{"id":235,"date":"2005-03-07T00:14:10","date_gmt":"2005-03-06T18:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/blog\/2005\/03\/07\/ticket-to-heaven\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T14:11:36","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T08:41:36","slug":"ticket-to-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/2005\/03\/ticket-to-heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"Ticket to Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mumbai is not on the usual rock circuit, and is quite starved for good concerts.\u00a0 Most international acts give the city a pass, thanks to unfriendly government regulations and taxes. So it was with much surprise and enthusiasm that, yesterday, we witnessed one of the all-time greats of rock – Mark Knopfler<\/a> – in concert at the MMRDA grounds!<\/p>\n

A long time ago came a man on a track
\nwalking thirty miles with a pack on his back
\nand he put down his load where he thought it was the best
\nmade a home in the wilderness<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dire Straits – the band Knopfler founded way back in 1978 – has always been the ultimate source of joy for me.\u00a0 And it has been a lifelong dream to attend a live concert of Mark Knopfler.\u00a0 Can you imagine Knopfler on a stage, some rows ahead, playing for you<\/span> ?!<\/p>\n

Here I am again in this mean old town
\nAnd you\u2019re so far away from me
\nAnd where are you when the sun goes down
\nYou\u2019re so far away from me<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So when I learned that he was to perform in Mumbai on 5th March 2005, I couldn\u2019t believe it.\u00a0 More so because I was scheduled to be on a plane out of India the same day – the one day that I didn\u2019t want to be anywhere else but here!\u00a0 As luck would have it, just three days before the show, my trip got postponed.\u00a0 And, it seemed like I was finally going to make it to the show\u2026<\/p>\n

how long, how long baby
\nhow long has it been
\nhow long you gonna keep me wondering
\nhow long before you see
\nstallin\u2019 me was wrong – how long<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was every thing I\u2019d dreamed of, and more.\u00a0 The arrangements were well coordinated, the audience was well behaved, the sound quality was superb and the music\u2026 the music was sheer bliss.<\/p>\n

I got my ticket to heaven
\nand everlasting life
\nI got a ride all the way to paradise<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Sultan of Swing performed live last night, and I was just a couple of rows away from him!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mumbai is not on the usual rock circuit, and is quite starved for good concerts. Most international acts give the city a pass, thanks to unfriendly government regulations and taxes. So it was with much surprise and enthusiasm that, yesterday, we witnessed one of the all-time greats of rock – Mark Knopfler – in concert at the MMRDA grounds!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,20],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-personal","tag-etcetera"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5072,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions\/5072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/greymatter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}