CHENNAI: The music landscape of the ’70s was a bubbling cauldron of new sub-genres of rock, birthing some of the most iconic musicians of the time. Referred to as the glorious period in the West, its concerts were often pictured with a young crowd clad in bell bottoms, beady necklaces and tie-dye prints, revelling in the riffs of artistes like Led Zeppelin, The Doors and Pink Floyd. It was in the same decade that the genre had spread its tentacles to India, giving way to a similar hoard of young fans and budding rock artists in the country.
Trailing the hippie beginnings of rock music in India at the time, The Extraordinary Life of Max Bulandi (HarperCollins) by Sidharth Singh weaves a story around a mysterious yet charming rock icon. The book, as it recommends readers old and new artists alike, explores the rising counterculture in the country, while also swinging into an adventurous journey in search of the said mysterious rebel.
Inception
The author, who is also a filmmaker, says the book was inspired by a gamut of his adolescent influences. “My father’s tales of his days on Park Street in the late ’60s, the literature of the Beat Generation, ’60s psychedelia and rock and roll, and how this counterculture interacted with Indian society when it arrived on our shores via the overland hippie trail in the late ’60s is what I put together in the book.
That was the cultural backdrop I wanted to explore through the lens of an Indian rebel, and what better symbol than a rock musician, playing western music in ’70s India, to illustrate that. That’s how I found Max Bulandi, who gradually evolved into a generational figure and provided an inroad into the essence of the times,” Sidharth says.
The book hinges on its protagonist Nirvana (a nod to the popular band), who amid oscillating between heartbreak and drugs, works as a journalist in a tabloid in Mumbai. Amid his eviction notice and dissipating interest in his job as a music journalist, he comes across an article hailing a band called The Flow and their frontman Max Bulandi in a popular rock contest.
Calling Bulandi as the answer to Jim Morrison, vocalist of famed band The Door, the article highlights the former’s antics on stage. Intrigued, Nirvana sets out in search of the mysterious man and early flag bearers of the Indian rock music scene. His travel across Bombay, Calcutta, Shillong and Benares, a juxtaposition with Bulandi’s life, comes with a twist that changes his life.
“I wanted to build a resonance between Nirvana’s and Max’s journeys. As Nirvana uncovers the many layers of Max’s life, he gets inspired and reflects on his own and learns to deal with his inner demons. But this was easier said than done because I struggled with Nirvana for a long time and had to dig a little deeper into his past to make him more relevant than a structural tool,” Sidharth explains the coming-of-age bit in the book.
Subcultures and politics
The book explores the effect of the advent of foreign music in the interiors of India that was heavily influenced by folk music in the ’70s. Singh accurately depicts visuals of the outfits, accessories and recreational activities as the story’s backdrop, details he borrowed from his father who told him stories of his days at St Xavier’s College in Calcutta during the politically turbulent but musically fertile period from 1969 to 1971, he says.
His abiding interest in exploring subcultures gave way to several political references during Bulandi’s journey across India. From mentions of the dwindling life of Anglo Indians in the country to the build-up of Emergency in 1975, Sidharth depended on his personal experiences and books covering politics at the time.
“I wanted to explore some of these worlds in the context of rock music in India, and the Anglo-Indians were a natural fit in the story. They were integral to the cultural fabric of Calcutta, to the Railways and to the educational establishment, all of which were relevant to the story. I have been taught by a few Anglo-Indian teachers at schools in Barrackpore, Patna and Dehradun and was somewhat familiar with their world,” he says, adding, “Later, the story moves beyond rock music to the politics of the time when Max lands in prison and comes into contact with the brutal reality around him.
Through this phase of his journey, I wanted to explore the build-up to the Emergency of 1975 and how a rebel like him would react to that political churning. The Calcutta Trilogy of Mrinal Sen and Mahasweta Devi’s Hajar Churashir Maa (Mother of 1084) gave me the cultural texture of those times, as did Indrajit Hazra’s short biography of Calcutta, Grand Delusions.”
Rebellion, love, politics
The author’s love for music peeks through the protagonist’s narration, critiquing the current music scene and calling it consumerism based on social media craze. “When Nirvana goes to a nightclub after a gap of five years, he finds that the previously underground musical subculture of electronic dance music has gone totally commercial and is being consumed by people who don’t necessarily understand it fully but have just shown up because it’s the cool thing to do, the place to be. It is a comment on the culture of trends that has been propagated by social media, which values instant gratification, narcissism and voyeurism above all else.”
Amid the guitar riffs and thundering drum beats, the book is peppered with stories of rebellion, drugs, love, politics and music. When asked what he would want the readers to take away from the book, he jokes, “That the ghats of Benares have always been cooler than Haight Ashbury!”