In The Flesh

The nasty vibrations sent through our ageing hearts by each thud of the bass drum were reminders that though the sun was the same in a relative way, we were older, shorter of breath and many years closer to death than those days spent in a haze of Floyd’s resonant cynicism. We were young, and we thought we were setting the controls for the heart of the sun, but we were actually in the pipeline, filling in time, being welcomed to the machine. As Waters harshly predicted, we traded in cold comfort for change, a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage. And all those people I knew in those years, who, like Syd Barrett, reached for the secret too soon, and were blown away by the steel breeze.... But the Anarchist snarled when he saw me get mushy: "He sings ‘We’ve got famine when we need it, got designer crime, we’ve got Mercedes, we’ve got Porsche, Ferrari and Rolls Royce’", he sneered. "You think Waters drives a bloody Morris Minor?"

I had spent vast sums of money to make it to the concert, but I felt no regret. About a dozen of us had met in Bangalore the night before and spent 24 regressed but utterly guilt-free hours together, lazing around and listening to all the music that we were steeped in 15 years ago. And when the oh-so-familiar tick-tocks of the alarm clock started and the crowd broke out in wild cheers, I dialled home from my cellphone, and Swagata in Delhi and I in Bangalore listened to Roger Waters playing Time, together. And we knew at that moment, that despite Waters’ worst premonitions, we hadn’t traded in all our heroes for ghosts.