Spin Doctor

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YOU need another name. DJ Namita, naah8230; doesn8217;t sound cool,8217;8217; says DJ Himmy. In the midst of the rocking Dr Zeus, DJ Nasha, Jazzy Joe and DJ Himmy of Decibel8212;the discotheque at New Delhi8217;s Hotel Samrat8212;I8217;m a bespectacled hack, hell-bent on having a turn at a console.

My instructor, resident DJ Alex aka Anish, leads me to the controls after a short briefing. 8216;8216;It8217;s very easy. Just a few technicalities that you8217;ll need to practise with,8217;8217; he says, as we climb the steep, narrow stairs to the console cramped with disks and deejay paraphernalia.

Alex runs me through the basics: 8216;8216;first thing you should know is the BPMs beats per minute for every song. You have to take care that the BPM of the two songs that you are mixing are the same.8217;8217; He puts on a house number and counts. The Punju in me would have rather started with a loud and groovy balle balle number, but for Alex bhangra8217;s a dirty word. 8216;8216;The Delhi crowd doesn8217;t have taste. But I wouldn8217;t be caught dead playing Daler Mehendi,8217;8217; he says. 8216;8216;Not even Rang De Basanti?8217;8217; I ask, but one stern look from Alex, and we are back to the BPMs.

8216;8216;So once you8217;ve got the BPM right, make sure the songs are on cue. A cue is the first beat in the song,8217;8217; he continues. After the cue, comes the barring, the key to mixing. A bar is where the song will change beats and is the right point to mix in the second number. The bar differs for every genre of music. For instance, in house one bar is equal to 32 beats. As I begin to get a hold of the deck, I wonder how many beats Daler paaji has.

Alex helps me check the levels, set the pitch and the faders used to fade numbers into and out of each other and prepares me for the next level of DJing: scratching. The trick is to identify the 8216;8216;drop8217;8217;, the blank space in the song and start with the second one for a seamless mix.

Technicalities over, it8217;s my turn. I slip on the headphones as Alex cues Dus Bahane and Nina Sky8217;s Move your Body. Suddenly BPMs, drops and fades8212;forget scratches8212;are lost on me. I try again with Right Here Right Now, but more cacophony.

By now DJ Himmy and Sunny, and Vikram, my shutterbug, are looking thoroughly amused. Alex isn8217;t, but all of a sudden, in true Delhi spirit, the power goes off and the crowd is spared my gig.

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8216;8216;You know, it took me seven months and five hours of practice on the console every day to learn mixing,8217;8217; says Himmy. The 19-year-old8217;s collection of music also holds a couple of weathered rare gramophone records from his grandfather8217;s collection. There8217;s a live Ghulam Ali record from 1981, a Runa Laila from 1982, Boney M and Umrao Jaan. Just as I begin to discover a world beyond Daler, the power8217;s back.

Here we go again. After 20 minutes of painfully trying to locate my cues, with the help of two other deejays Alex has given up on me, I finally get it right. But I8217;m told not to take cuts when you abruptly stop one song and start another like an average shaadi DJ. A bit of a struggle and I get into the groove8212;Say Na Say Na from Bluff Master actually moves seamlessly into Raghav8217;s Angel Eyes.

8216;8216;Hey, not bad,8217;8217; says Alex, as I cue Tom Noni8217;s Your Body for him. Armed with my new skill, we wait for the crowds to troop in. But the night is dull. Just as I8217;m ready to quit, Alex gets a call from DJ Kapil, of the Maurya Sheraton8217;s Dublin. They8217;re expecting US President George Bush at the club tonight. I8217;m already thinking of changing scenes8212;the thought of making Dubya jive to Daler Mehendi has charged me up.