Angst In My Pangst

One of the good things about having a Music World right next door to my office is that after a particularly satisfying lunch, I can enter the store and browse through cheesy new DVD releases while the album du jour plays in the background. Most of the time, there’s nothing too imaginative playing – the most popular tracks from the latest Hindi/Telugu album releases, but it does me good to hear a track here and there that I wouldn’t have come across normally. I heard Pokiri‘s ‘Dola Dola’ the first time this way, and recently, the ‘Lambi Judai’ song from Jannat. Today was a pleasant surprise, because the minute I laid foot inside, a female chorus singing “Joy on sunshine, Joy on blue skies” started on the speakers. It’s been ages since I heard Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and AR Rahman’s ‘Gurus of Peace’, and I am almost embarassed to say I got goosepimples when the alaap began.

AR Rahman’s Vande Mataram was released on August 15 1997, on India’s fiftieth year of independence. The promos that ran through July and August on Doordarshan tantalized mercilessly – they mostly consisted of famous Indian personalities ( I remember MS Subbalakshmi and Pandit Jasraj being two of them) talking about freedom and what it means to them with a distinctive drum-beat in the background, and then the drum would get louder while the tricolour would unfurl slowly across the screen. The spots used to run in the middle of the Hindi Samachar, if I remember correctly, and whenever I heard the drum-beat, I would run to the TV room, dropping whatever it is I was doing at the moment. The only authentic bit of pre-release news about the album was based on short snippets in some other programme ( was The World This Week still running at that time? Or was it Vinod Dua’s show that followed it?). It was supposed to have a Rahman/Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan duet, with the former having travelled to Pakistan to record with the maestro, who was ill at the time. Sting was supposed to guest-star, nevermind I did not really know then who Sting was. Sivamani had great things to say about it. Hype, in those innocent, pre-internet days

The night of August 14th, I was praying fervently to all the gods I knew – please don’t let there be a powercut! AR Rahman was going to perform a live show ( this was obviously before all the World Tours began) at India Gate! Vande Mataram was finally out! The Man came onstage in blue jeans and a white shirt, and Sivamani, along with a HUGE contingnent of drummers went into an introductory performance that slowly led into THAT beat, the one we had been hearing on the promos. I had this small tape recorder positioned near the TV speaker, of course. (and the dang thing recorded it all pretty well, let me tell you.) Then Rahman sang The Song. And it was good. Then he sang a song that began “Aye Mere Vatan Ke Log”, that I did not like too much. The later part of it is a little hazy in my mind, I don’t remember what else he sang that night.

August 15th came and went. The ULFA had declared Independence Day as an Assam bandh – they still do, by the way, with most people staying at home that day and the state on high alert the week leading to it – and there was no chance a music shop would be open. I must have heard that tinny recording god-knows how many times. I remember playing it over the phone to friends who did not watch the programme on TV. The day could not go slower! The next day in college, I played the recording before class ( yes, I was an obsessed little bastard even then) and then moment second period was over, I ran to Bharali Brothers nearby, a place I normally loathed because the old man behind the counter treated us students badly, and enquired if the album was in. It was. Sixty rupees was pushing my pocket money for the month, but I paid up. I bunked the rest of the classes and headed home. In the bus, took my own sweet time to read the liner notes. Ok, so Dominic Miller was the guitarist who had played with Sting, and was playing on the album. The liner pictures were superb, the painting on the cover was by Thotha Tharrani, a name I remembered as the person who had designed the sets for Mani Ratnam films like Bombay. “Aye Mere Vatan Ke Log” wasn’t even there on the album. Eight years later, I found out that the song was “Masoom” and it was released on the US version of the album, with another song called “Musafir”, which was a reworked version of ‘Ottagatha Kathikko’, one of Rahman’s earlier songs from the film Gentleman. (Yes, I have the US version of the album too).

I got home and switched on the music deck ( after remembering to clean the tape-head, hoo ah!), and put it on, feeling slightly light-headed. What The Frag?? ‘Maa Tujhe Salaam’ did not begin with the drum-beat. Well, whatever. ‘Vande Mataram’, the actual Bankim Chandra song played next. Blissful beginning, and a kick-ass guitar riff, though I did get a little cheesed off at the saxophone solo at the end. And then it started – ‘Gurus of Peace’. Angelic female voices. A chorus in English! Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. And AR Rahman singing along. If on earth there was a time of bliss, it was this etc. August 16th, 1997 was a truly memorable day for me.

And that night, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan died.

In retrospect, perhaps I enjoyed the album, especially ‘Gurus of Peace’ a lot because I hadn’t still heard a song called ‘Poralae’, from a 1994 Tamil movie Karuthamma, music by AR Rahman, from which the composer had liberally reused the melody for his duet with Nusrat. Karuthamma being one of those rare Tamil albums that did not make it to music stores in Assam. When I bought the Karuthamma album (Mount Road, Chennai, January 2003) and heard it that night in an IIT hostel room while swatting mosquitoes away, it took Herculean resolve to not jump up and run screaming down the corridor (out of…I dunno…excitement? Familiarity? Surprise?) on hearing a familiar tune was coated with a different aural layer.

Later, much later, in 2001 to be precise, I am on an auto from Hanamkonda to my college in Kazipet. My friend, recently relocated to Hyderabad and visiting Warangal to pick up some certificates, and I are talking music. He asks me, “Which Rahman album is your favourite?”. It takes me about thirty seconds to say “Vande Mataram”. And of course, on my next birthday, I get a CD of the same album from him, as a gift. This was the time when CD prices had not normalized yet, and it made me feel really giddy, owning my first Rahman CD.