Freakishly Faithful : Chapter 2 (contd.) - Aarambh : The Beginning

These writings are, as far as possible, chronological. I am not planning to go for a day-by-day account, of course, but I do intend to capture as many incidents, events, happenings and the like as possible which occur to me in my recollections while writing these posts. This next post is a continuation of Chapter 2, and I’ve indulged my imagination in this one, because Rono had requested something earlier. Let’s see how this turns out.
By the way, I haven’t posted anything here in sometime because I’m on vacation. Did you miss me?? ;)

Part 3

“Dude… Rono… don’t play the drums for this song. It doesn’t have any drumming man,” I say to Rono, while we are getting set to practice what I hope will be our best number in the show. “Ok Da,” he says, drumsticks in hand, but I suspect he’s planning on giving it a go anyway. I have to dissuade him; he’s much too excited now that Shaunak’s asked him to play for us. Obviously he hasn’t had a chance to play a drumkit for a bit too long; his hands are itching to whack it for a while. I notice the matka lying around, and it hits me that a matka in addition to the tablas might produce an interesting percussive effect. I put it by him; after all, he knows percussion a lot better than me. He goes for it, and I’m relieved to see the drumsticks leave his hand. The kid’s great, but if he keeps playing those drums that loud, the singers will scream themselves hoarse trying to hear themselves singing. Can’t have the singers losing their voices before the show.
I strum the first chord on JD’s purple Ibanez electric guitar, and Sam takes off with the intro verse. Midway, I suddenly hear the crash of cymbals, and Rono starts off a rocking beat, something I’d never imagined we can do to the song. It sounds amazing, and we’ve all begun to lose ourselves into it. We reach a crescendo point in the song, and it happens. A loud and hardly melodic “twwooiing” sound reverberates in the amplifier to which my guitar is connected, and everybody stops singing / playing. I can feel everybody looking at me as I look down at the guitar and see my fear confirmed. The G-string, broken, again!!
Goddamit, why? Why, every bloody time? Why does it have to happen in front of everyone? We were all sounding so great, and now it’s all wasted, because of me!!
JD’s pissed of course. He comes to me, looking at his beautiful Ibanez missing a string and he asks, “Why do you have to play it so hard?!” I try to sound nonchalant about it in my reply, “Sorry man. This song gets me all josh-ed up. I feel I can’t play nearly as good if I don’t give it my all”
“Guitar ki to maa chud jaati hai na, mamu!” he says.
God, what if it happens on stage! What if, when I’m up there for the first time ever, my string breaks??!! God, we’ll have just one electric... no replacements!! I can’t let the show be wasted because I play uncontrollably hard!! I can’t let it be ruined!! I.. I…

I woke up with a gasp. It had all seemed too real, but then, it had happened. I remembered that day in the Vishwabhavan garage. I remembered Shaunak’s firefighting, telling JD he’d get him another string. I remembered feeling like crap.
I sat up on my bed, stunned for a few minutes, feeling a cold sweat envelope me. In about 5 minutes, the alarm on my cell phone went off. It was 6:30 a.m., already. I’d had a late night, having had dinner with Karan at Chaitanya’s. MUNA had ended the previous evening, but in my early morning fuzziness, it already seemed like some distant dreamy recollection. Today was a new challenge: Aarambh. I had to pull myself together if I was gonna play in a few hours. I slid off the bed and headed off to the bathroom. As I looked at myself in the mirror, with the brush building up a furious froth of toothpaste in my mouth, one line kept ringing in my ears – “Guitar ki to maa chud jaati hai na, mamu…”