The Lucidity of Confusion

The setting sun had painted the cloudy evening sky with golden hues. The breeze that had been blowing since the afternoon was showing no signs of letting up. Though a golden light was everywhere right now, in less than 3 quarters of an hour it would be dark.

So it was strange to see a lone figure dressed in a bright blue hawaiin shirt, bermudas, slippers and a white hat, climbing up the side of the hill, leaning forward against the descending wind. A cheerful smile/grin was on his face and the wind played with a few loose strands of his hair that had escaped from the hat that he held with one hand to keep from flying off. No good purpose suggested itself as to why he was going to the top of the hill... It was actually a natural lighthouse, the top of which had been used as a beacon back in the old days before navigation systems rendered it redundant. Yes, the view was splendid but in the evening such strong windsfrom the sea buffetted the hill that it wasnt really considered safe to go there. But that didnt seem to concern the sojourer as he kept a steady pace and was now almost at the top. If one had a morbid imagination then a purpose, incongrous with the man's cloththing and bearing did in fact suggest itself. It was a long way down from the top to the bottom, and there were more rocks than water at the bottom. There was no way one could survive a jump...

He was at the top. It was hard igneous rock, mostly barren, barring a few small shrubs and scant grass. But the view of the sun setting over the Arabian sea in a kaleidescpoe of red and golden was breathtaking. It was the most beautiful thing anyone in all of history had ever seen. He took his hat off and let it fall to the ground, where it was dragged a few metres by the wind before getting stuck in a thorny bush. His hair blew wildly around his head. He walked over to the edge......paused.....took a deep breath, and shouted "HELLO" at the top of his voice. From the distant hills, on another part of the coast came the faint but unmistakeable answering echo "A...o...". He had timed the echo on his watch, so he knew how far the nearest cliff was, assuming like a crow that he could fly. He shouted again just to confirm and again his voice came back to him, faint but his own. He laughed and he laughed and he laughed and laughed.

My Musical Education

I am part of a band that calls itself 'Zehan' which means conciousness in Urdu. We play mostly eastern but all the members love western music just as much. Well, just the end of last month we decided that after having played at several formal events such as conferences and summits last semester, it was now time to expand our horizons and enter the larger arena of Inter College events.

So it happened that on the 28th, having attended my afternoon classes, instead of being asleep in my room, I was hurriedly packing as much stuff as I could, into the smallest bag I could find. There was a lot of stuff for me to take, the bag, 2 guitars and an amp, but hanging the two guitars crossed, like swords, I managed to get to first 9th block where I was met by the similarly overloaded lead guitarist Amlan, and then to KC where we were to meet the others.

The vocalist Navendu was there but 'Bhaiii!', our synth player who was playing drums for us as our regular drummer had academic issues, was absent. This situation was soon rectified however as a pile of luggage and musical instruments made its way from 8th block to where we were standing and we took autos to TC from where we got onto the bus to Mangalore. The bus journey was uneventful other than 'Bhaii!''s synth falling down from the luggage compartment onto the seat from which I had removed myself moments ago, citing that bus accidents always happen on the right. I was right too.

The train station was not far from where our bus dropped us off so we walked, got into the ac coach, checked if our tickets were confirmed, and seeing that they were, ate some stuff and settled down for the night. But there was to be little sleep for me as Navendu had dumped all the equipment on his seat and gone to sleep on mine and as soon as I went to sleep in one place, immediately at the next station someone would come onto that exact same seat and the tt would point at the equipment and say "This is nat my prablem, it is yours prablem". After this had happened three times , I moved some guitars down from the seat and went to sleep on top of the long suffering but as yet unharmed synth.

Next day we were sitting in s10, playing some songs, 10 coaches away from where our stuff was kept, when Navendu pointed outside and said 'Khatpadi'. Normally this wouldn't have meant much to us and we would have dismissed it as one of his many oddities but Khatpadi was the name of the station we were supposed to get off at and we had not been expecting it for at least an hour more. suddenly there was a mad rush, Navendu set off through the coaches, chased by a suspicious policeman, while Amlan and I jumped out with our guitars and ran along the platform till we got to out stuff. Luckily, Aseem, the 5th guy with us and 'Bhaii!' had managed and we did not have to accompany our stuff to the next station. So apart from one bad moment when we thought we had left the pickup behind (guitar thing, not truck and of course we had not, it was in one of the bags) in s10, and 'Bhaii!' had to display his skill with moving trains, we were there safe and sound.

We got to VIT, checked in at the reception and were taken to an empty mess which already had the look of a refugee camp, given a mat, and told to spread it wherever we wanted. Haha, we laughed, nice joke, but then found out they were serious....So we lied and told them the guitars were worth lakhs each and if anything happened to them it would be a problem for everyone concerned and after a brief bureaucratic squabble in the hierarchy, we were shifted to a room with three bunk beds, where we spread ourselves out and called it a day.

But I was soon awake and telling everyone that at 5 it was too early to call it a day and we should go out see the place and get something to eat and drink. Everyone concurred on hearing about the food and we set out to see the place.


Now VIT is huge, thrice the size of our college or maybe even more, so its hard work getting anywhere. The campus is beautifully landscaped, there is a great place about alternative energy where they've got an aesthetically designed solar power harnessing unit and a windmill. Parks are everywhere, with benches and the walkways are all shaded, something we should talk to Pabla about. We were all mighty impressed and maybe a little jealous. There was a Punjabi Dhaba in front of the main gate where Sanchit, a friend of Aseem's (and a batchmate of mine from DPS as I later found out) took us and we ate 'Bond' chicken to our hearts content and sucked water from little pouches.

On our way back that things started going wrong. Firstly, we were informed at the infodesk that acoustic vibes was only western and though we played with the idea of going extempore, in the end it seemed like a bad idea. So we registered for Raga Reggae and went back to the hostel. On the way we realized that it was really a loong loong way away. We also noticed the lack of girls and when someone commented on that, Sanchit informed us that all the landscaping, all the parks were for boys only....the boys' hostel area was out of bounds for girls...

This was only the beginning. The next day we attended a show by Vishal and Shekhar and guess what, boys and girls were seated separately, with barricading and ferocious guards standing along. Even Raghu Dixit who performed a few songs there commented on the segregation with dismay.

Things were looking bad and our room, which was reasonably comfortable although there was no attached toilet, was our retreat. Where we played music for hours on end, sometimes our own, sometimes covers that we were going to perform. There are some melodies we make up and then forget. At that time they are clearly in our heads, but then they depart like the memories of a dream on awakening.

Navendu is our vocalist, he has an amazing voice and some songs he just takes to a whole different level like 'Teri yaadein' and 'Dhoom Pichuk'. You know he's mastered a song when instead of filling he song up with 'harkats', he starts jumping around and singing the song perfectly with gusto, and in a voice that makes ladies swoon and go weak at the knees. Amlan is the lead guitarist and he has a knack of making up brilliant riffs in zero time, he's got a good voice too so he gives backing vocals and sung 'time of your life' at CISCON. He also has a really great sense of music, and makes up lyrics in bengali as well our main languages. The newest member of our band is our 'Bhaii!', Anirudh, drummer, guitarist and Synth player extraodinaire. He is a one man band, and he's the one who completed the band last sem, back when there were just three of us. And lastly there is me to make up the numbers.

Briefly skipping to the day of the performance, we had 11 bands before us and to our horror none played any rock or even Hindi. We'd come to the wrong event even even here. WE went up did our stuff and got huge applause from a niche, north indian crowd and vowing never to perform further south than Bangalore, we headed back. But a few memories will stay forever:

Anirudh:")^&#)$%^)$" blasting open the door with his mouth full of toothpaste when water ran out in the common bathroom.

Navendu:"Aur mat khilao, vaise hi bohot kha raha hoon"
Me:"Bas kal stage pe gaali mat khana"

Me:(Pointing at the flickering giant screen for Vishal Shekar show)Kya chootiya TV hai.

Amlan(Eating chicken007): "Lekin bhai, ek baat maan lo, Hanumanji Bond hai"

Amlan(Eating Chicken007): "Yeh bond chicken hai, thoda izzat se khao"

Anirudh:"Bhaii!"

more about us later, you'll see s at Revels!!