In common with most of my peers growing up in suburban Madras, I nurtured a secret fantasy for rock-stardom. With the exception of Y.K. Ranganathan and Mihir Vaswani who wanted to become chartered accountants, the rest of us disdained Bollywood and worshipped rock. While tastes varied from Purple, Floyd and Steely Dan, ever since I listened to the "Sticky Fingers" album, I had my heart set on the pouty-lipped, swivel-hipped, guitar-snuggled-firmly-in-my-crotch fantasy of a desi Jagger. I may have talked about it in my sleep since a slightly deaf, crotchety uncle who was visiting, advised my parents to seek professional help. "You'd better send that boy off to a psychiatrist, I heard him mumbling about wanting to be a car when he grows up: a Jaguar, I think".
Many moons before the Japanese invented karaoke, I mercilessly pioneered the dreadful habit of singing along. With an old Cuticura powder tin in place of a microphone, I deafened the neighbours and terrified the help with shrieky renditions of 'Satisfaction'; the hapless Rolling Stones being my unwitting accompanists on our old Dacca gramophone. My mother would occasionally listen to me launch into the chorus of "And I tried, and I tried and I tried, how I tried" with a martyred expression on her face before offering helpful suggestions such as, "I'm sure that boy's forgotten the words". Her pained expression seemed to imply: If you've tried three times and can't nail it, then give it up and go play cricket. It isn't healthy for a growing boy to be frowsting indoors on such a lovely day. Or my least favourite: 'Have you finished your algebra homework?'
One is not easily dissuaded at that tender age but this sort of parenting was painful for a rock star in training. I'm pretty sure Eva Ensley (Jagger's mum) didn't hassle him with brushing his teeth, saying his prayers or finishing his geography homework! She probably grew cannabis for Mick in their kitchen garden, took him to an orthodontist for the diamond implant in his front tooth and bought original Playmate of the Year original photographs for wallpaper. Not for him the ignominy of being marched off to the neighbourhood barber for a "short back and sides". If that sounded OTT, check out his photo album on the Stones website: dude had longer hair than his Mum. Ma Jagger probably tucked him into bed with, "Now Mick, I hope you've had your daily quota of sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. And don't forget your Angel Dust tablets".
While yours truly had to cope with trivia and implacable discipline and would slink off to bed muttering dire threats, "Just wait till I'm famous. I won't even allow you to clean out the barf bags on my private jet". In boarding school, my best pal was Leslie Lewis; while I wrote the lyrics, he composed the music and strummed his acoustic guitar for what we fondly hoped would be a hit single. Clearly the fire burned much deeper in his belly since Les, as any ‘fule kno’, went on to found Colonial Cousins with Hariharan and pick up Grammys, while I stuck to my middles, if you'll permit a dreadful pun. To paraphrase Smokie, "Now Leslie is gone but I'm still here, I guess I've been waiting for 24 years…
History is like one's boring old uncle who keeps repeating himself. I never dreamt the day would dawn when I would berate my own children for their musical taste (or lack of it), but it happened. Two years ago we were stuck in Koramangala traffic on a Saturday night with RJ Barker for company. After blithely informing us that his partner had gone for "susu", he kicked off his show with an EDM retro number, "Feel", dating back to the year 2000. Like seriously? You feel your age when 2000 is considered retro, especially when you're thinking "Blue Spanish Eyes" and the song is from Ibiza.
The composer was clearly a swinger… who swung from the lower branches of the evolutionary tree: a case of arrested development compounded by being pecked by a brain fever bird, "I can feel it, can you feel it? This went on, for, I'm not exaggerating, 300 times in 360 seconds, interspersed by short bursts of what can only be described as electronic farts: bsssssst. While I would like to think of myself as evolved and tolerant, clearly some atavistic, primitive instinct in me was roused and I snapped. "For God's sake, turn that *#it off", that *^#hole's forgotten the words".
