HOW DID THESE ROCK STARS FIND THEIR WAY INTO A CONSERVATIVE AND CLOSEDOFF INDIA?
That’s precisely why they managed to worm their way in, according to Sidharth Bhatia, author of India Psychedelic, a book about India’s rock-and-pop music scene . It was because India was so cut off from the rest of the world that young Indians sought more contact with it, said Bhatia.
The message from across the Atlantic – snuck in via records and cassettes brought back by travelling parents – was rebellious. So was listening to it. “You felt you belonged to something bigger,” said Bhatia.
Rumblings of dissent weren’t uncommon among democratic India’s first generation: they were rebelling against all sorts of things from tradition to authority to the state (Naxalism first appeared in the 1960s). Rock and roll was perfect for the job: “Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command, your old road is rapidly agin’.”
Bob Dylan’s poetic anthems were catching on. The Beatles were all the rage. And rock’s bad boys were taking center stage – The Doors, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix etc. It didn’t matter that they were singing against the war in Vietnam or for civil rights in America. They were singing about love, peace, sex, drugs and revolt. That, Bhatia said, made their music universal.
“When you’re young protest comes naturally,” said Dhawan. “It seems the thing to do.” Everything about this music was a break from the old. Gone were Frank Sinatra’s ballads about the moonlight and Cliff Richards’ and Louis Armstrong’s mushy lines. All of that was hummable. Pink Floyd was not.
GV Prasad was in college in Chennai in 1973 when he fell for Floyd. The album was Dark Side of The Moon. Then came his favourites: Wish You Were Here and Animals. These weren’t fleeting affairs. Three decades later, he explained that he loves Floyd for its “dark sarcasm, social commentary...and deeply meaningful lyrics.” And that he can still “smell the moist earth, the green shoots and the...seasons,” when he listens to Jethro Tull’s folksy Songs From TheWood.
“It became yours in a different way,” said Prableen Sabhaney who went to college in Kolkata in the mid-70s. “The world was not such a small place.” By that she meant you couldn’t pull up their songs (and everything ever written about each song) on your phone while sitting at a table. Rather you sought out this music and you heard it intently. You had no way of knowing, Sabhaney said, if and when you would hear the next album.
They weren’t drawn to this music because it was “great.” It was something more specific.The Stones were “raucous,” The Who was “just out there,” Jethro Tull was “whimsical,” Jimi Hendrix was “electric,” Pink Floyd was stirring, The Doors were both cheery and tortured, and Dylan was gently compelling.
They heard them without knowing much about the singers or the song. The album cover was the only hint and they’d read it again and again. They didn’t know of the Stones’ riotous concerts. Or that Keith Moon would wreck his drums after every set and that Roger Daltrey madly swung his microphone around. Or even that wild Jim Morrison was so shy that he sang with his back to the crowd.
Huddled over turntables and cassette players at friends houses, in hostel rooms or college lawns on warm summer nights, so many Indians fell in love with these bands - not with their performances or their personalities but with their music. And they stayed in love.
In 2016, these men still attract crowds. The concert in California, dubbed “Woodstock 2016” for its historic cast, is expecting around 150,000 people. Although the average of the biggest acts is 72, Woodstock was cheap because the fans were young and nearly penniless. Desert trip tickets range from $199 to $1599, and the estimated average spend is $1000 – proof of wealthy, older fans.
“Though we liked the songs because they denoted the fight against the establishment, somewhere along the way, we became the establishment,” said Prasad. But they are still chasing those memories – of rebellion, of discovery, of scratchy records and cassette players that crooned the latest from DylanorHendrix.
It’s easy to forget that Jagger’s slick moves, which inspired a song as recently as 2010, belonged to an older time. A time when young people turned up at Berco’s in Connaught Place, Delhi, and pretend to buy music so they could listen to precious records. A time when cassette players were “liberating,” and a mixed tape was the closest thing to a playlist. And listening to music was an active, almost pure, experience.
“I had a few close friends who were into rock in a very deep way and we used to listen together,” said Prasad. Partly because the music itself was so hard to come by that people would gather with different albums. I heard this so often: friends would get together and spend hours listening to music. Who does that anymore?
In a music documentary, Anne Hilde Neset from The Wire magazine said, when she was younger, she’d buy records and listen with “pure concentration and joy...to every little bit and looking through the vinyl and watching the vinyl turn around with the needle in the groove.” Now, she added, “I always do something else while I listen to music.”
As do I. It’s impossible to ignore the glitzy, hyper-produced videos that come with today’s albums. Each is a performance, often with a long list of choreographers, producers and writers. Even superstar Beyonce does not write all of her music because it’s as much about the music as it is about the artist. Back then, I was told, it was all a mystery.
I finally had an answer. Who would I pick if I had to hop on to an international flight to hear them? Bob Dylan probably. It’s too late to hear Jim Morrison.