Freakishly Faithful - Chapter 5 : Flicker to Flame

Part 3

Our days in Anzarle were typically spent with early morning walks on the beach, a late morning dip in the sea followed by a refreshing and invigorating bath at the water-pump next to the well in the courtyard of the beach house, an afternoon siesta and trips to places of interest in the evenings. We especially liked to sit on a cliff high above the beach, a place we’d call the ‘Sunset Point’ and gaze at the setting sun, the myriad hues of the evening sky drifting in layers from crimson richness to ethereal blackness. We’d sit there in silence, each engaged in deep contemplation on God-knows-what, with the strong, salty sea-breeze providing a haunting score to our thoughts. As the end of our trip drew nearer, our conversations began to be tinged with melancholy at the thought that this perfect escape from the routine of our lives had to be so short-lived. But with the Rotaract year ahead, and with our new found camaraderie, we rejoiced at the thought that a new phase in our lives was due to begin, one we would engage in together.

I had carried my guitar with me on this trip. Seema and Nishita had both seen me play at Aarambh, and of course, Ruksana had been a part of the Orchestra. I figured that it would come in handy if we ever got bored. I had been working on a song for some time, trying to base it on my feelings about Maya and about life post our breakup. I’d gotten the first four lines down earlier, and the music of the song was more or less ready. But, the song being in Hindi, I was having trouble coming up with the lyrics (us Bongs are known for our Hindi deficiencies).

One afternoon the girls asked me to play something on my guitar. I dished out my favourite Euphoria numbers, and once I’d gotten them swinging, I decided to try my song on them. I played the song, singing the first 4 lines and humming the rest. They liked the sound of it. I explained that it’s a song on loving and losing, and that I was having trouble finishing it. Ruksana, in her playful manner, joked that maybe it would help if I thought about that girl I’d fallen for in school. I smiled away her little dig; by now the others new well enough that I’d had such feelings for Ruksana back in school. But the idea bore some merit. So when the girls went in for their afternoon nap, I sat with my guitar in hand, closed my eyes, and went back to someday in July 1998. And the course of my thoughts went something like this:-

‘A daily ritual, observed religiously for years and years, seemed unfamiliar today. The usual precursors to the ritual were present well enough: the strange, contradictory combination of a monotonous, yet crest and trough like speech of the science teacher (who, in this particular case, only ever sounded fun while describing vectors, because she'd always say in her south Indian accent, "Vector Oh Yay" indicating vector OA), the weary sighs of my co-sufferers, the occasional, yet increasingly frequent yawns and the equally occasional, yet equally increasingly frequent churns of empty stomachs. The glances at my wristwatch were reflexive, intuitive even. Over a decade of expectation unfailingly made an imagined dopplerised bell ring in my head, even before the actual one echoed through the air, a clarion call of salvation for the hungry and bored. Lunch recess was here, as it had been all these years, again. But what was wrong? What was the dampener of the joyous gasp at freedom?

I saw it as the others began walking out of the class. What was this? Who were these people? What the hell were they wearing? Don't they look at themselves in the mirror in those, those hideous shades??? How can they bear to... My thoughts trailed off as I looked down at myself; peach shirt, ugly brown trousers, the letters VB embroidered onto the breast pocket, brown socks, tan shoes!! Not leather, but plastic, all-bloody-weather!!! Where was my white shirt, the white trousers, the white socks, the black shoes?? The navy blue tie with the Marian insignia pinned thereon?? What happened to the paint on the walls?? Shit, what happened to the walls??!!

Oh yeah, right... This isn't my school... No, wait a minute, this is my school, it just isn't my… No, no, no... Right, I got it! This is my school, now! It's not these people or the walls that are strange… Here, I'm the stranger…

That's what it was, wasn't it? It was yet another lunch break, but it wasn't a familiar lunch break. I wasn't going to charge down the marble staircase into the senior assembly hall, and start munching on the usual rolls from my tiffin box while chatting with Manik and Adnan, or showing my face to Drumeel so that I could be in one of the teams for the usual lunch-time football match. Nope, today I was going to climb down a narrow flight of stairs onto what is known as a 'Quadrangle' and walk onto a playground with two football goal-posts at either end and a most detestable, incredulity inspiring, enthusiasm rogering, scorn raising, and, to put it in plain English, completely fucked up "no playing in the lunch break" rule!!!!! Yup, this was my unknown, unfamiliar reality. No wonder it didn't feel right.

New school, new guy, day 2. It was the first time I'd put on the school uniform, And the sight of all the brown clothing (and red hair bands on the chicks… Goddamit, chicks!!!! [I was in a non-co-ed school before this. This is not an exclamation of joy, but one of agony {feels freaky to be stared at but so many unknown women because you're the new guy}]) made me feel weird as hell! Having been in one school for the better part of my academic life had made me thoroughly institutionalised. I wasn't quite used to being stared and pointed at like a circus freak!! But it was a position I'd resigned myself to accept. I mean what the heck, makes it easier to get to know people when they're curious enough to come to you as if you were a museum piece or something. Although it gets a little fucked up when they talk to you like you're dyslexic.

I grabbed my tiffin box and walked down the stairs after most of my class-mates had already gone. I did what I usually did when I had to eat lunch without Manik and Adnan around, by walking on the “play”ground, munching on the rolls. Once again, in my mind, I cursed my present situation. What the fuck kind of school banned playing on the playground??? Who the hell were these weird kids eating their lunches, sitting on the playground!!!!!! From post to post, sitting on mats in circles of various sizes, groups of students eating lunch, chatting away like they were in a goddamned banquet hall. Bloody hell, this was a football ground for Christ's sake!!

And then it happened... It was the single, most inexplicable thing... It was a voice, I know it was a voice... But there was something ethereal to it, like nothing I'd heard before... If you can imagine yourself to be an emaciated skeleton with your skin clinging onto the bones, and dehydrated to the point where your liver and kidneys begin to push against your body, and in that state you hear the gentle gush of a waterfall into a brook marking the entrance to Shangri la, you might understand what I felt in the few moments that it took me to turn around and face the source of the sound. The vision was blinding… No, actually that's not what it was. There was an implosion of light, 120 degrees of visible area suddenly contracted into one concentrated space, and in that space there was only her... Nothing else existed, nothing else got through. It was only that space, only her, her eyes, her face, her smile, and her voice... A voice that made every part of me quiver (perhaps, I fear, too visibly), yet one that numbed me to a point where the sound seemed distant, hauntingly enchanting, like the strains of the Siren's lute. Her smile was a constant through her speech, and her pearly white teeth flashed at me every now and then, teasing me like some infernal will-o'-the-wisp. "Hi, I'm Ruksana. You must be the new boy..." That and the rest of her words flowed out of her lips like the most symmetrically tantalising poetry! There was no question of resistance, no time to put up a guard… The cherub with the bow flitted around me, laughing joyfully as he shot arrow after arrow at me, piercing into my heart as incessantly and determinedly as a deranged battering ram.

For once, for the first time, and unquestionably at the first sight, I was in love...’

I opened my eyes with a start. It had been years since I had thought of that moment, and all of a sudden something that had lain asleep deep within me stirred ever so slightly. I knew I had to disregard it, and the guitar in my mind gently reminded me of the object of the reminiscences. I began playing my song, and after I’d finished the first four lines, the words just came to me –

“Woh pehli baar jab tumne mujhse baatein kit hi,
Aisa laga ki aasmaan se Pari aa giri thi,
Un gehri aankhon mein ek sharaarat si dikhi thi,
Woh sunehri muskaan dekh meri sansein tham gayi thi…”

Freakishly Faithful - Chapter 4 : From Dawn to Dusk

“The way you make me feel,
The way you turn me on,
You knock me off my feet,
My lonely days are gone...”
Michael Jackson

Part 1

Another semester of law school was drawing inevitably to its close. The crowd in the college campus had begun to diminish, and within a few days, the law faculty declared a study leave. But impending exams were never a dampener to Karan’s spirits, especially if it were someone else’s exams that were looming near. By then, Karan and I were regularly hanging out together, and every morning at about 9 a.m., a call to or from him had become a staple. I was a little too carefree about the vast portions of my subjects to be covered for the exams, and somewhat too liberal with my fibs to my folks about getting notes from classmates when what I really wanted to do was share some puffs and laughs with Karan. Life was easy, reduced to a series of walks from the Symbi campus to the NCC and back, with intermittent smoking pit-stops that left my wallet lighter and my conscience heavier (I was, after all, supposed to be studying, and smoking is a bad habit). Then, when there were no longer any women on campus for Karan to talk with, we’d push off to his apartment, where he lived with his roommate Dilawar, and the incredibly sweet couple of Tandon bhai and Pede. In the evening, when I’d decide to push off home, Karan would walk me to the nearest tapri for yet another smoke, and (without fail) would ‘borrow’ one Rupee for a phone call. And so, our days continued.

Karan’s love-life was somewhat seasonal. A new crush would materialize sometime in the months of spring, lazy afternoons would be spent dreaming of cosy days with the said crush in the summer, arm-in-arm walks under a quaint old-fashioned curved-handled umbrella during the monsoons would follow, by autumn there would be signs of something of a rift, and by new years eve Karan would have had either a glass of lemonade flung in his face, or his girlfriend would go for another guy because she couldn’t take Karan seriously, or, if he was lucky, she’d break up with him without any unnecessary drama or intrigue. I guess he was just unlucky, or maybe he cared a little too much for his women. Whatever be the case, and however unfortunate the heartbreak, Karan always managed to scrape his heart off the floor and give it away again. This spring, his ephemeral heartbreak healer was a young 'army-chick' called MJ (Clarification: At least one of her parents were serving in the armed forces).

MJ had been one of the ‘models’ in a college fashion show in Aarambh. She was pretty cute, and was probably fun to talk to (Karan did most of the talking, as always). My role, or rather the role I took for myself at such times, would be that of an observer. However, small-talk between the sexes usually bored me, and I’d often find myself fighting off humongous yawns so as not to embarrass the cooing couple. That is not to say my silent vigils went unrewarded. It was always amusing to watch Karan trying to impress MJ, and her playfully stoic resistance to his efforts were admirable. In the presence of MJ, Karan would often become rather magnanimous, and a nice chicken sandwich, or at the very least, a cup of coffee would often find place on the table before me. A pleasant trade-off for the daily ‘one rupee’ offerings! My favourite moment remains the time we were sitting at a table in the Symbi Food Court, and Karan, while expressing genuine admiration for the entire feminine sex, declared, “I really love women; they have so much grit!” while clenching both his fists at chest-height at the precise point of saying “grit”! Despite my temptation to view the incident as a glorious illustration of a Freudian slip, I am inclined to believe that the hand-gesture was in fact an innocent faux pas (or am I?). But, although I laughed till Karan was red in the face and MJ was beginning to have an inkling that something embarrassing had just happened, I could not deny that Karan was genuinely interested in MJ, and his intentions, like most everything about him, were honourable.

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

Part 4

“O maajhi, aeka kaeno kothai jaash, nodir aar saagorer tane-tane (O boatman, where do you go with the waves of the rivers and the seas? And why do you go there alone?)”
A song called “Nauka Chole” (the Boat sails) that Karan and I performed in the show

The feeling was electric indeed. The curtains were closed, and the auditorium was abuzz with the audience relishing the prospect of trading boring lectures with hopefully less boring stage acts. On stage, the performers of the day were milling about with the confusion so typical of nervous first timers; I know, I was one of them. The Orchestra performance (with 20 or so people about to sing and play, calling it a ‘Band performance’ would be overdoing it) was to kick things off. Wires from microphones and guitars snaked all over the stage and disappeared under the curtains. Shaunak met me in the wings, all charged up. He had practically left the guitar department entirely to me. He was going to play of course, but on a plugged in acoustic guitar. He pointed towards an electric guitar lying on the stage, and informed me that it was to be my instrument for the show. Now this was unexpected!

As I picked up the electric, I once again marvelled at how such a relatively small looking guitar could feel so damn heavy. I took out my pick, closed my eyes, tilted my head back, and did a single slow strum of the six strings, trying to get a total ‘I’m feelin’ that shit’ look. Unfortunately, any cool rockstar effect that my posturing with the guitar might have produced was quite likely obliterated by the very uncool ‘duh…’ look of confusion that now appeared on my face. The guitar had made no sound! Not on any amplifier, and not even otherwise. I spent a few moments picking at the strings while re-evaluating the basics - Let’s see now; hold guitar pick/plectrum like so, bring pick/plectrum to string, pluck string with plectrum and listen to sound. It seemed simple enough. But Step 4 (listen to sound) kept eluding me. I tried a variety of methods; picking the strings with increased pressure, holding the guitar in different angles, checking if the plug-in chord was securely plugged-in, and finally praying that the damn thing is not broken. Fortunately for me, JD noticed my fervent efforts and, with a classic look of disgust on his face, flipped a switch on the guitar, turned a knob marked ‘volume’ and said, “You have to turn it on first!” Ah, of course. I quickly played the chords of Summer of ’69 to ward of any excessive embarrassment, while quietly adding a 5th step to my mental “How to evoke sound from a Guitar” manual. No wonder JD wanted to throw me off the stage! To all and sundry, the next time you’re trying to play an electric guitar, do switch it on.

-------

We’d gotten off to a somewhat shaky start. One of the girls who was to sing solo on a Shubha Mudgal number had started off on a very wrong scale, and the laughter of the audience wasn’t too encouraging. She did end up singing the song well enough though. Our first success was on the song ‘Khamaj’ by Fuzon, where Sam and a girl named Shruti did a little duet. But it was the next song that was to ultimately alter the course of some of our lives.

We all knew it; this was definitely going to be our best song of the day. At least we hoped it would be that way, if we didn’t mess it up. And for this song, I had quite the bit of responsibility. Rono had a single monitor speaker near him, which apparently wasn’t loud enough for him to judge the tempo of my guitar. So he’d asked me to be near him as much as I could while playing the song. Ruksana on the synthesizer had an important ‘flute’ solo to play in the middle of the song, for which she insisted that I be next to her to help her with the tempo. Sam and Jeetu wanted me to be in between them to keep them on the right scale. Thankfully, the guy playing the tabla made no similar demands. Nevertheless, the requests of the others required me to be pretty much on the move for most of the song.

The success of the previous song had shifted the momentum in our favour. Getting the song right was crucial. There was some initial confusion in starting the song as, apparently Ritesh Deshmukh who was the Chief Guest of the day had made his entrance, and was taking his seat near the stage. But if the crowd were interested in getting a glance at the actor, who at the time was more the Chief Minister’s son than a Bollywood star, they certainly forgot about it when the sound of Sam’s silken smooth voice burst out of the speakers, singing the intro verse of one of the most popular Indian songs in the last decade. The roar of the crowd was brief but incredibly intense, and the sound coursed through me in an electric spasm. It was followed up by rhythmic clapping as I took off on the intro lead guitar portion. And when Rono kicked in with his drums midway into the song with a mind-numbing crash of the cymbals and his lightning fast drum-rolls, the crowd were absolutely blown away by this completely unexpected development. They’d never heard of the drums being played on this song, since the original was filled with percussion like on dholaks, but no perceptible drumming.

Needless to say, I dutifully fulfilled my role of being next to Rono, Ruksana, Sam and Jeetu at the desired points in the song. At the end of the song, one which held such an emotional significance in my heart as it did (and does) for millions of others, I could not help remembering how many times I had in the past thought of Ruksana when I’d heard the song. Towards the end of song, as Rono played a haunting shimmering sound on his symbals, I stole a glance at her, while Sam and Jeetu sang the words right out of my heart - “Ab kya karoon, kaase kahoon, he Maeri…”

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…”