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Covid-19 has come as a teacher, so let us also look at what it wants us to learn: Nitish Pires
The indie rock singer had to cancel his 13-city tour across India due to the lockdown, and says that we can overcome the virus only by coming together
On March 5, indie rock singer Nitish Pires started his journey with Fateh Inspire India Tour, which was a 13 city tour that he planned on accomplishing on his bike. But the sudden lockdown and outbreak of Covid-19 meant that he had to cut short his tour and go back home to Goa. Nitish paid his crew members with whatever money he had and sent them home, after which he was homeward bound on his bike. “My manager, band members and my film crew were travelling in a bus and I was riding on a motorbike. The tour was supposed to end in Pune on April 2nd. When our PM announced the Janata Curfew (March 22), me and my team were between Odisha and West Bengal. My instincts told me that it’s not safe for my crew to keep travelling and so I sent them back home on a flight so that they could reach home before the lockdown started. I was on a motorbike and about 3,000kms away from my home — Goa. For me, to reach home before the lockdown was absolutely impossible. That was the start of my struggle — to reach home, find shelter, etc. Staying on the road was not a choice; it was the only option left,” says Nitish.
The composer and music producer adds that he was heartbroken when his tour got cancelled. “It was sad to see the project, which took months of development and so many investments by an investor, not work out. Getting funding is such a difficult task and after I managed to get an investor, a global pandemic broke out. I am sure anyone in this world can understand how I felt at the time. I had put all my heart, strength and passion into this tour. I think I was just strong enough to not pass out watching everything fall apart,” he says.
Out of the 13 cities, he performed in Goa, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Bhubaneswar, but his performances in the remaining cities — Kolkata, Kanpur, Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Pune — were cancelled.
To come back from somewhere between Odisha and West Bengal to Goa on a bike is no easy feat. But the singer managed to do it albeit having to face lots of hardships. He was riding a 1200cc Triumph Bobber motorcycle, which he says, is a superbike and has technology not similar to the commonly used motorbikes. “I had to take a route back home thinking about unfortunate situations of motorbike failures. Taking small roads means risking myself with a situation where I could be stranded just because of bike failure. So, keeping in mind the availability of Triumph service stations, my best route home was through main highways. I rode from West Bengal and I decided to follow the golden quadrilateral highway through the west coast back to Goa. But due to a small accident, my phone fell and the GPS stopped working. That’s where I got lost and had to take many detours because there was hardly anyone on the road to ask for directions,” he says, adding that on his way back, he sometimes slept on the side of the highway, sometimes under the roof of a closed shop, and sometimes, in a temple.” During the lockdown, there were no hotels or lodges, so staying and settling down for the period of the lockdown was out of choice. Even the restaurants, dhabas, and shops were closed. I survived on 2 packs of biscuits, 3 cups of chai, and two bottles of water for almost a week,” says Nitish.
He finally reached Goa on March 27, and he says this has made his realise something. “It took one small virus to make us all think collectively. We can only overcome this life-threatening virus with collective thinking where class, religion, caste, and one’s financial status doesn’t matter. Covid-19 has come as a teacher, so let us also look at what it wants us to learn,” he signs off.
