We Went to IIT - Kanpur, Calcutta, Delhi ...

 

[A chance glance at a photograph in the mess that is my memorabilia box, a call from Arka Chakraborty, a PhD scholar, who is doing some homework on the music of Calcutta, caused this memory to be jogged. I hope I remember the names correctly.  To be fair, the motley crew above represented the entire contingent of the gang that represented St Xavier's at the Fest at IIT-Kanpur in 1976 as the back of the pic reminds me. More below. But first the pic of the back of the photo sent to me by our Fearless Leader Nitin V Kotak (pictured with the Overall Trophy in his lap).]  

The College years were the best years. Apart from the impressive learning we underwent, there was a lot that one could do inside and outside the canteen, the Park Street cemetery and occasionally a stage or two.

College Fests were the opportunity to showcase talent whether one had it or not. And so the College Western Band, for lack of a more creative title, went from stage to stage winning accolades, trophies and occasional brickbats from sore losers.

Of course, as the picture indicates, this all had to go through the "cultural council" though the priests who ran the institution were loathe to call our music anywhere near culture. 

Our band had a core team of four who kind of overlapped the years 1973-1978 (since a couple of us managed to hang around doing the B.Ed and getting our ID cards stamped). On lead guitar, rolling on the floor, picking with his teeth, was James Carvey (seated leftmost).  He did all that in this particular event in 1976. On drums, or what was left of them after the session, was Kenneth Bell (standing second from right). He had the uncanny knack of demolishing drum sets while enlisting me (sitting extreme right) to hold up cymbal stands with a knee while providing an almost steady bass. Lead singer Les Gabriel (standing rightmost) was soundly rebuked for attempting to swing the microphone a la Roger Daltrey.  But the trophy sitting atop Nitin's head, held by Roly, was the hefty contribution of dimunitive Bertie da Silva (standing leftmost) with his one-man band, blues harp, guitar, guitar surface for occasional kahon taps, and his amazing compositions.

James went to Canada, Kenneth and Les G went to Australia and Bertie and I stayed in Calcutta in academics:  BD-Sir of St Xavier's College (Eng Hons) and LDG of St Xavier's Collegiate School.  All of us continue to play music in some way or the other in our respective zones. 

The music the band played ranged from good old Beatles rock-n-roll to some Grand Funk Railroad and lighter stuff like the Eagles.  College fests used to be for punchy beats, thumping bass and screaming lead guitar.  Vocal harmonies from Les & Les added colour to the music and added points to the trophies.

The overall shield, as you might be wondering, was the sum of the activity by all of us in the picture. Some guys (can't recall all names) had represented us in Eastern music, some in Debate, some in JAM, and then there was this gap, where there was no one to participate in Impromptu Mime. Kenneth and I hastily put together a mime for the topic "One Day in Queue" - we got totally booed off the stage. But we might have added a point or two to that shield. 

In this particular Kanpur fest I recall the Band overshot its time limit by a couple of songs ... like true professional musicians we had been egged on by the crowd!  Like true professional losers the other colleges demanded that we be scratched from the competition as we had exceeded the time limit (Rule 23a or whatever). One of the judges came up to the stage and told the crowd that the judges had had a discussion and overruled the objection as "Xavier's had won from the first piece they played".  We were then asked to come back on stage and play a few more numbers while the pro band from Calcutta was getting ready to rock the night away.  That's when, during the finale, the drumkit fell apart. 

I recall hiding shyly in the background while 'dudes' like Miti Adhikari the bassist from Mahamaya and a classmate of mine in Eng Hons, reviewed the band. No Google, No YouTube.  We had to make up our own lyrics from cassette tapes and scratchy vinyls, but they got drowned in the bad mixes that we played through!  And James might have had a prized Wah-Fuzz pedal which was wrapped in layers of cloth whenever it had to be packed - not a touch on the table-sized pedal-boards of today.  

Looking back, I think we were nowhere near the best but our hearts were in the right place.