A Little Some People You Should Know

RADIO played at SWAT the other day and it was a good show as usual. Playing in Bandra brought back memories you know, the kind that makes you wonder, “How did I come to be here?”
Seven years of playing music and I now feel it’s just been hyped up too much. There’s no outer body experience or ultra satisfaction involved. It’s a job, like every other job. So why did I stick around for this long. And the answer to my question was on that very stage with me – the brothers.
Aditya & Alok, or the brothers as I call them have been with me since school days. I remember first hanging out with Adi when he used to still formally call me Terence and I hated Alok for being the pesky character that he always was. We were learners, audiences, moshers, head-bangers, metal-heads, wannabes and everything that every youngster goes through at that time. I wasn’t in a band back then so it would be needless to say out friendship was built up on Music & jamming. It was pure fun and masti.
We went to Bandra almost every day, hogged Chinese almost every night and partied wherever we would get a chance to party. It was the year 2002 when I lost touch with them cause of my studies which excellently interrupted time & again. I bumped into Adi one afternoon on my way back from college on that bridge at Santacurz station. What better place to meet a friend you’d think.
Well we were back to partying, chilling, shopping and doing all the useless things that any youngster mustn’t do. But Adi was now a drummer for a Rock Band which was a huge deal and Alok had started to play guitars for other bands and I was their friend who they took along for shows. Time flew by, break ups happened, Adi used to sit next to me in P&T Colony as I sat and cried about girls and love and happiness and all the abstract things that today find themselves in RADIO lyrics.
As for RADIO I don’t know how it came to happen but I think Adi agreed to join in considering the fact I was his friend, RADIO sucked back then so we would simply have fun jamming, no commitments, no strings attached & lots of booze. Alok joined in that very December when we performed at Kshitij. Then I didn’t quite approve of him in the band. I was like, “RADIO, Alok is not not the types” etc. etc.
Time flew by and my small little rock band which was made up of friends I knew even before I could spell Slipknot were my flanks and I started to realize how lucky I was. I realized this on stage at SWAT.
I looked at Adi and didn’t just see a drummer out there, but a true professional, so skilled, so dynamic, so stylish and full of grace. He need not struggle on his instrument or bother with his timing. Woh jab jahaan joh bajaa deta hain wohi gaana ban jaata hain. That is what gifted musicians come with…a gift. I don’t remember a single show where no one has come up to me and said, “Hey your drummer rocks.” And I’m like, “Aditya, he’s ma frnd….come I’ll make ya meet him”. I remember girls wanting to know him, guys wanting to hang out with him, he was a sports fan, he was a movie freak, he was a foodie, he loved to booze, wore amazing t – shirts and most of all ‘Made music not just played it.’
Alok on the other hand is a rebel. The world to him is a mirage, apocalypse if the 12th of June and guitars are something that can be perfected time and again and again. He is the best critic I have ever come across and those who know me will be amazed I’ve awarded this title to someone else but me. He will talk to me about anything and anyone and man does he know how to become a girl’s best friend. Alok has a very natural way of bass play; in that he doesn’t attempt to play, doesn’t goof up and somehow steals all the tech awards post every show. He is not as quiet as he is in real life on stage. He blows up into some machine and goes zooming from one end to the other.
The reason I write this article is that I owe these two guys a lot. I owe them all the guitar playing I know today. I owe them all the shows I’ve played, all the times I pulled myself back up after being broken, I owe them the feeling that no matter what happens I have another side of the fence to jump on to and they will cut open a gap in it for me. When I’m on stage with them, I’m not playing with a very skilled duo but with those two guys who hung out with me way back in school days and in days at TT and in days at Mikhail’s and Veeru’s and in days at JATC and in days when I first picked up a guitar and played With Arms Wide Open.
They are two people who can tell me I am wrong here and there, they can ask me to do anything for them, ask me to change, to remain, to break things and to relax. With them on stage I don’t care who is watching, I don’t care who has something to say...in fact I’m least bothered.
I should’ve written this a long time ago, but I think we need to sometimes take a break on your fast lane and stop and wonder who you are travelling with. And there, at that moment, when you know you’ve crossed a lot of your journey with no hassle whatsoever, you have that passenger to thank for all the company he kept you in. I have Aditya & Alok to thank for everything…for being the best musicians in the world, for being the most amazing drinking buddies in the world, for being the most beautiful people I know and most of all…for being themselves.