by Pasanvara Molarmakaram

The great land of India will never get the great U2 on its surface. I dream of Bono sitting with me at dinner and eating vegetable korma and sipping on a mango lassi. I dream of the Edge washing the dishes with me after we eat the meal. I want Larry Mullen, Jr. to tell us tales about the adventures of U2 on our balcony. Finally, I want the greatest bassist of all time, Adam Clayton, to sit silently in our abode smoking a pipe.

All of this will never happen, so I have to settle for U2's music in the great land of Sweden. As a man who lives in India, I am not used to a spectacle of this nature. The stage is bigger than the Taj Mahal, and they stormed the stage like Hindu gods. When the initial guitar riff of Breathe took shape, I was hypnotized. Bono took the stage, and this man was born to do this job. Hitting all these high notes at the age of 50, Bono has not lost his rock and roll edge-how the Indians wish he would appear in Bollywood films.

The song, I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight, did not seem to familiar me at first until Bono started singing it. All of a sudden, I felt I was watching a Bollywood movie with an absurd twist. Please don't mistake my words. The absurd twist was welcome. Larry Mullen, Jr. was actually walking around the enormous stage with a hand held drum; in fact, all four men invigorated the audience with beats reaching straight to our hearts and souls. Mayhem broke loose when Sunday Bloody Sunday broke out. This immediately reminded me of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and how we are so far away from a peaceful earth.

I refused to stop singing along while Moment of Surrender echoed through the stadium. In a way, I felt as if this was U2's way of saying, "God be with you." This is a night I will never forget.

U2: There will always be a place for you in my Indian home.

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