North and West Frontiers

BITS backstage

one more BITS backstage

between Pune and Mumbai

Hard Rock Mumbai, sound check

Hard Rock

somewhere near Mumbai

Science experiment before Pilani

Rahul and friend

Pilani

Shadowplay, Pilani

Rohan, Pilani

Amps, Pilani

So the Mumbai gig did happen evetually. But Hitler's arrest did not come cheap. The Bandra court decided to keep him in the lockup for a few more days and Mumbaikars with any sense in their head knew that could spell trouble. The city was like a ghost town that night. Cabs and rickshaws were not running and everybody generally tried to stay indoors. Except us and The Hard Rock Cafe. Although we'd been expecting a big crowd to show up, the incidents of the day ensured that only a moderate amount of people walked through the door that night. Nevertheless a decent gig I think. Post gig packing up took forever and by the time we were out of there it was past 2am and by the time we all got to where we were supposed to sleep it was past 3am. And we had a 6am flight to catch. We slept half an hour and we were up again running towards the airport on our trust steed - the Going Nowhere tour bus :) By this point everyone had figured out their favourite seats and their own ways of being comfortable on the bus on a long journey. This was a short journey to the airport though. A couple of hours later our flight landed in Jaipur and we were on cabs heading towards Pilani, about 5 hours north of Jaipur. Those who could, slept intermittently. Parathas for breakfast. Definitely north India. We reached BITS by about 2 or 3 in the afternoon and after the usual set of unpredictable obstacles, eventually got a couple of rooms at the hotel and crashed for a few hours. It took a lot of effort on our part and that of the organisers to make the BITS gig possible for Lounge Piranha. Between a fickle set of people organising finances to sponsors backing out just days before the show, there were compromises made and tears shed, but I guess the important thing is that the gig happened. Thank you Varun Ramesh. The surprises never ended though. Euphoria, who were supposed to play till 11 and then make way for us went on and on till a quarter past 1. Eventually after they were done with their one million oncores (summer of 69, bon jovi etc) and rockstar exits, we got on and soundchecked - a really good soundcheck, the sound guy knew exactly what he was doing, and light checked - Archana using a multi projector setup as she often did on this tour. At 3.30am we were on. And wonder of wonders, inspite of Euphoria's carnage from a few hours ago, there was actually an audience and they actually liked what they were seeing. Super enthusiasm levels for that time of the night. It turned out to be one of the best gigs of the tour and judging by the audience reactions, we hope we'll be back there again sometime soon. By the time stuff got packed, and George had finished painting their backstage wall, the sun was up and we ate some chaat and omlettes for breakfast on the college lawns. An hour of sleep and we were back in our cabs heading for the airport for a flight to Mumbai to continue on the bus towards our last gig of the tour...