When DJ Tuhin Mehta takes charge of the console, people trip more to the music than to anything else. More than to the beer in the mounting pitchers that dot the tables or the smokes that soon become a desolate story. Of his 15 or so years as a DJ he has wasted no time, callously playing what can be dubbed as the more ‘popular’ music, but has inevitably carved out a niche for himself in the world of electronic dance music, that Chennai first saw with him.
And as he spins the records today at the Sunburn festival on the packed-to-capacity Candolim beach in Goa, it’s the second time he will be unleashing his brute force for Asia’s largest music festival that the coast boasts of. But this time, there’s more of Tuhin on the show- last year he just spun but this time, he is making people spin, as a part of the organising committee of the first-of-its-kind electronic dance music festivals in India and perceptibly, the largest in Asia, in terms of the number of performing acts and the people it attracts. Sunburn, the brainchild of VJ/DJ Nikhil Chinappa, in its second year will, yet again, manifest an array of Indian and international acts, beginning today, for three days.
Tuhin reminiscences what Sunburn saw last year. As I talk to the man over the phone, he tells me he is walking on the shores, with the sea to his left and the stage to his right. The early morning sun doesn’t deter him from his pre-show rounds of last-minute logistics and streamlining of activities. “It’s mad man’s work,” he says, looking at the four stages being erected for the festival. “There is so much you have to do before a show. And when it’s something that’s as big as this, then you have to make sure everything is in place for it to have a smooth sail. Last year, India saw something new with Sunburn. Every country has its own dance music festival it can boast of. Until Nikhil came up with Sunburn, we didn’t have any,” adds Tuhin, who has been good friends with Nikhil for over a decade.
He is quick to deflate talks that parties might not go beyond 11 pm as the Goan government is stringent about it now. But the show, being held on private beaches, will not have to see curtains down by curfew time, he notes. “People have suspicions. But Sunburn, you see, is a well-planned event and we have got the clearance from the authorities. I want to add one thing particularly- it is absolutely safe to come to Goa,” he points out promptly.
The once 12-year-old who began experimenting with sounds for the first time on his equipment at home has indubitably come a long way, in terms of sounds and scale of his career, by producing his own music under the label Brute Force in 2006, the first attempt by a Chennai based-DJ in the sphere of production. “One thing just led to another,” the man casually dismisses his achievement with modesty.
His sounds keep changing every year. Last year, Sunburn predominantly witnessed his tribal tech mixes and this year it will be something new, he discloses. “Well, I’m not telling you what it is. It’s a surprise,” he says.
For the next scion of the Mehta Jewellery family, he is reluctant to step into the bullion world. “I used to take care of the business until a few months ago. But I have realised that music is my calling. Now I’m into it full-time,” he says. Music is the drug. It gives you a high like nothing else, enunciates the man. And with Tuhin, there comes to be a newer definition of a high, every time he hits the consoles.