When Sting came to town

If you like 60’s and 70’s rock, the place to visit is a popular corner in Kathmandu called Thamel. Kathmandu is a place of several shades. The city is an old one but is fairly young in terms of development. The kingdom of Nepal as such sees a vibrant mix of Hinduism and Buddhism. You could think of it as the place where India meets China, since the heavy influence of both these countries is very evident all over. But the city of Kathmandu retains the air of an ancient capital, untouched by the British, as it can be experienced when you go to Patan, the old part of the city. At the same time, being very active on the tourist radar, it’s a great place to spend a few days and meet new people from many different countries.

During my stay here for close to ten days, Pratik and I went down to Thamel almost every other evening. The place is abuzz with pubs, most of which have bands playing some of the best music from the golden age of Rock. As you walk through the narrow and crowded lanes of this area, it’s often hard to separate the beats of Seven Nation Army from Send me an angle coming from adjacent joints. The music is here and there and everywhere. This is where the nightlife of the city unfolds. No place in India comes even remotely close to the ambiance Thamel carries.

Though you get Carlsberg and Tuborg at most of the sit-ins, the beer to try here is the locally brewed Gorkha beer. You might begin to question the authenticity of Budweiser as the king of beers. In the midst of music, beer, fries and talks we got chatting up about the several hikes around the city. In due course, my friend was charting out the route to Lhasa in Tibet from Kathmandu on a paper napkin; and how this course can be done on an Enfield. But as the night came to a close and we were driving back, he told me the story of a man.

The story of a man called Sting. The singer. Sting was in Kathmandu a couple of years ago. He had checked into one of the hotels in the city under a pseudonym. He came into the hotel with a scarf around his head, and heavy stubble. He wasn’t in the city to perform. Later that evening, Sting went into one of the pubs and sat unassumingly in a corner sipping his bottle of beer and listening to the band play. A few songs into the evening, the band began to play Every breath you take. Sting sat and listened to his song being played. Not one person but Sting himself was aware that the guy who wrote this song many years ago was in the audience.

As the story goes, Sting took off his headgear and made his way to the stage as the band finished playing the song. He borrowed the guitar from the lead guitarist and went on to replay Every breath you take. He was doing this because the guitarist had apparently got some notes wrong, and Sting was correcting him. Before long, the whole place knew who the visitor was. In a couple of minutes, the entire press of Kathmandu had flocked on the road. And Sting gave interviews.

The cycle of music

The cycle of music is a popularly observed phenomenon in urban India. It is something that most of us are familiar with, but only did not realize that we knew it. Let me fill you in.

The cycle of music documents the variation in the interest in a particular type of music that the average kid goes through in his years. We all start off the same way: listening to our first beats, rhythms and lyrics in our mother tongue because that’s what mom and dad played on the music system every morning. Maybe you watched Doordarshan on weekends, and got hooked on to Hindi music. Or maybe it was that North Indian neighbor that played tracks from Mohra that got you hooked to Philips Top 10. And do not discount Rangoli on Sunday mornings. We all grew up to the tunes from Roja, didn’t we?

Years passed, and one day you were playing with an older friend in his house, and you noticed the cassette cover of Aqua on his desk. He played it on the speakers to show you that kind of music you ought to be listening to. You loved the tune of Barbie Girl. You took the tape home, slid it into your deck and played Dr. Jones loud enough to herald the arrival of English music into your life. And thus began a long journey into the world pop music. This was it – the years passed with Boyzone, Spice Girls, Vengaboys, Backstreet Boys and Aron Carter. You looked around at your classmates with head held high like they were losers listening to Hindi music. What era were they in, to get a high out of Yash Raj’s Movie Tracks? Pop music was the way of life. You had arrived.

The years went, and Enrique Iglesias, Michael Jackson, Peter Andre and Ricky Martin had their time with you. Gradually Bryan Adams came, and you moved to the next step. And now suddenly, Backstreet Boys was for sissies. Bon Jovi, U2, Queen you started moving up the music ladder on band at a time. Bohemian Rhapsody was the new favourite. In the teenage years, rock defined you very existence. The progress from pop to pop-rock took a while. The move from pop-rock to rock to metal was much faster. This was when you tore the life out of anyone listening to pop music.

“Blue and West Life need to go kill themselves.”

Before you knew it, Metallica and Iron Maiden were the new Gods. Pink Floyd and Aerosmith had no equal. You woke up each morning thanking the heavens for sending the electric guitars and the double bass to earth. This was the real you – with the screaming face of Eddy on your chest saying “Dance of Death”. The peak had arrived. A few maniacs had tried to over do things and had fallen off on the other side: they tried death metal and gothic stuff.

Like all things, this pattern changes too. We grow and mature like we should. Today, we open Winamp and enqueue Backstreet Boys and Westlife and Enrique. Pop music doesn’t seem so bad now. You can give these guys some credit atleast, even thought they all look gay and stand in a straight line to sing the song. Hindi music is getting better and better as we are seeing lesser and lesser of Anu Malik. But the day you’ve arrived is when open your CD tray and slide a music CD of your regional language, so that your kids may re-live the cycle of music.

5 men and 2 lessons

Times of India’s Heart Beat Concert that happened last night at the Central Auditorium of the University of Madras featured the very best of the very best - Zakir Hussain, Shankar Mahadevan, Shivamani, U.Srinivas and Selva Ganesh. To say the very least, what a treat!

I’m not going into the sing-song of praises for the musicians because everybody knows them and their talent. But I can say this: Zakir Hussain’s fingers flow. I mean, they literally flow. Shivamani is insane. U Srinivas is “one of the greatest instrumentalists of all times”, according to Zakir Hussain who said that during the course of the performance. Sivaganesh is nothing short of a genius, for only someone like him can create such an array of beats with one drum. And Shankar Mahadevan’s vocals sound exactly like on the records, I mean, the guy is good!

But as the concert went on, I watched some very interesting things happen on stage that got me thinking about music and musicians. In my experience, I have noticed that almost every human being that plays an instrument really well, or in other words is a musician of some form or another, is a person of humble nature. I don’t understand this, but I sure appreciate it. You know what I mean. If you can wake up a guy or gal from sleep in the middle of the night, and they’re able to 5 minutes of coherent music groggy-eyed, chances are 9 out of 10 that he or she is your “down-to-earth” person. Maybe, all those endless hours of practice and hardships make you refined when you come out on the other side.

Here’s another thing I noticed on stage. During the solo performance of each artist, the remaining 4 had their eyes fixated on the performer and provided him much valuable feedback through hand gestures and mainly just by their body language. You could say that the guy playing was literally drawing energy from the 4 other champions on stage. And this happened in turns with all the 5 under the spotlight at different times in the evening. This brings me to another conclusion. Musicians respect other musicians. Only one instrumentalist knows what goes into the making of the other instrumentalist. When Shivamani stands and applauds for Selva Ganesh, that’s an applause of respect. When I stand up and applaud for Selva Ganesh, that is applause out of hollow excitement and recognition for a man that can play ‘an instrument’. I have absolutely no idea what has gone into the making of this A-class drummer. And so, by the time he gets off stage, my applause for him is gone and I’m now excited to clap for the next guy. But when Shivamani claps for Selva Ganesh and viceversa, there’s mutual respect in it. And I think, that’s a healthy lesson we can take and apply it in our lives and to the people that we come in contact with – recognizing and applauding for people’s talents, irrespective of what it is and how much we like it.