Hockeystick guitars n Headbangers' ball ;))

A long, long time ago…
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.

Before entering the portals of college, I listened to all that was mushy n romantic music, rap, tanda-nakraa (crap) and pop music. My introduction to all that was anti-tympanic was in my college as the newfound freedom allowed to experiment with the cacophonous music. Suddenly out of blue, all those boy bands sounded like eunuchs crying out to me about their unrequited love – Back street eunuchs, Eunuch zone, Boys 2 Eunuchs etc.,

Anoop, my best pal was known as DEF as he was a fervent fan of Def Leppard and thro’ him, I started to gobble up the acid rocky fruits of Pink Floyd (PF). Pink Floyd had released “Division Bell” that time and I used to spend some tranquil moments with that distant echoing guitars n tugging thematic vocals. Division Bell totally changed my outlook to music and dave’s pain enduring vocals started to echo inside and I was pouting those lyrics day in day out, much to the chagrin of moi classmates. Then I fed my quality music starved ossicles, all the other albums of Pink Floyd. I got so smitten by PF that I put “pf” in my e-mail id too. :D

Only selected few listened to Pink Floyd in my batch and to popularize their music, we used to hold Pink Floyd parties. Making posters for those parties were fun and we just copied all the album covers into a collage form. However, the activities in the party will make anyone laugh. We used to just play the Pink Floyd selected songs with only a night lamp on and sip pepsi/coke or alcohol for some – that’s it. Might sound so humdrum but it was nice becoz this kinda music is for relaxation and as the music soaked us, we got a floaty feel of total detachment from the worldly anguish and literally swimming in a surreal world – Comfortably Numb.

Hostel block parties were fun and it was undiluted bullshitting session afta the vigorous outflinging and inswinging of extremities- so called dance and its usually asynchronous with the redefining deafness-inducing cacophony. My classmate Boopalan was in the hockey team, and being the junior chap in the team, he had a huge bag of hockey sticks in his room. When ever we played some hard rock/metal stuff and we have this habit of playing lead guitar pieces with an imaginary guitar. By chance, I glanced upon this treasure bag of hockey stick guitars (HS guitars) in its glorious unplugged forms and there started the guitar strumming with some head bangings’, literally challenging the anchored strength of the head ka hair roots. For the lead pieces of Dire straits and Pink Floyd, we used to lean on walls or sit on stools and play with our HS guitars but for some groups like Metallica, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and Deep Purple – we would justice to their form of music by lying on the floor or jumping or running along the corridor with our HS guitars and do the needful.

Due to increasing boredom, the no. of parties were on the increase and to satiate our musical thirst, we planned to get some local made musical system with huge speakers for our maverick parties. Sarathy mansions of Vellore is well known for electronic goods. In one of the bigger shops, a sales boy volunteered to show us some awesome Akai music systems and on close inspection, to our horror it was not Akai but Takai. As we rummaged thro’ the wares in the shop, we found one more funny named company – Taiwa (offshoot of Aiwa). At that moment I thought, Wat it would sound like if they faked Sony – “Tony”… Was sounding more like a dog than a music system. :P

House parties were more fun due to the inclusion of the XX chromosomes.. In our college, during the house parties the gals in their best attire or bare would be just be tapping their feet or wriggle like a slithering caterpillar shedding its coat. All of a sudden these gals will align themselves into a single file and do a chug-chug like a train across the dance floor. Funny creatures we had in our college.

My batch was known for its party spoiling tactics. Pink floyd songs used to be real dance party spoilers. My classmate Liao ( indianised chink) used to be the disc jockey and we used to slip in CDs’ of Pink Floyd, Metallica and van halen. Suddenly this fella will put one of those CDs’ ka song and a motley crew will jump onto the dance floor and all the gals will go off leaving the space for our seizure activity. It would be like Red Sea Splitting Part II. Anyways who can dance for learning to fly (Pink Floyd), Enter sandman n Unforgiven (Metallica) and Jump (Van Halen), except us.

In my final year of UG, I was in B-super (the place for final yrs – third floor) and had musically inclined neighbors. One side, Yap kannan (true to his name he yaps a lot) - half Malaysian and half Tamil Brahmin and on the other side Navnit from Bihar. Yap listens to classical music of western n Carnatic genre. Navnit is pure n pure hindi music. Yap used to get cassettes from me once in a while as I was experimenting with Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Wagner et al. He got once, a Yanni cassette – Live from acropolis and that literally lead me to one necropolis. He used to get up at 5 am and start singing his keerthanaas and then put on Yanni cassette at one sooper volume. On the other side our dear Navnit (call him king – short form for king Kong – literally a jungle out there on his skin – so much hair) will play good ol’ euphonious Hindi songs.

I being a late nite bed hitter this lytic mix of music would make me see red and would upset my mood for the day. I decided to take sweet musical revenge. I got one Pantera cassette as a gift from Anoop for my birthday. So before they would put on the music, I will put on this music and Pantera music is just a leaf out of discovery channel – growls n growls. It will sound like as if they left the microphone in some jungle and recorded the whole thing and if some bass guitar riffs thrown in – Pantera music is complete. It would really test their delicate eardrums as I would leave the music on n go off to Anoop’s room and doze off. Afta some days we reached a truce that Kannan will sing his keerthanaas in the terrace and he’d return my worn out Yanni cassette. Navnit and I will stick to some timing in the mornings, in playing our kinda music. Peace once more prevailed in the B-super block and our eardrums resonated in perfect harmonic motions from then on.

Heavy metal music was patronized by very few in our hostel. On bad days afta coming back to room, it’s the assuaging heavy metal music which would make worries evaporate in a flash – few neck nods and few lines of karaoke would do wonders to the mood. Synchronizing head bangs with the riffs or playing HS guitars for the lead pieces in various frozen poses is très difficult and is to be tried, to be understood and is an art by itself. I tried growing long hair but being a doc I was mightily discouraged and got to survive with few sprouts.

As years flew by, the craze for heavy metal music reached a plateau phase and during internship I had no time to listen to music at all. Nowadays only in some moments I listen to heavy metal music and that too, selected songs. Its better to listen to time tested “Greatest Hits” of one group or other when time or access to music is at stake.

Then, the busy years went rushing by us
We lost our starry notions on the way
If, by chance, I'd see you in the tavern,
We'd smile at one another and we'd say

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we'd choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way