For that I'd have to roll back in time to 17th October 2008 which was the Star Night in our college fest, Aranya '08. The famous band, Jal was to perform in our college and I'm a big fan of Jal. As expected I arrived there early to get the best possible position. The crowd continued to come in, my estimate would be around 9000 people. And with the mighty force of the crowd wanting to come ahead, the barriers began to fall. Policemen and Guards came to the rescue as they lathi charged (I still can't believe they did that. We're just students, you can't be that harsh !!) us and took control of the situation. Another push from the crowd and the lights came down. The whole metallic structure carrying the lights for the stage came down right in the middle of the VIP seating (fortunately nobody was sitting there). A lady had a close escape amazingly right in front of the lights. I thought it was all over, there would be no Jal but then we were rescued as the police Lathi charged with anger now and made the whole crowd sit in a few minutes.The next situation is that we are sitting down and attending a music concert (You really need to Laugh-Out-Loud this time). As the band came in, it was a matter of time before the crowd was on the feet again. Then a lot of pushing and shoving, backs pressing, people yelling, and lovely music in the background. The biggest mistake I made was to try and advance to get a better vantage point. Next, I get caught in between big, strong people and am pushed here and there. I felt claustrophobic out there. I'm still watching Jal perform but I'm not in a very comfortable position out here. I'm constantly pushed around just like everyone else and its total chaos out there. Suddenly, I see a number of people in a line going down. But before I realized I was part of the same line, I was already down. Being down is much much worse then being pushed around above. You have the fear of being crumpled to death or breaking a bone or something bizarre. I'm in a half lying down position, with my legs on the floor and my upper body vertical. My legs felt pain with a number of bodies lying on top of me, my approximation would be around 4. I wanted to scream as loud as possible, so that someone could hear me. I did scream but nobody could hear me. It was all in vain as there was no response from anyone above. While moving my hands on the floor trying to free my legs, I learnt that there was another guy right below me, I was sitting on top of him. Momentarily I felt sorry for him but soon I said to myself, "I need to get out of this situation myself" and "I am no better than he is at the moment". Selfishly, I stretched my hands up looking for help of any sort. Nobody bothered to look down. The thought of being walked upon and suffocated to death struck me. I had a sinking feeling which I hate to recall. I wanted to get out of there anyhow. I pushed my legs hard, with all my force, took support from other bodies and pushed. To my surprise my legs were out miraculously. But, my shoes weren't out, only my legs were. Pushing against the body below me, I stood up. It felt so good being on my feet again but I again had the fear of being stepped upon as I wasn't wearing any shoes. After a while I found one shoe. Somehow I managed my way right in front of the railing, metres away from the stage. I was so happy getting to see Jal from so close. I sat there and saw about 3 songs before the song titled "Dil Haray" came, where they told everyone to take out their cell phones and switch on the light and wave them up in the air. It was dark (lights were switched off) and the song was a slow one, so it gave a nice effect. This made everyone stand up and again the same situation. I had decided I wasn't going to experience that situation again. I made my way towards the railing, jumped over and walked out with one shoe in my right leg. After the show, I went back to get my shoe. Though I got it easily, I saw the ground had lots of shoes lying as such. A maddening experience for me, a really close one, learnt a lot from it.
