Stranded

Time stops, others pass by

I wait to hear the chime at dawn

The ring of unbound sweetness

But the hands are still

And moments lost

As I wait to hear the chime

They say I live in a Pegasus dream

Winged, but to fly in a desolate void

Where no spring of inspiration flows

Only dreary hollows of stillness

I see Prometheus with grey strands

As I wait to hear the chime, eagerly

I see a dark star smiling at me

A deep scar with no visibility

I am running against the stillness

Leaving my footprints in the sand

The wind rides the blue waves behind

As I long to hear the sweet chime at dawn…

Last Lullaby at God’s Gate

There was still a bit of chill in the April air as the first rays of the sun reflected upon the rushing waves of the River Ganga. A crowd had already built up on either side of the ghats (banks) of the sacred river at Haridwar even at that early hour. Some had already started their ritualistic bath. A holy dip at the Ganga is said to wash away one's sins to attain Moksha – freedom from the cycle of repeated death and rebirth.

Haridwar, which means the 'Gateway to God', witnesses a surge of devotees, pilgrims and tourists from all over the world during the Kumbh Mela. This is the largest gathering of people for a religious purpose in the world. Millions gather for this auspicious Hindu event.

But my visit to Haridwar was neither to celebrate the Kumbh Mela, which is being held after 12 years in this small Uttarakhand town from January 14 to April 28, and nor as a tourist. It was for a special purpose for someone sacred to me. I got lost amongst the ever swelling riots of colourful crowd as the ripples of the Ganga seemed to sing an eternal song of life and death.

The site of the Kumbh festival revolves between four locations on four sacred rivers and is celebrated four times every 12 years – at Haridwar on the Ganges, at Allahabad on the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical River Saraswati, at Ujjain on the Shipra, and at Nasik on the Godavari.

The fair also witnesses one of the largest convergence of sadhus (mystics or wandering monks). The attraction among them is the ash-smeared Naga sadhus – who renounce everything materialistic. It is a spectacle to see thousands of naked Naga sadhus march through the town before taking a dip in the Ganga on the occasion of the first Shahi Snan (royal bath) of the Kumbh on Maha Shivratri (the day that marks the marriage between Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati).

Commercially, Kumbh Mela is also a great opportunity for ‘green-seeking squeegees’. Hotels rates in the town can even put the Himalayan heights to shame, especially the ones along the ghats. There are endless rows of shops selling anything from flowers to the latest Cartoon Network merchandise. Interestingly, I noticed a number of shops selling pitchers, apart various other brass and copper items. The reason, which I later discovered, was that Kumbh is a Sanskrit word for pitcher. And mela means fair. I got the picture.

The many small bridges over the Ganga not only connect the ghats but also the many alms seekers and advertisers with the thousands that traverse to either side of the river.  Haridwar is a place to connect – with god, spirituality, inner-self, life, death, people, target audience, religion, history, nature...the list is endless. 

And there are the many babas ('holy men' and yogis) being sought after, some internationally renowned with large followers base. With the number of gargantuan hoardings of 'holy men' that greets you as you approach Haridwar, it’s easy to figure out why it is known as the land of babas. The stretch is an OOH advertising maze. 

I marvelled at the sight of humanity immersed in an ocean of spiritualism, questism and commercialism, wishing I had a proper camera to capture it instead of my cellphone. Next time is too long a time. I left leaving the Ganges to sing the last lullaby for a benevolent soul. 

(Naga sadhus photo: Courtesy Kumbh Mela official website) 

a darker shade of blue

Show me the stage

I’ll give you my play

Give me your players

I shall flurry them with new words

You don’t have to look out of the window

Can’t you hear the key turning on your creaky door?

Your room is moist with old grimy tales

Your furniture sits with a Medusa smile  

Let me clear the air and your wooden gaze

The street outside is dusty

But there’s light all along the way

Can’t you see there’s a full moon shining?

Give me your hand

And I’ll lead you to the cascade of liberty

There’s nothing behind left to shelter

Go shed your blue disguise and smile

For the time has come to let you run

Away from the cover of your desolate row!

why...

a bane

the pain

a moment

in time

harsh...

a dark truth

a precious life

gone...silently

a bad dream

nay...reality

feeble cries

a thick void

haplessness

a home beautiful

charred...in tears

love’s gone

pure, eternal

a beautiful life...

cold

                                                           a flower plucked

                                                           a garden shrouded

                                                           white, ember, dust...

                                                           why?

Them Poo-luters

Fresh day, cool breeze and early morning joggers smiled past as the leaves scattered around the pathway crackled in mischievous glee. My not-so-friendly neighbour was wearing a stinking expression and carrying a miniature plastic spade wrapped in black polythene in one hand and holding the leech to his Faginesque mutt in the other.

The freshly painted writing on the wall said it all. I smiled too. ‘Things’ are finally ‘falling in the right place’. No wonder, the row of genda phools near the community park gate painted a Van Gogh-ish look – just the yellow you wanted them to be.

These little pleasures of life, aah...I make myself a hot cup of garden fresh Assam tea to go with my morning newspaper. Sip tea, scan headlines...STOP. Page 1...anchor headline read: “Every day, 1.1 bn people poo without a loo”. 

A WHO-UNICEF report said “globally, 1.1 billion people still have no access to toilets, with India alone contributing 638 million to the figure.” This is one No. 1 spot India would love to flush away pronto. But are the folks sitting (or whatever) in the right place doing the needful.

Lo(o) and behold! Just when I thought things were finally falling in place.      

The Hendrix Experience

“I used to live in a room full of mirrors; all I could see was me. I take my spirit and I crash my mirrors, now the whole world is here for me to see” – Jimi Hendrix

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the passing of guitar lord Jimi Hendrix. To commemorate the occasion, an album – Valleys of Neptune – of 12 previously unreleased recordings by the late icon releases this month. Jimi died on September 18, 1970 at the young age of 27. You can listen to a streaming version of "Valleys of Neptune" here.

My first ‘encounter’ with Jimi Hendrix was uncommunicative. It was hard for someone who listened to ABBA, Boney M, Beatles, Cliff Richard, Sonny & Bono kind of sweet ‘n peppy music to take to ‘hurricane blasts of noise’ easily. I, like many others, was a school kid trying to be hip, shunning anything considered uncool, especially local stuff. (North-East India has always been more inclined towards western culture.)

Anyway, I believe, most of us didn’t understand half of the stuff we pretended to be passionate about, especially the words. Brown Girl in the rain became Brown Girl in the ring. Trying to figure out lyrics was worse than maths. Obviously, there was no Internet, no Google. So, Dig in the Dancing Queen was Digging the Dancing Queen (god save the queen)...

Passing out of high school was like breaking out of our encaging mirrors and stepping into a world waiting to be dissected, out of a dictatorial regime. It was sweet freedom. College offered options to re-look into things once considered 'indigestible'. Like few of my mates, I too naturally graduated to higher echelons of music, if not academics.

We felt the Shakti of music. Dylan was god, Joplin was 'kozmic mama' and Hendrix was a mystic force – an energy that busted out from penury and white dominance to expand the vocabulary of the electric guitar more than anyone before or since. It even obscured Jimi's considerable gifts as a songwriter, singer and master of music genres. He was beyond our domain in every sense, but we could feel the blues. That’s what counted.

We lived by his words: “To be with the others, you have to have your hair short and wear ties. So we're trying to make a third world happen, you know what I mean?” We were rebels without a cause, flower children with Purple Haze all in our brains. We kissed the sky in our own little Woodstock. But that didn’t last long once we were out of college. “Even castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually,” Jimi had said. It was time to be a man and face the world – alone.

The First Rays of the New Rising Sun dazzled the Ezy Ryder in me. Out in the open everything seemed crazy and craziness no longer felt like heaven. But Jimi’s words kept me afloat: “White collar conservative flashin down the street, pointing that plastic finger at me, they all assume my kind will drop and die, but I'm gonna wave my freak flag high.” I did.

Jimi has given me something to dream on. Now I’m experienced, standing tall on Jimi’s Watchtower, looking at my Red House over yonder. I just have one burning desire – to feel the euphonic Fire before someone lights my pyre.

It’s All Bull...

The Himalayan glaciers may not melt by 2035, but this is how we might be using (as the picture suggests) our vehicles around then if we have more fruitless and carbon footprint-full rounds like COP 15.

Maybe the owner of this car is a greenhorn compared to all the ‘champions of climate change’, but he surely knows that cow dung, even though studies say 'emissions' by this domestic animal is more damaging to the planet than CO2 from cars, is as a viable source of fuel and a possible alternative to fossil fuel.

An unassuming ambassador for the fight against global warming, I say.

Crossroads of Time

The playground echoed with exuberant, innocent voices. We were young. The bright horizon loomed large but the path was sketchy. But we had carefree colours in our hearts to sprinkle the road to our ‘destiny’. We were freebirds being moulded to harness the wind. School was fun and so was Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall.

Our days were moments of oxymoronic feelings...painfully beautiful. And it was then that we discovered the spirit of camaraderie. It still remains strong. We are a family of friends. Some have sadly left, reached their final destination. The rest still try to stay connected to recreate the days of yore.

Dreams – some realized, some lost and some still remains a dream. And now, we are in a stage with a renewed love for life, covering our grey streaks and bald-pates with confusing smiles. We are the young-old-men at the crossroads of time.

"The Summer of Love was something special
We were so young and so free
The Summer of Love that I was a part of
We had so many dreams
And even a few of them came true it seems


I still believe in all the music, and it's still playing
I still believe in all the words, ya I'm still saying
I still believe in all the people, they were really great
And I get to thinking back to where we all once were


The Summer of Love had special people
Everybody was together so it seemed
The Summer of Love had lots of changes going down
Looking back's like yesterday
And you can say it all was just a dream


I still remember all the good times
And boy let me tell ya we sure had a lotta them
I still remember the world was changing all around us
I feel like we could go it all again


The Summer of Love was just the beginning
That's when the lines started breaking through
The Summer of Love is just a memory now
Even though those times are gone
The Spirit still goes on in me and you"
-Jefferson Airplane

A Reluctant Cover Lover

Being a self-proclaimed purist, it’s only but natural to ‘hate’ cover versions of songs, especially covers of those that figure on my favourite list. There's nothing like the real McCoy and many would agree with me, I believe.

This despise for cover versions intensified after Guns N’ Roses ‘killed’ Bob Dylan’s classic Knockin' on Heaven’s Door, perforating it with aye aye ayes after every verse. Well, the song did hit the charts, but I simply couldn’t get myself to listen to it. The Dylanist in me still laments – It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).  But what hit me hard is the musically ignoramus lot attributing the song to be a creation of Axl Rose & Co.

I cried hoarse over G n’ R’s attempt but do not refute the fact that the band is high on talent. The guys surely rock. They have sold an estimated 100 million albums worldwide. Boom! And in which other rock act can you find the guitarist doing his licks with a cigarette dangling from his mouth? At least, I don’t know of any. It’s ‘Slashing showmanship’ on stage!

Anyway, it’s rare that covers give full justice to their classic versions, if not score better. But, there are few that do so. Here’s a few in random sequence…

For those who came in late, guitar maestro Eric Clapton has also done a cover of His Bobness’ Knockin'  on...and his version with a reggae twist is fresh and groovy and you can’t just help but say, “Aye, aye Clapton!” Not a surprise coming from Him.

The term Southern rock is synonymous with Allman Brothers Band (ABB) and only someone with their kind of musical virtuosity can do justice doing Muddy Waters' classic Hoochie Coochie Man (the song was written by Willie Dixon), sprinkling it with a bit of Southern soul. This one's a winner all the way.

ABB was formed by brothers Duane Allman (slide and lead guitar) and Gregg Allman (vocals, organ) in Florida in 1969, has been awarded eleven Gold and five Platinum albums between 1971 and 2005. The band’s success paved the way for other Southern rock groups like the Marshall Tucker Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Wet Willie and Molly Hatchet. And Molly hit the right notes with a punchy rendition of ABB’s spacey number Dreams. The band’s version is perfect for a gig.

The cover of Beatles’ Oh Darling! by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones ranks high on my list. The band’s live version of the song with a jazzy twist is simply fantastic! Jimi Hendrix's landmark cover of Dylan's All Along The Watchtower; Manfred Mann's Earth Band’s rock-driven cover of Bruce Springsteen’s folksy Blinded by the Light; Joe Cocker's renditions of Traffic’s Feelin' Alright, Beatles’ Little Help From My Friends, and Dylan’s I Shall Be Released and Just Like a Woman,  are like the colours of the rainbow reflected by a snow-capped mountain crowned by the morning sun.

My list also includes Joan Baez’s beautiful interpretation of Jackson Browne’s Fountain of Sorrow; Phish’s perfectly fueled version of Hendrix’s Fire (Trey is an enlightening improvisionist); jazz empress Ella Fitzgerald’s elegant cover of Cream’s Sunshine of Your Love; Sting’s swaggering version of the jazz classic It Ain't Necessarily So on Joe Henderson’s Porgy & Bess; Manfred Mann's Earth Band’s cover of Dylan’s (again) Father of Night;  and Jeff Healey Band’s (Jeff is a blind blues-rock vocalist and guitarist who attained popularity in the 1980s/90s) blues-on-the-rocks version of Beatles’ While my Guitar Gently Weeps. What’s common with these covers is the soul of the originals being kept alive with a refreshingly fresh feel.

To be continued…

The Happy, Swinging Hobos

What do you get when three “vagabond” musicians, with influences ranging from Louis Armstrong to Son House, Johnny Cash to Mississippi John Hurt and from hillbilly to folk to …, get together? Well, you get a band named Hobo Jazz.

The “fun music band” (as the Hobos describe themselves) is the baby of Hobo Matt "King" Coleman (vocals/guitar), who is also the primary songwriter; Hobo Joe Perez (drums/vocals) – a much sought after drummer in the scene; and the “wildest in this bunch of bananas” Marquis "M.W. Hobo" Howell, who plays the upright bass and also lends his voice.

The California-based band is a regular act in festivals, bars, coffee houses, theaters, street corners, burlesque shows and kids’ shows. Hobo Jazz’s debut album Old Lester's Speakeasy (released in 2006), which received much critical acclaim, is a testimony of the band’s interpretation of the free, raw and fun-filled music they believe in. The complex simplicity with deep roots and vibrant energy is the hallmark of the band’s music, which also tends to defy any genre branding.

And like the band says, “We play what we like, we don’t give much a damn about most things as long as we don’t have to compromise our jolliness,” their music is a refreshing feeling of happiness laced with vintage goodness.

Click here to preview or order a copy of Old Lester's Speakeasy. You can also checkout some cool Hobo Jazz videos on YouTube. Hobo Jazz is a must for anyone looking for clean, sweet, jolly and non-gadget driven music.