There is a very high degree of Improbability that Sanghamitra, my senior and friend, would be reading this. In fact, Sanghamitra doesn’t even exist, she got her name changed some eight years ago. All the same, I need to talk to Sango. I need to tell her a story, and then I need to thank her.

You see, Sango was one class elder to me, and so when I was busy slogging for the Twelfth Boards, she was in Delhi doing her B.A. She would still pop up during the holidays, though; I would be studying in my room ( occasionally glancing out of the window, just to relieve myself of the monotony) and out of nowhere, there would be this whirlwind near the door ( that was her trying to grab my cats or avoid them, depending on her mood, and in both cases, she would kick up a storm) and Lo – Sango’s there! No studies for the next hour or two – as we swapped stories and gossip and latest advances in Girlie-fiction.

One day, she makes a sudden appearance and gives me a cassette, with a warning – “Don’t misplace the cover, it’s autographed.” Sure enough, there were four scrawls on it – the cassette cover reading two names – “Desert Rain” and “Indian Ocean”, which puzzled me a little, because I could not figure out which was the band-name, and which the album – then I remembered a recent interview I had read in Teens Today, of this band called Indian Ocean, and things fell into place. And then I played the cassette and went all gooshy. The day ended with my fighting with Sango. ( “Please please please let me keep this!” “Are you nuts??? This has their autograph. You know how many Delhiites I had to jostle around to get that signed??” “Yes, I know. But you can get it again, you stay in Delhi. Please please please…” and so on. )

I had not been to a Live Indian Ocean concert, ever. When Kandisa came out, I sent them loads of emails asking them if they have any plans for coming down South, they replied (yowza!) that unless someone invited them over, they could not.

My friend from IIM-L told me that the band would be performing at Manfest. They would also be staying at the same place I was being put up. Whoopee!!! Finally a chance to see them live….

Some weeks ago, a rumour began that Indian Ocean were coming to Hyderabad. I was sceptical, mostly because I thought it would be a college fest, and I had heard of enough college fests that were supposed to feature IO, but went for some other band ( or better still, no bands at all ) Then the posters started showing up, one even in my office building. ( That reminds me, it’s still stuck there, I need to go get it) Tickets priced at a hundred rupees. Durgam Cheruvu Lake, which is quite far. Tickets were very decently priced, though. The scepticism remained – what on earth is the Society for Preservation of Rocks, anyway? Why are they inviting Indian Ocean? And why is Rahul Ram the only guy on the poster? And why does it look like he is about to be floored by a huge stone block?

The concert was scheduled on a Sunday. On Saturday, I woke up and opened the TOI, and there was this small ad saying Indian Ocean was performing, along with a sidebar that said – “Meet the band at Music World, Banjara Hills at 6:30 PM today.” Oh man. This was it. I bugged Mons until she agreed to drop work and come along ( Yes, she works on Saturdays too) Bugged Chandru until he told me to Go- Right-Now-And-Leave-Me-In-Peace. Time crawled, it was aeons before 5:45 came about, and we were off!

Paranoid thoughts crept into my mind enroute. What if a lot of VVIP-types turn up and I don’t get to meet the band? What if I am not allowed to get autographs? What if they don’t allow me in? Every vehicle going that way seemed like a potential Indian Ocean-fan, who would crowd the place and mob the guys and put paid to all my plans of meeting them. You know, usual, cheery Beatzoic thoughts…..

Music World was semi-crowded, nothing strange about that. Of course they were playing Jhini. But those morons also have a Music System showroom on the top floor, and the sounds of Kaliyon ka Chaman came floating through over-powered Sony Speakers. The guard at the door was clueless, insisting on me keeping my bag at the counter ,and mumbling to himself when I asked him if the band was there yet. This, inspite of having “Welcome Indian Ocean” printed over the door in glittery letters.

A couple of edgy minutes later, they were there. Flanked a couple of Amazons. They must have noticed the fanboy expression on my face, because Asheem smiled at me as he entered the door, and I grabbed his hand and kissed it. No, just kidding. The Ladies-in-Waiting assured me that they would be meeting people just after the Press conference, to be held in Cafe Coffee Day upstairs.

So I pulled Mons, and having procured a strategically positioned table, started ogling at the guys. I think that freaked out some of them, because they stared right back. Which freaked me out a little – what if they refuse to talk to me because I was staring at them? I tried to concentrate on the coffee, trying hard to eavesdrop on our Members of The Press asking them questions. Considering that this was Hyderabad, probably half of them didn’t even know who Indian Ocean was.

After sometime, Rahul Ram walked away ( like I guessed) to smoke a cigarette. Followed by Asheem, who went and started checking out the music section. I kinda followed him, got his autograph on my Desert Rain and Jhini cds, and generally talked for sometime. ( He asked me if I was a musician, I said “yes”, and he appeared pretty surprised when I knew his name ) Then I caught up with Amit Kilam and Sushmit Sen, and then the fun began.

Amit was curious about my copy of the Desert Rain cd, I have the older, original version, that cost 400 rs, the new version has been released by Kosmic Music. ( A similar reaction came from Palash Sen and the Euphoria band members when they signed my Phir Dhoom cd. Seems they didn’t have a copy of it themselves. But that’s another story ) As he signed it, I asked him about the website – it being outdated and all. He was very apologetic about it, hee hee – and I told him I had written a mail about the website, and hadn’t got a reply.

Then Sushmit signed the cd, and just then, they were being called downstairs to meet the fans, and I asked him if I could tag along. “Sure”, he said.

What followed was the epitome of fanboyishness. There were hardly too many people around. Most people either did not know who Indian Ocean was, or they did not read TOI, or whatever. I talked to Sushmit for about an hour, hogging almost all of his time. And boy, he was patient! Answered all my questions one by one, no beating around, no PR-stuff. This is what I asked ( whatever I remember):

Q: All your albums mention “the ambience of Khajoor Road”. What is that all about?
A: Khajoor road is a place in Delhi, predominantly filled with Punjabis. And in the middle of that place, there is a beautiful house with a spacious courtyard, sprawling trees – which belongs to a friend of ours, and he has basically lent the house to us for practice.

Q: You recorded the Jhinialbum in Andhra Pradesh, a place I have never heard of. Why not a place like Delhi or Mumbai, where there are very good recording facilities?
A: ( Susmit told me the name of the place, a remote locality in the TN-AP border ) Just because we needed to be alone, away from “normal” lives, to get into a recording frame of mind.

Q: How do you compose? Is it all jamming, or do you have a set pattern in mind when you start out?
A: (Susmit gave me an answer that satisfied all the doubts I had ) It’s a very Indian thing – there are no chord progressions, for one. We just know we have to go from one place to another ( in the song), but the way we take it comes out only when we play together. And after so many years of practising together and playing together, we know how each of us approaches the song, what we are going to do next, just by looking at each other.

Q: ( Awed me) So there are NO written notes, nothing?
A: (Sushmit laughed, and tapped his head) No. All in here.

Which, needless to say, floored me.

I also asked them whether they jam with other musicians, to which both Rahul and Sushmit had an interesting anecdote to say – during the Japan tour, they were billed with a Jazz tour group, and the Indian Ocean guys were scheduled to play after the latter had completed their set. Then the Jazz players come and tell them that they can take over the entire second set of the performance, which they do. In the middle of the IO-set, the Jazz band comes up to jam with them, and take out written scores and get them ready. Turns out that they had listened to Indian Ocean, had come up with a whole new set of improvisational pieces, and had practised those thoroughly before even meeting our guys. That evening, for the first time in the history of the Auditorium where the concert was being performed, all the members of the audience got up and danced along with the music.

Rahul also told me that there is a video of the concert available, but with very poor audio. I didn’t venture to ask them if I can get it. :-)

Finally I asked Sushmit about why Kosmic music was publishing Jhini and not Times Music, which had come out with Kandisa. He said it was because Times had the World rights to Kandisa and they were hardly doing anything about it – which was absolutely true, there was zero promotion for Kandisa when it came out, and till date, it sells only by word-of-mouth.

So they left, and I left, too. The concert the next day was held at a brilliant location near Durgam Cheruvu ( The Secret Lake), atop a slightly windswept hill, and we sat some three feet away from the stage. The sound was terrific, the mood laidback, and the band swept out collective consciousness away. Asheem, sitting at the tabla, looked like he was on fire or something ( the smoke streaming from the stage and the lighting made him look like Samay from the old BR Chopra Mahabharata ) I had heard about how funny Rahul can be, and he proved it – wacky explanations of songs, jovial banter with Sameer, the sound engineer. ( At one point, towards the end of the show, there was a high feedback from the bass guitars, and Rahul kind of made lots of gestures that none of band members or Sameer could interpret, and finally he just folded his arms and chanted the chorus to the song without playing the bass, It looked hilarious, I tell you. )

Sushmit’s guitar playing looked so….effortless, the man himself sitting at a corner of the stage smiling away serenely at the audience. Rahul’s was vibrant, full of energy – part showmanship, all skill. Amit, hidden behind the drums, took centrestage with Ma Rewa, which featured a jugalbandi between Sushmit’s guitar and the gubgubi played by Amit. Amazing! They might have some set-pieces ( like the jugalbandi, and the part where Asheem comes down and plays the percussion on the bass guitar) to wow the people, but none of it seems hackneyed in any way.

The crowd loved it. There were some spoilsports who could only yell “play Ma Rewa!!” and “play Kandisa!” at
regular intervals, inspite of the band saying that those were to be the last numbers. ( I then had the feeling that Ma Rewa is fast becoming to Indian Ocean what Creep was to Radiohead, and Another Brick in the Wall to Floyd, at least in India.) In all, they played all the songs from Kandisa ( Kaun was the encore), some from Jhini and some from Desert Rain. Loads of variations from the studio tracks ( at which Vasu and I would grin knowingly at each other ), usually provided by Rahul.

The highpoint was the time somebody in the crowd took up a chant of “Kaisa Lagaa -Achha Lagaa”, which Asheem complemented with the tabla. And that metamorphosed into a tune in itself, a long jam that elicited cheers and deep bows from all of us.

So at the end of it all, one of the things I could think of was – Thanks, Sango. For the very first time you made me listen to Indian Ocean, and for all the good things that it brought to my life. Things seem to have come full circle, and I wish I could tell you all this stuff myself. But of course, I haven’t seen you or talked to you for so long a time – six years, come to think of it.

/* written between 12th and 22nd Jan, 2004, No, I didn’t spend my whole afternoon writing all this. */