Indian on the Road

Most musicians are consumed by wanderlust a strong desire to see new places,meet new people and hear new sounds. And in this urge to take your music to faraway lands,the most unexpected things happen. Complete strangers will open their doors to you,welcome you to their homes and extend the kind of hospitality no fancy resort can match. In 2008,while touring the US,playing gigs in random bars,we decided to rent a tour van and drive from Austin,Texas to New York. The only problem was that none of us had an international drivers license. We needed someone to drive us. We posted an ad for one on a classifieds site Craigslist thats notorious for serial killers and conmen. We got our first reply from a young comic book artist Jeff whod decided to move to NYC to make a career in the publishing business. Midway through the adventurous road trip,he stopped at Kentucky where his parents lived. They had been forewarned about an Indian band on the road and had already made preparations. An elaborate Thanksgiving meal and warm beds awaited us. And all they wanted us to tell people back home was that they were really sorry about George Bush.

In Estonia,we were guests of a bunch of shiny happy Indophiles led by a young designer Kadri Vahe who made special arrangements to ensure that we got a taste of real urban Estonia. The local media had already picked up news of an Indian band travelling through Estonia and playing at The Rabarock Festival and they found it amusing that we would prefer to stay with the crowd in tents rather than the fancy hotel rooms that were on offer. As a final experience of Estonia,our hosts took us to a countryside cottage to indulge in their favourite mode of fun a traditional smoke sauna by a river. Skinny dipping all night in the freezing cold after sweating it out in a sauna with complete strangers singing Estonian folk songs will remain etched in our memories. Ironically,while we were privileged to bump into the Estonian PM on our way out,the Indian ambassador apparently refused to support our show claiming it had nothing to do with Indian culture.

In Norway,we were lucky to be hosted by Mira Beckstrom,daughter of famous Norwegian musician Lars Beckstrom,who allowed us motley crew of Indian rockers into their beautiful countryside home. Her friends young poets and puppeteers hosted picnics in the warm European sun for us where we jammed with more musicians like the talented girl-trio Ost,Myggen amp; Liljeroth. Ideas and conversations filled the magical Norwegian air like newborn butterflies. Recordings of those sessions will remain as documents of that special time we spent.

I remember being asked by a French journalist in Paris about how it felt to be Indians playing a Western genre to a Western audience. I told him that being Indian didnt necessarily mean wearing it on our sleeves wherever we went. The absence of a sitar in our equipment doesnt make us any less Indian. Theres a whole generation of musicians in India who have witnessed globalisation and have reference points in culture that are common to youngsters elsewhere in the world. And,watch out,because they are slowly reaching out to a world that is eager to accept them.