A Different World

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to my hometown- Bholapur, a town famous for its folk music. It has taken me 10 years to realize the peace I could derive from the bucolic sorroundings of my Village.After all these years of travel and hunky-dory this life deserves a break and Bholapur is the perfect place for my sojourn. At the same time I also want to spread my rock’n’roll inclinations to our people there.Show people, the versatility that rock’n’roll has in its store. With these thoughts in my head I boarded the bus with Bruce singing My Hometown- a perfect way to begin to begin my journey, I thought.

The journey was a snail-paced one with constant stoppages at the railway gates and following a batallion of loaded bullock carts, the journey went for a longer time than scheduled but it was good that I got a chances to get my eyes acquainted to the greenery as it was lacking in most of our urban world. My thoughts went back to spreading rock’n’roll in my village and how esoteric would I appear with my musical inclinations to my folklore. The conducter announced “Rollapur- one kilometer away.” I first thought I heard it wrong, but when I got down and read the hoarding, it read ROLLAPUR! I may not be a clairvoyant person but common-sense tells me that there’s something weird about this place.

I dropped by the panwallah to buy some gum and I couldn’t help but notice the fact that his tape-recorder was blasting Welcome to the Jungle and all I could do was to slap myself assuring me that it was just an illusion but it wasn’t to be. I passed by an avenue and there was an old man who sat on his verandah singing “I’m not knockin’ on heaven’s door,” and was simulataneously strumming on his guitar. I managed to throw my jaws down and nothing more than that and this time I felt I should visit a psychologist.

I reached home spellbound to the sequence of events that had just happened and if that were not to be enough, I found my father humming Every breath you take to my mother as soon as I entered the house. I couldn’t believe what I had been seeing ever since I set my foot in the village, there were many questions in my mind that ought to be answered. “How are you doing son?” inquired my father “Fine,” I replied with a skeptic tone.

All this was quite abstruse and I wanted to take a shower and grab some breakfast. There was something kooky that happened after I had my breakfast- I turned on the radio and surprisingly it was playing creeping death, our maid was cleaning the room and she was very vexed with the cockroaches in the room and there’s an interlude in the song where James growls “Die by my hand,” and it was quite apt to the scenario as she was smashing the cockroaches with the broom but there was something more than that happening she’s moshing to those beats a very unlikely sequence and it was not by accident as she asked me to increase the volume. This evidence had substantiated my thoughts that this village had been affected with rock’n’roll quite some time ago.

At night I strolled down to the levee where traditional dancers boogied to the folk tunes called jaanapada by the locals. But something different was in store for me, my visual desire had been satiated but my ears sensed a completely separate setlist, Yeah! Setlist is the right word to use as it started with Rock and roll all night and then Do you remember rock’n’roll radio? followed by Rock and roll and a barrage of songs involving the words rock’n’roll but the highlight of the show was people dancing to jailhouse rock. The show finished with stereos blasting “there’s a place called rollapur,” a complete revamp of Beach boys- Kokomo. But the star of the night was the old man who sang scarborough fair and by this time the mosquitoes were dancing in my mouth. Now I’m able to decipher why the name Bholapur had been changed to Rollapur and this discovery of mine can be related to that of finding an oasis in Sahara.

Time for an introduction, that of my grandfather, he is quite an orthodox personality, with deep religious inclinations. He rose with the sun and offered prayers. He always encouraged us to preserve our traditions by practising them and also urged us to keep our traditional music alive. The next day I decided to rise with my grandfather and when I eventually woke up, the early morning surprise was in store for me. I can hear Tequila sunrise from the radio and surprisingly it was my grandfather who was resting on a rocking chair at the portico.

I set out for the morning-bazaar for a glance at the handicraft and traditional clothing of the denizens and this came as a surprise because there wasn’t any revolutionary changes in the clothing and artistic sense of the people living here. I expected people to be donned in Rockstar Avatars and billboards to be filled with Jimi Hendrix and Dylan posters but it wasn’t to be, some respite at last I thought. There were lot of people flocked at the junction, whistles and claps filled the air and its common to be curious, so was I.

I approached the place and there were people who were enjoying the wiles of the snake-charmer and his snake. Everything was going pretty smooth but you know every tale had a twist, I happened to enter into a shop that sells audio CDs, expecting some breezy traditional music, my ears have been longing to listen to the sweet sounds of santoor and mandolin but my spirit had been dampened with aisles filled with Rock’n’Roll CDs and the song played was Money for nothing and it was a perfect selection as that song was a spoof on the salesmen.

I wish I had a piece of Holmes’ brain, for I could have investigated the roots of these weird shades that had crept into this idyllic world. Then came the old man who was the star performer the other night.

“ Son! You are looking quite dazed and confused, anything wrong?” he inquired.
“ Well, our village seems to be very strange these days, I don’t know what to say- looks like some disease had spread throughout this village,” I bemoaned.
“ I can understand yer concern sonny! You seem to be here after a long time I guess.” he retorted. “ Come with me,” he ordered placing his hand over my shoulders.

He took me to his den and suddenly he growled “Heck! I forgot my keys again,” clenching his fists showing anger against thyself

The only song that came into my mind at this point of time was lookin’ out my backdoor but that song was written to emphasize a different scenario. He threw a rancid smile and said “ I’ll just check out my backdoor,” he continued “you know forgetting is an added advantage you get with age,” and I threw back a smile that said everything I had in my mind.

Well luck stayed with him for the moment as the backdoor was accidentally left open.
If I happen to be a thief I would have said only one thing to myself “ FUCK!,” I thought.
“Have a cigar,” the Old man offered.
“ No, Thank you,” I refused thinking that this man would talk in terms of songs only as have a cigar was famous Pink Floyd song.

The man collapsed into his rocking chair, lit his cigar and got himself in groove for a lengthy narration and so he started,

“ Long long ago, when you haven’t yet seen the sun, there was a scientist in this village called Sudheer Kohli who happens to be my thickest friend and beyond that a deep follower of rock’n’roll. I can brag that we were the only duo in this whole region who were obsessed with this form of music. All this love began because of our childhood upbringing in Mumbai – a cosmopolitan hub. Our families moved to this village when we were in our mid teens and so we were thought to be one of those aliens from mars because of our language and our tastes,” at this point the old man paused for another puff.

Nicotine rings circled in air and the old man came back to his story again “ Where was I,” he inquired trying to investigate my attention “ Tastes,” I replied.
“ Oh! Yeah Tastes,” he continued “ And so we were thought to be a couple of pariahs. We grew up listening to greats like Jimi, Dylan, Beatles, Stones, etc, etc.,”
“ Stones?” I questioned. “ The Rolling Stones Sonny!” he said as I patted myself on my head for my momentary ignorance.

“ Well, time flew by and I grew up to be a musician with an expertise in playing Harmonica, Guitars, Mandolin and Keyboards and Sudheer as I told you before grew up to be a scientist. We always had this inclination to experiment, a quality that both musican and scientist share I guess.Moreover, these science guys always have a vision of seeing things that are surreal and trying to make them real. Of course we do too” he continued shunting his cigar “ He had extensively researched on behavior of brain, how it can be stimulated to few aspects and how it is dormant for others, what do they call that science- Psychiatry or Psychology? I’m a ignorant of these scientific terms,”

“ So am I,” I interrupted.

He smiled at me and went on “ One day he was in this village on a vacation after two decades just like you. He had a trick up in his sleeve and his eyes were clearly telling that. He came up to me and showed me a powder that could stimulate our senses to be addicted to rock’n’roll. He had invested last few months of his time in making this magic powder which he called Rockpoline. I thought it was a combination of rock and trampoline, I perfectly deciphered his thoughts behind that name. When you listen to rock you feel like you are jumping on a trampoline, a joy ride, was his explanation,” at this point the old man came to halt and picked up his guitar. He gave me another guitar, it was a nicely polished 12-string Ibanez. Seems like he had seen me with a guitar, when I walked into this village.

“ Do you like dire straits?” he inquired.
“ Well, I am a life long devotee of their music buddy,” I replied.
“ Show me your love for them then,” he challenged.

I was taken aback for a moment and thought I should prefer showing my love through words to playing and started rambling in his own style- using song titles in sentences

“ You know while I was listening to romeo and juliet, the lady writer whom I met the other day came in my mind and I thought of calling elvis- the sultan of swing to tell him that I was stuck in this tunnel of love and I am unable to decide love over gold and when he heard my dilemma he told me that you get money for nothing but true love will never fade. So I was enlightened and I took a ride across the river and entered the telegraph road searching for her on every street and there she stood waiting for me and so I proposed ‘you and me babe! How about it’ and she said Yes!” I finished as the old man said “Wow! That was a nice romantic story, did it happen for real?” he inquired.

“ Well except the ‘calling elvis’ part,” I replied.

“GREAT!,” he said glancing at the guitar in my hand.

“Which one shall we play,” I inquired understanding his glance.

“ Romeo and Juliet,” he said with a childlike joy in his face. We strummed and sang together the whole song and then I put up a face suggesting that it is time he puts an end to the suspense in his story.

“ Okay, back! He came up with a plan so that this powder of his reaches into every villager’s body. This village had only one drinking source at that time- the reservoir near the bank of the river where the water gets purified and stored. He went in with the authority of a scientist and mixed his huge bag of drug. The affects of the magic potion in that reservoir shaped up in the villagers in few days. All this happened a decade ago and now he’s in heavens. Mind you, the villagers will only have a craving to listen to rock and there is not much change in their rustic lifestyles,” he finished lighting his cigar.

“ Thanks a lot old man,” I said showing my whole-hearted gratitude.

“ Call me Ricky, Sonny!” he said remembering that I didn’t knew his name.

“ I hope the forces of mystery in your heart have all been silenced, Sonny!” he said sounding like a cowboy at a rodeo with a cigar in his mouth.

“ Yeah!” I answered like a soldier to his captain.

“ Come down here in the evening, we’ll make some merry of this shit around,” he invited pointing to the instruments around while having another puff.

“ Oh! Sure, I will. Bye for now Ricky,” I rose bidding adieu.

My heart felt lighter and there was a new wave of ecstasy in my thoughts as this vacation proved worthy. I was looking forward for the ‘jamming session’ this evening, you don’t get too many oppurtunities like this in your life- Rocking ‘n’ Rolling with a villager. Now I feel that taking music out of my life is only after my last breath passes by.