making you wonder whether this was it. But then this couldn’t be the end, he hadn’t even sung Shape of You yet. 

But then he had thanked people coming from different parts of the country and from different countries. Could this really be it? In which case it would be quite anti-climactic. This couldn’t be it?

And just as you were ready to leave, he appears from beneath the stage in a navy blue kurta with the word Mumbai (in Hindi) on it, to a familiar tune much to your delight and the delight of all gathered there.

Once again the crowd comes alive, and you can’t help yourself but get all caught up in their enthusiasm. You dance and sing and shimmy and do a body roll and wave and do everything you can while standing in place.

Although you were tired and drained by then, you just didn’t want it to end.

But then all good things have to come to an end. 

So after thanking everyone responsible for putting together the concert and for all gathered there, he promised to be back bigger and better. And with that he sang Bad Habits, the last song for the night, brining to close over two and half of nonstop fun. 

So you end a very memorable evening on a flurry of streamers, applauding as ED takes one final bow and disappears beneath the stage.

You slowly make your way through the crowd who are trudging towards the exit, which is quite a long and arduous walk on worn out feet, but walk you must.

But then the soul’s satisfied with the wonderful experience you’ve had  so the feet automatically complies and your heart is filled with the shape of you!!!!