A Clarks Act

During the winters of 2007, I kept in intermittent contact with Pablo. He informed me that there was a chance that they would get to perform a live gig at a Christmas party. Being held at a decent hotel ('Clarks') in Varanasi, I believed that there would be a throng of pretty girls in attendance. And loads of firangi chics too.

Pablo invited me to 'cover' the event, and since I didn't really have much to do for the week, I booked my tickets and for the first time that year went to the Holi City, this time not in my capacity as a journalist for ***, but to enjoy a short holiday. And over time, I had grown to be a bit fond of the band.

I met Pablo and Alex at the place where I had first (for want of a better word) interviewed them. They were sitting at the tea-and-samosa shop discussing the merits and demerits of feeding biscuits to stray dogs. And for their experiments a stray dog was present at their feet.

"If you feed him something sweet," Alex said, "all his hair will fall off and he would be as bald as...you know, anything that's bald."

"You don't say. Let me feed him a biscuit." Pablo said.

"And tomorrow, this dog would be bald. Say, there's Nikhil."

They greeted me and turned their attention back to the dog, I said, "So tell me more about the gig?"

It took them a while to register the fact that they had a gig coming up, Pablo said, quite smiling, "Well we don't know much about that, since all our instruments are locked up in the hostel common room, and the warden isn't kind enough to allow us to retrieve them."

"And we can't really practice with accoustic guitars you know, there's no use. Can't hear them over the drums. So we are waiting for that..."

Not for the first time I regretted not making a thorough enquiry before setting off on a journey. "You do have a gig though? Right?"

They were laughing at the antics of the dog, or maybe secretly laughing at me, "Of course, Of course, we are going to perform on the 25th."

"Or 26th, it's not sure yet. But don't worry, we still have three days..."

I panicked, "And where is the rest of the band?"

Alex said, "Oh well, there's that as well. PC would not be joining us at all, and Adi would be here tomorrow, or maybe the day after."

I wiped my brow, "And till then? What do we do?"

Pablo said, "Good question." And then he proceeded to not answer it, and threw a piece of the crust of the samosa at the dog.


Adi arrived the next day, and using his exceptional skills at palavering, convinced the warden of their hostel to open up the locks and procured the electric and the bass from their rooms. The rest of the ensemble was provided by another college band, who was an year senior to them and lacked a rhythm guitarist and a bass player, this was provided to them by Broken Tooth, in return for the services of their drummer.

"Another drummer? It's a lot like Spinal Tap you know..." I said.

"Except that our drummers do not die, either of spontaneous human combustion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_human_combustion), or of anything else." Pablo answered, the band looked visible perked up because finally they had a chance to practice. Though a lot of practice time was hogged by the senior band, they were more or less content. Since Pablo wasn't doing anything while the other band practiced, I decided to ask him about the gig.

"So tell me, how did you come by this chance? Did the management at Clarks contact you?"

"No actually, it was the Alumni association of our college."

"And...why would they be interested in hosting a Christmas party at Clarks?"

"It's not a Christmas party." Pablo said, "It's the Twenty fifth reunion of the batch of 1982."

My vision of a gang of pretty girls and firangi chicks shattered. "I am leaving!"

"Why?" Pablo seemed shocked at my sudden decision, "Er...did we offend you in someway?"

"No, I didn't come here to see you guys perform in front of a bunch of old dudes!" And then I outlined my original view of the expected audience.

Pablo was crestfallen, "I thought you had come to see us perform!"

I realized that I had been rather tactless, I moderated myself and said, "Ha ha, I was joking. And anyway my tickets are confirmed for the 27th." Mentally I rued the fact.


PC did arrive on the desired day. Apparently he had planned to come even later, but his parents had sort of pushed him out of the house and thrown his luggage after him. So he too came to complete the band. They had decided on a simple set list. The songs being-

1) Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)
2) Time of your life (Green Day)
3) Last Kiss (Pearl Jam)
4) Take it easy (Eagles)

The arrangements to go to the venue were good, the Alumni association had spared little expense on making their evening good. Earlier in the day a gentleman had come and had been rather happy of the fact that Broken Tooth was playing 'Satisfaction.'

"We used to play it during our days, at that time there was a band for every hostel...and us being Electronics engineers, we made the speakers ourselves."

The same gentleman met the band in the evening and told an acquaintance, "You know these are the same guys we heard practicing."

"Was it you?" The other person didn't have a favourable expression on his face.

Pablo's manner was brusque, "Sir we play better than we practice."

The Electronics Gentleman quickly came to his rescue, "Ha ha, these youngsters and their jokes. Maybe it's the fatigue from practice. Come on guys, push along."

After the sound check, and a couple of songs from the senior band the Older guys took the stage. Effectively saying, "Thank you for bringing musical instruments. Now kindly vacate the stage, and allow us to play."

Broken Tooth were visible disappointed. They decided to head to the bar at the buffet, "It'd have been like playing to a restaurant crowd you know." Adi said, "It's perhaps a good thing we didn't get to play."

Alex didn't share his view, "This is not what we practiced for! I think, we should have gone on stage before them."

Pablo said, "Look! Free Kurkure! The day is saved!"

Of course, apart from the free kurkure was the free liquor, and Adi, Alex and the seniors decided to raise their spirits by downing some.

And well, in my capacity as a journalist I couldn't have refused the hospitality.

Over an hour passed, and the band decided that it was better to have the free food and call it a day not totally lost, after all, their friends Pushpi (who had tagged along) and Prakhar (who had provided the drumkit) were making a good use of the bar.

Adi's whole demeanour changed with each peg of Rum, and he seemed quite upbeat, "Come on! We will get to play yet. Look, the stage is empty! Whoops!"

The stage was quite empty because all the people who had been playing had come down to have dinner. Broken Tooth, whatever being the merits-demerits of the band, could see a chance when it presented itself. They rushed on to the stage, Adi dragging a chair to keep a leg on, and a filled glass of Vodka and Orange Juice for other purposes.

They announced themselves and began performing 'Last Kiss.' The post dinner audience relaxed, and slowly started paying attention to the noise from the stage. When they had got the listeners decently warmed up, they launched into 'Time of Your life'.

The drummer was inebriated, but thankfully wasn't missing a beat, and seemed quite lively with the alcohol inside him. And his great moment of triumph came when the band played Satisfaction. They relished every chord, every beat, and they dedicated the song to the gentleman who had come to visit them earlier in the day. He too was visibly buoyed, pushing his chair very close to the stage.

Of course it was just after that that the Hotel Manager came rushing towards the stage.

"Please cut out the noise! I have a group of Chinese (or Japanese) guests who are going to leave the hotel because of you!"

Pablo went to appease him, and was in the process of doing it when the band (both the bands from the college) kick started 'Keep on rocking in the free world.' The hotel manager shook both his fists angrily, but somehow Pablo convinced him to allow for one last song.

After the performance, the adventure continued for a while because though they had been given a good reception, they found themselves stranded while exiting. They discussed their gig, and because most of them (including me) were five pegs down, were quite content in loitering about the hotel lobby waiting for the vehicle.

"You know there was thus alumnus' daughter who was singing along with me." Pablo said.

"Dude, that's what you always claim." Alex countered.

"And besides, she had a moustache, I saw her up close." Adi summed it up.

The Loss of Himanshu

Dear Nikhil

It's been a long time since I had a chat with you, (still wondering whether *** would publish your piece about us, but not too much now, I have almost lost hope) and because I am better at writing than I am at talking, I have decided to mail to you something sad that's happened to the band.

Himanshu is no longer with us.

So that you do not get the wrong impression, he is pretty much alive and kicking (bless his soul), but his hands and legs would no longer be drumming for us, or any one else for that matter. He has quit.

We are beatless.

I don't know if it has created a void, or what the future holds for us. But I am getting ahead of myself, let me start at the beginning.

Alex had just finished mastering 'One Last Breath', and we decided that it would be the next song to add to our set list. Loading ourselves with the Bass, the guitar, the vocalist, (minus PC, don't know where he was) and by somehow persuading Himanshu to come with us we headed for KP. Pushpi came with us for good measure, being chief groupie/roadie.

Things went fine for the song until the drums kick in, you know, just before the start of the second verse there is a neat roll, and then 4/4. (Of course you would be familiar with the song) The main problem was that the drums didn't kick in. Himanshu stared at us blankly, sitting behind the drum kit.

And he is a good drummer, has a great knowledge about Tabla, etc etc.

We had a few false starts, in fact, too numerous to count. And in the end he got up, looked at us gravely, and with genuine sincerity apologized.

"I am sorry guys, doesn't seem to be working. Sorry." And then he left us, just like that. Hung up his drumsticks, and left. Pushpi was hanging around, he mentioned "You know, I wouldn't mind being the drummer. I have always wanted to be. In fact, in the first year, it was just the three of us, Adi, Pablo and me who wanted to make the band."

And our faces lit up a little when he picked up the drumsticks and started playing 4/4. Then his tempo increased, and then slowed down, and then increased again. And then he missed a beat, and then several....you get the general idea.

We had a hurried band-meeting in KP's balcony,with each of us looking in separate directions, fixing our eyes to respective horizons. Alex broke the...well I cannot call it 'silence' since we had Pushpi's erratic drumming in the background. He said, "I don't see a future for this band."

I noted the fact, that he had used 'this'. "Himanshu is a good drummer." I said, "He has impeccable beat sense."

"He may be the greatest drummer in the world dude, but if he doesn't play, then he is of no use dude. The world's greatest drummer, if he doesn't play is equal to the world's worst drummer." Adi spoke, more vocal than usual.

We listened again to Pushpi's drumming, and shuddered a bit. I was hesitant, still ventured to ask, "Pushpi?"

"No." Alex and Adi spoke in unison.

"We need someone, someone who can actually play. Not anyone who wants to play."

"Jauhri?" I asked, "Can we get him?"

"Or that guy from first year," Adi said.

"Who?" Alex asked.

"You know, that guy we met on the day of your singing competition. The tall guy, the one Alex borrowed a 100 bucks from. I could see that he had real passion for rock music."

"The fatchcha?"

"Yes, whatsisname?"

"Nandit." I said, I knew of the said fachcha. "Yes, I have tested his love for rock music, so as to say. And I believe he was born playing the tabla, he has some twenty years of experience in that. And the bird can sing pretty well too. I believe he is forming some first year band. We can try him, but we won't take him on without an audition."

Alex and Adi laughed, "It's a funny notion. Us taking auditions. I believe 'we' have to be good enough first."

Presently there was silence, as Pushpi quit banging the drums and joined us, a lit cigarette in his hand, "What are you guys talking about?"

We broke it to him silently, the cigarette passing around. "Dude, you need a lot of work."

"I can learn." He said, with the same sincerity as Himanshu had apologized.

We patted him on the back, and locked KP and left. The future didn't look blank, it seemed as if it wasn't there.

I don't know when we would get a drummer, and what would happen next. A few months later we might have gigs, and then I would invite you. Will tell you if we do get a drummer.

Till Then,

Take Care
Pablo
Vocalist
Broken Tooth

Broken Tooth comes to Delhi

For a long time (viz. April to September) I didn't hear much about or from Broken Tooth. My magazine article about them had been rejected by ***, although the official line on it was that it was postponed, they were waiting for the band to make it big in some small way. And since the four-some (or five-some) had decided not to contact me, I did not contact them either, engrossing myself instead in covering the gigs at the local pubs in Gurgaon and the suburbs of Delhi.

Then one fine midnight I got a call from Pablo, "Dude," he said, sounding over-excited, "We are coming to IITD!"

"Cool," I said, "So is Broken Tooth going to compete in the IITD rock fest?"

Pablo became silent for a while and then replied, "Well, not quite, but the main thing is that we are coming to your city...to IITD! Broken Tooth shall have it's first gig outside the college."

I didn't get it, if they were not going to perform at the rock fest (which was a great platform to be on because of all the rocking bands that had spawned from a good show at the IITD grounds), what were they going to do? Would they be like a street-band and give a street gig at the corner of some college street? I put forward the question to him "So where exactly in IITD are you going to perform?"

This time his silence was longer than the last, he hemmed and hawed a bit and then said, "The thing is, I have taken part in this 'Western Music Singing-Solo' competition, and the whole band is going to perform in the 'Western Music Singing-Group' category."

"But that's not exactly rock and roll?" I asked him, these competitions weren't exactly what people in rock bands etc aspired to perform in. "Are you sure you guys want to come?"

"Of course, it would be cool, at least we would be getting some form of stage exposure, and then there's the prospect of attending a good rock show."

Well I guess there was something in what he said, so I said that it was cool that they were coming and that I would be with them in IITD, covering their performances.

The contingent from BHU was rather large, still I did not have many problems in locating the band, they were the most dishevelled of the troupe, (apart from PC), and they all looked at me and warmly greeted me. I took out the old faithful pen and spiral notebook in hope that there might be something of note in the conversation.

"Right, first of all welcome to Delhi, this is my city..."

"Oh I love Delhi...practically my second home." Pablo cut me short.

"I have been here before once or twice." Adi said, and then decided to become silent.

"I have come to the city several times too," Alex chirped. "though I won't go so far as to say that it's my second home."

"Obviously everyone has come to Delhi..."

"Right, right." My previous interviews with them had taught me that I needed to be rigid while conducting the proceedings, the group had a tendency to digress. "Now, I don't see your drummer here, the studious chap. Where is he?"

They all looked at each other sheepishly. "The thing is," Pablo said, "We have a new drummer."

"I would like to say a different drummer." Alex spoke, and then he glared at Pablo, who seemed to wilt under his gaze.

"What happened?" I asked them, "Some problem with the ex-drummer? I mean these things happen, I guess no band is 'made' till it changes it's line up at least once."

"No, it's not that, just a communication breakdown with the old drummer."

Apparently it had transpired that when the band had asked Himanshu to go along with them on the Delhi trip, he had not been to keen on the idea and had declined politely. However the cause of his declining the offer was that he thought that the trip was going to be ten days long, instead what the band had said was that the trip was ten days away. Stuff happens, I guess the biggest mistakes in the world were committed because of some person mis-hearing something.

"So you are without a drummer?"

"Of course not," Pablo beamed, "We have Divesh." And then he caught the look in Alex's eye and stopped beaming all together. "He is okay."

Their 'session' drummer Divesh was the result of another mis-hearing, this time by Pablo. While looking to fill the void left by the studious drummer, they had come across a friend of the party named above, he claimed to know a bit about playing the drums, and thus was given the chance to play with the band. However, in reality he had said that he claimed to want to know about playing drums, and didn't actually know how to play.

"It was tough." Adi said, he appeared to be a man of few words.

"It was very tough." Alex emphasized.

"But here we are!" Pablo beamed again.

"Obviously!" PC smiled.

"Which brings me to another question, what's the set list?"

Alex laughed and said, "There isn't much of a set list, we are given 10 minutes plus two to perform, and we are going to play two."

It didn't promise to be much of a rock show, "One of the songs I guess would be satisfaction, which is the second one?"

It was Alex's turn to smile, "Take it easy by Eagles, you must have heard it."

Obviously, I said to myself, invoking PC, who hasn't. "Yes that's a great song."

"It is!" Pablo said, "And Alex has nailed the solo pretty well."

"It also has a tough harmony part at the end." I pointed out, and then almost wished I hadn't, there faces turned a bit downcast. I felt I was just marking out the chinks in their armour.

"We are...working on it." Pablo said, and then looked at Alex, raising his left eyebrow. Much to my chagrin PC started working on it right on the spot. I took their leave and promised to be back to see them perform.

"Do come to see this play I am acting in, called 'To The Moon and Never Back.' Besides, Broken Tooth has given the background music too." Pablo said, as he came to see me off to the gate.

I am a fan of english theater (more so theater in general) and was pleased at the prospect of watching a string of plays. Watching the BHU play however, wasn't a very enjoyable experience, admitting to the fact that their lead actress was cute (there was only one female in the play, there's a serious dearth at their college), I also found out that Pablo was the worst actor of the lot, he delivered his dialogues in a dead-pan voice, and tried to let his long and unruly hair do the acting for him.

The background music was that word with e, eccentric? No, I guess I am looking for erratic. Apparently Alex and Adi were rather doing there own thing, playing around with the bass and the guitar, and there were times that they weren't even looking at the scene being played out at the stage.

I exited after their allotted fifteen minutes were over, hoping that when I return the next day, they would play better than they were in the 'play.'

I had underestimated the strength (in numbers) of the competition at the Western Music Singing-Solo thingy. They announced BHU at the very onset and I braced up to hear Pablo sing, instead I came across a girl looking like a close approximation of Edward The Head, and then followed a fat character with a mild voice, their singing was to put it mildly, not something I had come to hear. I believed that Pablo would be next since the intelligent people at IITD would be doing away with BHU en masse.

I was wrong, I had to sit through fifty odd singers before Pablo's number came up. Mind you, there were some that were really good, there was this guy with a ghastly french beard who gave a rendition of The Scorpions' 'Still Loving You' and did a great job about it.

For a minute or so Alex and Adi tuned their instruments, and then stood facing each other like dueling gunmen, Adi with his back to the audience. Pablo took the mike and said, "This is a song about...This is a song about Lost Love."

And Alex played the riff of 'Last Kiss' by Pearl Jam.

Their performance was okay, there were a couple of screw-ups in maintaining the rhythm, but admittedly it was a strange song, I don't know how Eddie Vedder used to fit the words to the music, but without drums, it wasn't easy.

And then it struck me, why hadn't they used the drummer? The song had a pretty sweet drum beat to it. I asked them later as I accompanied them to the hostel in which they were saying.

"That went of well, didn't it?" Pablo asked me and his band mates.

"Well..."

"What the fuck were you doing in the second verse! Where was your 'so-called' Beat sense!" Alex looked peeved, the trio looked at each other, and then started laughing.

"In all, I enjoyed singing it," Pablo told me, "And you know there were a couple of cute girls singing along with me."

"In your dreams." Adi said, "And besides, even if they were, it was probably to tell you where you were going wrong."

Sitting in the audience, I had clearly seen the two places where Pablo had screwed up, because in reaction Adi had thrown up his hands in despair. Pablo couldn't see it, he was too busy imitating Eddie V.

"And anyway, this was just a short prologue, it is tomorrow that you shall see the whole of Broken Tooth in action."

"Yeah I was going to ask you that, where was your drummer today?"

The cloud passed over their faces again, "You see...the thing is...actually, we have been able to practice only one song with him, and we are really hoping that he doesn't screw up that one song."



The next day I came in a bit early to catch the hindi plays going on along with the Western Music Group competition, entering into the auditorium I could see that this particular event was not a place for a rock band. Because right outside the building there were hordes of students standing in circles singing a cappella versions of orchestral songs like 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'We are The World.' Perhaps Broken Tooth had interpreted the whole thing wrongly, this was a 'group singing' competition and not a 'group' singing competition.

When I entered the place, I saw Pablo sitting sans Broken Tooth. He was constantly looking at his wrist watch and visibly fuming.

"Hi," I called up and said, "Where's the rest of the band?"

For some reason he snapped back and said, "Oh you wouldn't know would you!"

I agreed that I didn't know, but that did not give him a right to be angry with me, I mentioned this to him.

He said, "Sorry, it's just that our band's performance is in less than half an hour. I myself have been waiting here for the past thirty minutes, none of their Goddamned cell phones seem to be working, and they don't really look like they want to turn up here either!"

He then proceeded to go to the convener of the event and asked him to delay their performance by a spot or two. He told me, "I am going to look for my band, and if they come by here, do keep them in sight."

The singing groups that had come had pretty much got their act together, signing songs by The Beatles, Seal, Queen and Michael Jackson with the aplomb of barber shop quartets. The experience was more enjoyable than the solo stuff. Also each group consisted of atleast ten people, and apparently there was a lower limit of five members on stage. Broken Tooth had five.

After half an hour the band did come to sight, although Pablo wasn't with them, perhaps he was still on the quest for the lost band. They came and coolly took their positions in one of the last rows, and in accordance with my promise, I kept them in sight.

A little while later Pablo appeared, he ran up to them and started mouthing angry words, (from the distance I couldn't exactly make out what the words were, but the visual was enough to deduce that he was angry), and then he jumped around on the floor, all red faced etc. He shook his finger, particularly at Adi, and Adi in turn looked at him with cold eyes, said a small sentence, and in effect poured water over him. Pablo fizzled, and took a seat at a distance from the band.

While this hugely animated conversation was going on, the stage was empty, because it was the turn of the band from BHU, it stayed empty for a goodish five minutes until the convener caught sight of Pablo. The latter then pleaded for just a little bit more time while the guitars were finally tuned.

After sometime they finally took the stage, Pablo-looking angry, Adi, Alex, PC-looking cool, and Divesh slightly nervous.

When they announced the song 'Take it Easy', they were greeted by cheers from the audience, a large section seemed to be a fan of The Eagles. It was when they started playing that the problem started, the major problems being Divesh's drumming was too mechanical, and not in a good way, and the sound engineer totally screwed them up, by keeping Alex's guitar volume very low, even after a preliminary sound check.

Of course, the lowest key was when they tried to haromize in the end, that was when the public had had enough, and if it wasn't for the fact that the song ended then, we would have had a minor riot on our hand.

They performed 'Satisfaction' a bit more satisfactorily, and because Divesh didn't know the drum track to the song, he promptly left the stage, thus disqualifying Broken Tooth from the competition, because they were no longer five up there.

Not that they had much chance in any case.

After the show I learnt that Pablo stayed angry for the better part of an hour or so and made it a point to bring this gig up several times in the future.

My personal assessment was that Satisfaction was good, but what they really needed now was a drummer. And a good one at that, nothing stop gap.

It would take them six more months to find someone good enough.

The Bass Story - As told by Pablo

"Papa I need some money, I am thinking of buying a second hand motorcycle." Adi said, he had already taken a market survey and had an estimate of what he needed.

"Okay," his father replied, warming up to the idea, "Yes I think you would need a bike, would Rs 5000 do?" Unfortunately, though his father had warmed up to the idea, he didn't have much idea about the amount required to buy a second hand two wheeler.

"No Papa! I was thinking about around Rs 15000, I have talked to a few people here and that is around the price that they are asking. Papa I really need a motorcycle..." Adi didn't elaborate on why exactly he did need a motor-bike, but his father assumed it was mainly for going to the classes, and our campus was huge, it wasn't an unreasonable demand.

"Oh, okay, very well. I will deposit the amount you want."

Now it has already been mentioned that Adi had already done a market survey in Benares for second hand bikes, but this market survey had also proved that there was no two wheeler worth buying, he had rejected every offer, either the bike was to old or too costly, not worth spending 15-kay over. There was one time when he got very close to buying one, but Sharma (a puritan/stickler/...) found out glaring errors in the papers of the bikes, it was quite hard to believe a guy's authenticity if he fuddles up on the registration number of the motorcycle in the legal papers.

"Don't buy it, this guy seems to me a con-man." Sharme told Adi, using tact to lower his voice in front of the salesman. And he whisked away Adi from the spot, leaving the con-sales-man dazed and confused.

After around a month of deciding to buy a bike but not being able to for the lack of anything worthwhile, Adi had had enough. He said, "I will not buy a bike and that's final!"

I told him, "BUt ou have (quite literally) money in the bank!"

Adi had a plan, he always had a plan, though the plan maybe flawed or not plausible or an outright streak of genius, but he always had a plan. "I am not going to mention the buying and selling of motorcycles to my parents in the future, and gradually I believe they will forget the whole issue, and I shall spend the money slowly."

Adi might be known to have a plan but if he had money he was known not to have a tendency of even thinking about spending it slowly. He believed in the adage 'Spend today worry tomorrow' or some such cliche. So I figured that the money was going to be used for day-to-day stuff like booze and chicken, but buying a bike was no longer part of the larger picture.

One fine Friday I left to spend the weekend with my cousin brother, leaving the hostel and all my friends intact. In the night I called up Pushpendra to take the general stock fo things.

It came as no surprise that Adi and Alex had gone to Kolkata, or was it Delhi? When I had left the campus Adi was sleeping, and Alex was playing the guitar, there was no question in the near future of them taking a trip out of station.

With Adi, anything is possible . (He was perhaps the inspiration for that other 'Adi's' Impossible is Nothing.)

The full account of their adventure came clear on the following monday, when I saw a shining bass guitar in his room


Adi asked Alex, "So what are you planning to do this weekend?"

Alex answered, "This and that you know, but practically nothing."

"Good, we are going to Kolkata to buy a bass."

"Okay." Alex said, and insterted his wallet in one pocket and a toothbrush in the other.

Author's note-Although this may not have been the exact conversation that started the journey, but this is a 'possible' conversation between the two.


They had no reservations, either for, or about going to Kolkata. Alex had bought his guitar from the city and it was serving him well, and Adi thought since ALex had bought his instrument from there, it would be a good place to buy a bass.

When they entered the station, platform one was empty. However the Varanasi-Delhi Superfast train 'Shivganga' was rolling in slowly. It would depart from the station in another thirty minutes or so.

"You know.." Adi said.

"What?" Alex asked.

"Delhi is as good as Kolkata isn't it?"

"Or maybe better, perhaps."

"So we are on the same train of thought here."

"You mean we do not go to Kolkata?"

"And go to Delhi instead! How about it?"

Alex thought for a while, and decided that going east or west was the same thing, since they were going on a whim anyways.

Adi had decided to take the old defunct bass that was de-assetted by our seniors along in hope of either selling it or getting it repaired, presently he handed it to his travelling companion and said "I am going to get the general class tickets, you go secure seats."

Now which of these two is a more difficult task is open to debate, for a Delhi bound train, the general class compartment is always overflowing with human life and limb often seeping through the doors and the window grills, also Alex had Mr. Bass with him, a troublesome customer in a black casket case, and then there was the added responsibilty of securing an extra seat for the other Mr. Bass, Adi.

He somehow squeezed through the humanity and found two seats, on one he prostrated his luggage, and on the other he spread himself as far as he could, trying to fight the maddenning crowd. It helped that Alex was tall and strong, and he held the people at bay. He waited for five minutes for Adi.

Then he waited for ten.

And then a further ten minutes. Now the area that he defended had shrunk to become smaller than what would be sufficient for two people, still he struggled. A scary thought entered his mind, "Is Adi coming at all? I mean, he is whimsical, it's quite possible that he might have seen a long line at the ticket counter, and thought that it's not worth the effort, and having already forgotten about Alex might already be on an auto-rickshaw back to the college."

His fears were confirmed when the train started to move and there was no sign of Adi.

He mentally started cursing him, and thought of ways to get back, of course there was the option of getting off at the city-station, but he was not going to let Adi get away!

And as he mentally pictured inflicting torture on him, presently he saw him in person looking slightly annoyed, a very small ripple in his cool demeanour.

"Where were you?" Adi asked him. "I have been looking all over for you!"

Alex grumbled, but kept his peace.

The travelling-duo somehow made the journey to Delhi, sleeping in fits but generally keeping awake because of the lack of space. There was even the question of going to the loo, but that wasn't possible, since it would be foolish to leave prime seats.

However, the trip to Delhi was fruitful, though they could not get rid of the old bass, they bought a new one which was good (bought from the Adi-Bike-Trust Fund).

While returning they had for no particular reason a brainwave that it would be better to cover the 12 hour train journey by Bus, Adi planned that they would take a break at Kanpur, and hence reduce the effective journey time.

Sadly, they didn't know that the Bus journey from Delhi to Kanpur itself taked twelve hours.

Or that busses aren't a very comfortable mode of travel either.

Late in the night Adi awake when he felt water drops on his cheek, he found that the skies had decided to make their return journey eventful by pouring down on a biblical scale. He shifted slightly, closed the window and tried to sleep again.

He awoke around half an hour later to find that the floor of the bus had become a very shallow water tub, he turned to Alex who was also amongst the people who find it hard to sleep with their feet immersed in water. They both looked at the bass case, and realized that that too was a couple inches submerged.

"My bass!" Adi shouted.

"The case!" Alex said.

It turned out that there was a leak of some sorts in the roof of the bus, which had been effective in flooding the floor. They cursed their luck, and set forward to their second night of fitful sleep.

Arriving in Kanpur they assessed the damage, thankfully the only thing that was in a bad shape was the coffin case, the bass was pretty much okay.

It was a good stroke of luck that two of our classmates from Kanpur were returning to college, one of them being PC, the other being Pranshu.

And so that night, on the train journey back to Benares it was PC and Pranshu who stayed awake, or slept in fits, while Adi and Alex slept comfortably on borrowed seats.

"Is this where you guys...practice?"

My first meeting with the band made me realize two things

1) They had a serious lack of talent, but not ambition
2) I shouldn't rush into considering them for my write up

The second thing was because a day after my interview when I had returned to my city A--- Pablo started calling me almost every hour asking me when the interview would be published in my magazine ***. And twice I could distinctively hear Alex in the background saying "Dude ask him whether we would be paid for the interview."

I hadn't really mentioned that I wanted to cover a totally new band to the powers-that-be at the magazine, and I hadn't even see them play till now. I placated them by saying that I wanted to take pictures of them practicing before I gave my article to the magazine, and with a promise to come back a month later I requested them to leave me in peace.

When I returned to their city, they asked me to come late in the night to see them practice. This wasn't an odd request, most rock bands I have met prefer practicing from after hours to the waking hours. As arranged I went to Pablo's hostel room at 10 in the night. He was glad to see me and in way of greeting asked me, "Where is your digi-cam?"

I didn't want to disappoint the poor fellow by telling him that presently I had no desire to click their photographs, so I said, "Well I do have a cell phone that has a camera. I will click your photographs."

He was a bit surprised, "Will the magazine accept cell phone photographs? Look I can arrange a digital camera for you if you want to, I mean someone in the hostel must have it."

I came to the point, "Look, the photographs are not important, tonight I want to see you guys in action so that I can write a proper review."

Pablo promptly went out in search of his band members, we found Adi sleeping, Alex practicing, PC talking on the phone ("Practice? Right now? No one told me!" He said, "Well I am telling you now. Get ready." "Okay," he said, "Just give me five minutes to water my hair.") And then we found the drummer studying.

"Sorry yaar Pablo, the tests are just a week away, and it will be too much of a time waste...Can't we do it after the test?"

Pablo whispered something in his ears but I could easily make out words like 'magazine' and 'exposure' etc. The drummer reluctantly agreed.

"The problem is," Pablo said, "Our drummer is one of the toppers in class, and thus doesn't really devote much time to practice. He is good though, classic beat sense, impeccable timing."

I looked at my watch and saw that the whole gathering the band exercise had taken a good part of half an hour. Finally Broken Tooth was ready for practice. Alex said, "We'll have to borrow one guitar, the jack in mine isn't working."

This was a typical raw band, they had little equipment to call their own, but I liked the fact that they took the pain to arrange stuff. "So where is your practice room? In some hostel? In your hostel?"

"No, it's in the gymkhana building. We have a spare key to practice in the night." PC said.

The said building was located in the corner of a cricket ground which was surrounded by a fence. We walked to the main gate of the ground and I waited for someone to produce a key. Instead, Alex, PC and Adi slipped in their guitars from under the gate and started climbing through a hole in the fence.

"You see, we do have the key to the practice room but we are not given the key to the main gate. Because of some red tape etc."

The practice room was covered with dust and pigeon droppings. There were broken chairs, and speakers that looked pretty ancient. They were huge, but ancient.

"Is this where you guys...practice?" I asked them, looking around the accoustically bad and un-hospitable surroundings.

"Yeah," Pablo said, grinning from ear to ear, "It's a beauty, isn't it?"

"Tama drumkit! That's impressive." I said. There was a big Tama sticker on the bass drum, the high hat and crash cymbal didn't look much but the whole kit looked nice. And then I proceeded to check out the drum kit, being a bit of an amateur drummer myself.

It turned out that there were only two pieces of the drums that were Tama, the Bass drum and the floor Tom, the rest were local drums covered with skins bearing the markings of 'Abdul Wajih Band.'

Himanshu the drummer sat on the make shift stool behind and said, "There's a hole in the snare drum, someone messed it up."

Pablo started letting off a string of insults at loads of people who could fall in the catagory of 'someone', Adi ignored his tirade and said coolly, "Flip it over dude, use the other head."

A closer inspection of the crash cymbal looked like someone had taken a bite off it, or perhaps there were termites here with some heavy duty diet. The band took it's time tuning the guitars, while the vocalist tried to make himself useful but mostly got in the way of people, I sat at the edge of a wooden table and made notes on my spiral book.

After ear splitting feedbacks and a constant humming from the microphone (which was put up on a plastic stand that could not survive the mic's weight, I don't know what purpose it served) the band looked ready for practice.

"Right, what would you like to hear?" Pablo asked me confidently.

"What do you mean what would he like to hear?" Alex asked him, "We do only one song correctly."

Pablo hissed, "I am aware of that guitarist of mine...he would have said 'Anything' and we would have played our song...it's etiquette, or something."

I said, "It's okay guys, play whatever you are comfortable with."

And 'play' they did. With a four stick-check they started off with 'Rolling Stone's' Satisfaction.' At first I couldn't make out anything in the din because of the bad quality of the speakers, but when I distanced myself a bit from the players and went to the balcony, I heard the song clearly. And for a new band, they were playing the song (which was perhaps the only song they knew at that time) rather well. Satisfaction is a simple song, but its a high energy song, and with repeat playings they got better. I smiled, and realized that perhaps for my study I hadn't made a bad choice after all.

After the practice I asked them, "How do you guys co-ordinate? I mean when you can hardly hear yourself play, especially over the drums." Each one of them had a formula.

"I just lip read whatever Pablo is singing." Alex said.

"I follow Alex's hand positions on the fret board." Pablo said.

"I too, follow Alex." Adi said.

"I obviously play from the heart." PC said

"I count the beats in my mind for each cycle." Himanshu the drummer said, and then he added, "Can we wrap up now please? I have got to study loads."

Ah, well...so much for music theory.

"Right, So where were we?"

Hello, my name is Nikhil Kumar, I am a rock journalist. Well, and that's pretty much it. I get paid by my magazine (which I am not allowed to name on this web-log for purposes of copy right and money)enough to travel around, eat food, and live off a suitcase. Earlier I have followed and written about Nutcase-Champagne and WeSuckTooMuch, and generic heavy metal rockers like I Kill, Murdurous Thugs and the like. But these were bands that had already established themselves in some way, and were situated in places like Delhi, Bangalore, Bombay etc.

I read about this band called Broken Tooth (On orkut, of all places) who were situated in Benares, and having heard highly of BHU rockers from my magazine editor who during his college days had often performed in IT-BHU and called it the Mecca of rock in East UP (Kashi/Mecca...go figure).

I contacted this guy 'Pablo', got his phone number from someplace, and the first thing he told me put me off a bit, Pablo wasnt his real name, not his official name anyway. I told him that I wanted to meet him and interview him and/or his band mates, and get to know what it is like to form a band. He was quite eager (and I believe, I don't know what leads me to think of this, but still, that he was jumping on the other end of the phone) and said that he would be glad to meet me and have pics taken and get published and famous, and I found an excuse to cut the phone at that time.

I first met the band three years ago, I went to Benares, took a room at a small hotel and in the name of Rock and Roll went to meet Broken Tooth.


"Right, so where were we?" Pablo said, keeping his glass of tea next to him.
"You were telling me about the whole idea, the concept, the inspiration behind forming a band." I told him, the interview was turning out to be long and winded, with mostly in-jokes between Pablo, Alex, Adi and PC, the four guys who had come to meet me.
"I had always wanted to be the lead singer of a rock band, you know," He said, "Ever since I was like ten years old and saw Axl Rose jump into the crowd in a concert video."
I laughed, and then saw the serious expression on his face, "Oh..ahem, you are serious. Well, pretty good, pretty good, I mean that is a good starting point, trying to emulate a Guns and Roses music video."
"It was a concert video." He corrected me, and perhaps my laughter had put him off a bit. I decided to turn my attention to Alex. "So Alex, did you too see Slash do some trick on TV and decided you want to be a guitarist?"
Alex smiled shyly and said, "I am still learning, we do have a long way to go, and I dont know, one day these guys asked me if I could play for them...and we played a Green Day song..."
"Let me tell you in detail," PC cut-in, he hadn't got a word in edge wise till now, and when he did he didn't stop, he kept on speaking, interjecting his sentences with 'obviously' (I counted by drawing sticks on my note pad, he said obviously forty two times) and he had a habit of running his hands through his hair, he took a water break too, to go and 'water' his hair. In the meantime Alex was tuning his guitar, Adi was looking far away at some object in the distance and Pablo was scowling at PC.

"Right, so where were we?" Pablo said, almost sarcastically when PC finished his monologue, "You see it was PC's idea, and something that I really didn't contest at that time to have the best guitarist of our College year in the band, add to that two or three enthusiasts who wanted to learn drums, and The Best Keyboard player of the College year we had eight or nine people in the band."
"My God, you could cover Slipknot and stuff..."
"We don't like Slipknot!" Alex said.
"I do..." Pablo said, "Well, at least some songs, I mean 'Before I forget is kind of cool."
"Will we be covering Slipknot?" Adi asked Pablo.
"No, we won't." Alex said "Remember, we don't like Slipknot."
"Before I Forget..."
"Look the question is not Slipknot it is..." I tried to say something.
"Obviously you may think that a nine piece band would be able to cover Slipknot, and obviously we can't cover it because..."

They were a bit incoherent after that, the rest of the interview was like a bad comedy film. From the jottings I made on the notepad, I tried to form a tale of the band."

The band and it's name were products of whimsical fancies of the core band members (Alex, Adi, PC, Pablo). PC thought it prudent to have the best guitarist of the College Year and The Best Keyboard member of the College year as members of the band. He also enlisted two or three drum enthusiasts from his circle of friends.

The story goes on that the Best Keyboard Player of the College Year didn't quite know that he was in the band, and thus never turned up at practices, nor learned any of the songs that the band wanted to do. The Best Guitarist didn't really like rock music, and so turned up at practices but stayed as a silent spectator (a very nice guy, they emphasised), and the two or three drum enthusiasts were just that, 'enthusiasts'.

(Much later, Pablo told me that his band was a lot like Spinal Tap, with a list of temporary drummers, until Nandit came in to the picture).

And so by the end of the first year of their existence the band's strength was cut down to Four from Eight to Nine.