September 25, 2012

Arnab Sensation

If heaven is a place on Earth, I may have stumbled upon it on the outskirts of Seoul at the KINTEX convention center. The Sensation concert series had landed in Asia for the first time, with Korea the first stop on the tour. I went with a group of Korean friends. The theme of the night was "An Ocean of White". This was reinforced by the all white dress code required for all attendees, set decoration drawing inspiration from the depths of the sea, and k-girls covered in dollops of skin whitening cream.


There were around 20,000 revelers in attendance. As the event was about to begin, streams of angelic figures waited to enter the main event hall. The concert started around 10pm at night and continued until 5am the next morning. Each DJ mixed for about an hour and a half. It was not all about the beats though, as the house music was accompanied by water fountains, lasers, giant beach balls thrown into the crowd, pyrotechnics, and dancing girls who had their upper bodies enclosed in plastic bubbles.


The k-girls would go outside the main hall to rest whenever they got tired, a frequent occurrence. Exhausted beauties were scattered across the grounds like confetti, sitting on the floor after taking of their killer heels, lined up in lengthy queues outside the bathrooms (where the mirrors are larger than the hand mirrors they carry in their purses), or sipping coffee while playing on their smartphones.

Source: Sensation

"It is like paradise" I exhaled, dabbing the drool off my face with a moist towelette. As a steady stream of Korean beauties sauntered past me with expressions ranging from vacant to disgusted, I expressed my oft repeated regret that they may not speak English. "I hope they don't" said a Korean man standing nearby with a self-satisfied grin on his face.

Source: Sensation

I posed with several starlets, who quickly dispersed after taking a photograph with me. After seeing one such photo, a friend of mine commented that "This picture is very misleading as if you are a hot guy among girls. It could lead Indian boys to immediately buy a one way Korean ticket." To be fair, this was an improvement over regular encounters where a k-girl is more likely to be using her phone to call a park ranger to tranquilize me rather than to store my contact number.


As dawn approached the revelers groggily made their way to the subway station to catch the first train of a new day. Every seat was occupied by someone dressed in white, a shocking sight for passengers at subsequent stops. They must have wondered why so many hospital patients, spa goers, and lunatics from the insane asylum were all out at the same time. A random girl sitting beside me fell asleep, placing her head on my able shoulders. Her head slid steadily downwards, before jerking back up just in the nick of time. The passengers who were still awake watched with bemused expressions on their faces.

*****

"Take your pleasure seriously." — Charles Eames