Rockers' 9-to-5 dreams

Rock music in India, despite growing fast, still isn?t a fulltime profession for most rockers.

‘It’s been a hard day’s night, and I’ve been working like a dog’. As the Beatles song suggests, our home-grown rockers work their shifts, pay their dues and dedicate their evenings to music. Rock music in India, despite growing fast, still isn’t a fulltime profession for most rockers. Our rockers are also into other careers, besides chasing their passion for music.

HT Image

Take Inder Pal Singh, for instance. A freelance puppeteer who works over 10 hours to produce Gustakhi Maaf and The Great Indian Tamasha on NDTV, he picks up his accoustic guitar in the evening to practice with his MenWhoPause bandmates in Srinivas Puri. All of the members are in their mid-twenties and lead their respective professional lives in the daytime: Vocalist Sarabjit Singh is a senior copywriter with an ad-firm, lead guitarist Anup Kutty is a senior correspondent with a city-based daily, Randeep Singh is a freelance interior designer and photographer, and the suave Rahul Chatterjee leads a corporate life with the CII, when he’s not beating the drum skin. “It’s hard, but we are determined to juggle the two careers,” says Kutty. Agrees Envision guitarist Abhishek Gupta, who also works for an advertising agency: “My priority will always be music but that doesn’t mean I don’t ignore my company.”
Gupta’s bandmates are busy doing spots, playing with other bands and composing music including jingles.

And how can we miss out Subir Malik. He takes care of four businesses (a family business of motor spare parts, an artist management company, a pyrotechnics and a CD manufacturing unit, besides being the keyboardist and manager of Parikrama. “It’s all about time management. My initial years taught me the art of juggling work. Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he says. Drummer Dilip Ramachandran is an independent producer working on ad and corporate films while bassist Chintan Kalra alternates as a freelance filmmaker, web designer and assembles computers along with teaching the base. “I guess since media and music complement each other, the equation helps,” he says.

Vocalist Nitin Malik is also a composer (he’s just done Coke’s TV ad for the Olympics) and owns a recording studio in CR Park. “If there is a clash, then the band takes precedence,” he says, adding that he has another interesting occupation: solving other people’s love problems!