Rocking in Pune

As a rock musician in the early 1980s, I travelled a bit from Bombay (still can’t get used to Mumbai) to different cities in India to perform with my band, The Crosswinds. We were successful by Indian rock standards of the day. Which was maybe a concert every other month. Money was always tight. But it didn’t matter. And out of town gigs were a major treat. The members of the band were Sanjay Divecha (guitar, vocals), Ehsaan Noorani (guitar), Jayu Menon (bass), Mark Menezes (drums), Nakul Kamte (blues harp) and Mujeeb Dadarkar (keyboards). I sang.

We made a few concert trips to Pune (pronounced poo-nhay). But one trip in the summer of 1983 in particular has stayed fresh in my mind. Almost frame by frame...

Catching the Deccan Queen early in the morning at VT. Sneaking our guitar cases into the coach so as not to have to book them as luggage and risk damage. Our fellow travellers are curious about us. Middle-aged gentleman learns for the first time that someone who plays guitars is a “guitarist”. Which prompts him to ask Mark if he is the “drummist”. And does Jayu have a “piana” in his bass guitar case?

Getting to Pune in the glaring mid-day heat. Piling into someone’s old Fiat. We don’t care. We’re grateful someone has bothered to come receive us at the station.

Driving to the venue. A smallish hall that has a stage at one end but with floor markings for badminton or some such indoor game. Rigging up. Checking sound. A girl who has had a little too much to drink (even that early in the day) fiddling with the mixing console every time the sound engineer looks the other way. Can’t kick her out. She is the girlfriend of someone important. Beautiful, as I remember her, but way out of control.

Before the show, going to change in the house where we were staying that night. Greeted at the door by the same someone important (who had left ahead of us). But now he has a gash on his forehead. Blood streaming down one side of his face. The beautiful, out-of-control girlfriend had thrown a heavy crystal ashtray at him. Face bloodied. Pricey ashtray shattered. Host annoyed. (By way of who’s who, suffice it to say that Bloody Face is the actor son of a famous actress of yore.)

And then going upstairs to find a burning mattress in one of the bedrooms. Someone (probably Bloody Face’s girlfriend, walking disaster zone that she is) had left a lit cigarette on an ashtray on the bed. Narrowly avert fire. Someone is humming the opening riff of Smoke on the Water…

Later... a great concert. For the audience. For us. The sound is exceptional. Better than we have to deal with most times. We’re rocking cool and confident. We’re tearing through our list of covers... Clapton, Skynnard, Point 38 Special, Charlie Daniels, even Men at Work.

Throwing in the odd original. One, called Synapse, goes down big. Like it always does. The choppy, syncopated intro brings on a roar of approval from the audience. Sanjay and Ehsaan’s twin-guitar harmonic riff snarls and writhes through Jayu and Mark’s chugging rhythm section. This song normally strains my vocals. But tonight... tonight the mojo is on me. I’m hitting the range clear and strong. Through the smoke and coloured strobes, I see some maroon-clad, bead-laden Rajneeshites doing their “joyous dance” thing off to one side in front of the stage.

At the intermission, someone lugs a case of port wine onstage. He owns a daru ka dookan.

Lay Down Sally... we open the second set. Sanjay’s singing lead. I’m backing. Someone passes a bottle of the port to me. I take a swig. Sweet, heavy Goan stuff. Pass it to Nakul. He takes a swig. Walks to the edge of the stage and hands the bottle to someone in the crowd. Next bottle... swig... swig... pass into crowd. Third bottle... again. Cops are getting edgy. The case is almost gone. (Try that today?!)

We finish the regular set. The 300-400 strong standing room only crowd won’t leave. For an encore, we rip into a hard rocking version of Cliff Richard’s Devil Woman. Don’t remember whose idea it was to even rehearse a song that had been a hit many, many moons before any one of us ever touched a guitar. But it rocks the house. The front of the stage looks like a mosh pit. Shirtless thrashers have replaced the joyous dancers.

Cops quite nasty by now. They’re pushing people around. It’s 11.30 P.M. Senior cop strides on stage and pulls the plug.

Later... sitting on the edge of the stage. Knocking back a cold beer someone handed me. A misty-eyed, forty-something Irani guy comes over and grabs me by the hand and says, “Aaj aap logon ney hummey bahut khush kar diya (you guys made us very happy today). Didn’t think I’d hear Devil Woman ever played live again.” Makes my day. We’d sure made his.

Wearily pack gear. Get driven back to our host’s house. It’s late, but the McDowells whiskey is flowing. The air is heavy with aromatic smoke. An impromptu jam starts. The weariness disappears. Someone breaks out a bag of ’shrooms. People drift in and out. Some Pune musicians come by and join in. Surprised the cops haven’t been by to tell us to pack it in.

4 A.M. Sitting outside on the lawn. Very peaceful. Senses heightened to where dust motes shimmer like stars under the hazy streetlights.

Find my way back to my room. Someone has turned the sheets back on the bed for me. Drift into sleep... feel like a rock star.

(Note: the photos in this Blog are from an earlier concert in Bandra, Bombay. These are the only photos I have of the band. Courtesy Ehsaan. In the top picture, Jayu's on my left and Ehsaan's on the right (partly obscured). In the bottom picture, Jayu, Ehsaan and Mark, left to right.)