Who's Your Daddy?

Malayalam rock band 'Avial' performing during South Asian Band Festival at Purana Qila, New Delhi.
Image Courtesy : Manik

Well certainly not me! And anyways this post is about something not related to any of ours' ancestry! Its about eye-candies, cult bands, youth and urban enthral, zest and thrills and well those beautiful drills. Its about people, nothing personal, nothing emotional but what looks on the outside!

So here we are in a new Delhi Metro coach, heading towards Pragati Maidan. Me and Piyush catch up a chat that revolves around Telangana, tri-furcation of UP and Greater Delhi! And other topics include the greyish environment of new metro coaches, yellow lights suck, sickening like tuberculosis but information panels are better and trains are less noisy.

Certainly at this evening our destination is not Pragati Maidan and we wish to reach Purana Qila, to check out some groovy performances by some amateur and established bands of the Indian subcontinent! Well the event is called South Asian Band Festival and we are eager to find out who is the daddy of Bhutanese band named 'Who's Your Daddy'.

Am impatient and not willing to wait for that free shuttle to the venue and make Piyush walk about 500 metres, giving excuses like I need to check out new architectural and civil improvements and yup the new fashion trends, wish to know what the chicks are wearing these days and what delight is thrown to our eyes! Going by my observations I am certain that all 'nice-looking-girls' are short on thing called brain as they 'tag along' with those stupid looking asses who are certainly short on IQ as well as money! Another 200 metres and now am sure it is not the girl but her attire that grabs our attention, thanks Mr, Miss or Mrs Designer at that Gucci/Puma/Hi-Design workshop for making these nymphs certain eye-candies! Oh, I like those straights but probably the curls are much better! A minute please, am a good guy and so I should not look at her (...good guys are supposed to stay aloof of girls, unless needed to extreme. They certainly ought not tag along with a girl, they rarely do actually...)!

Sorry! We were supposed to talk about the Band Fest! We get off the bus (yup we took it after walking through some 3 or 4 signals.), we are at the venue! Accustomed to being frisked, we do not care where and what they touch these days! But I actually hate it when someone toys with that lovely mobile in my jacket's pocket! Let it be. The lighting is nice at the monument and the great but 'long-before' dead Pandavas are not fortunate enough to enjoy Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy perform for them in their own establishment!

As we walk towards the stage, we learn that the crowd is bigger than we expected and is mostly the youth from Delhi University. I acknowledge that Chinkies rock in this city. Every 1 in 20 is lighting up a puff and so there is no point arguing that the honourable Supreme Court, just beside the fort, doesn't like it when young people reduce the surface area of their alveolar sacks! Anyhow am getting used to it and now-a-days it seems more of an added effect to the lighting at the occasion.

Ahem! Here is this band, 1974 AD, performing live in front of us! We like their performance, it is rock after all! Those spikes, overcoats and Nepali syllable all get them our attentions and we learn that we are too dork not knowing how to speak Nepali, everyone around did! I tried to click this guy from Sikkim but my Nokia has limits! As they sing their last song they tell us about their ideology and I agree with it. I too stand for 'positive pride', 'identity', 'national chauvinism'. Their always is a revolution when their is a red flag, know history? Anyways "Nepali Ho."

Nepalese were good but I love Malayalese! The Mallu rock band from Trivandrum (capital of God's Own Country) stole my heart. They call  themselves 'Avial' and were conceived in the First City (New Delhi) only! I can still visualise the bald lead vocalist shake his hips in that 'Lungi' and white figure-hugging shirt! the athlete would jump around the stage like Tarzan while making us utter "Tak Tak Ta Re Tak Ta Re Tak Dimi Tak Ho! Tak Ta Re Taro..." They would add Chinese zing to their act by bringing to us this feline called Naomi from China on the stage! Awesome dudes!

I am not much impressed by Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy's performance. They do their usual thing, and the Bollywood stuff only. Saving grace being "Rock On". Nothing new and out of a studio environment it was not worth it. Certainly their story of a hero dying being shot in the head, while in the bed (added by me) was tasteless and made half the audience flee (not certain if they were more interested in reaching homes or saving themselves the torture these people were turning up to be!)

I and Piyush walk the talk back to the metro station, time is not an issue with both of us and nice to catch glimpses of 4.5*2 lanes of asphalt while glowing bus shelters dot the scene! High hung halogens make day of the night and some red blinkers in distance tell you to beware! Paved and clean pathways are delight and you feel like spending time there only. Hmm, it is only for people to decide whether they like the forts or the steel cage high-rises! I love both and I love them together!

A performace by Avial on Youtube

A performace by 1974 AD on Youtube