DARJEELING THE MUSICAL PARADISE - III - Continued.... Story of THE HILLIANS - [Part I published yesterday at on.fb.me/1ESZLdA] Darjeelings 1st Rock and Roll Band and probably Indias too Written by: Peter J Karthak Excerpts taken from an interview response to Dr. Sudarsan Tamang [Originally published in: sudarshantamang.blogspot] Story behind the name The Beatles had their Astrid in Hamburg; The Hillians had our Choden in Darjeeling. I met Choden Tshering Bhutia of Bhote Busti in the winter of 1960/61 while I was preparing for my Matriculations. She had already joined St Joseph’s College where Lalit Tamang was her classmate. It was through Lalit that I met her, and our chemistry coalesced from the moment we saw each other. Choden was younger than me but a senior in college because of her brilliant double promotions at St Joseph’s Convent in Kalimpong where she had her schooling. (That’s why we hadn’t met previously) Though coming from a wealthy and rich Sikkimese Kazi family with Cambridge education, she and her older siblings – brother Sonam and sister Pemala – were ardent fans of Amber Gurung and his gang (us!), and they admired what we were doing in music. As for me, Choden’s place soon became my second home, and I was her constant companion – quite an experience for an ex-hillbilly and tea estate local boy with a young, beautiful, super-brained and westernized “Mem Sahib” – so much so that even our common friends began speculating marriage of the two of us. But our relationship was purely platonic, and we knew ourselves better than what people thought of us. I had my own female fans while she was attached to her own boyfriend. We were fast friends in the truest sense of the term. It was at her place I heard for the first time the Beatles’ “Please Please Me” and the flipside “Ask Me Why.” The latter struck me as a European light classic, and I cherish that song to this day. Choden was my unconditional friend, a diehard fan, wise guide to the fine points of life’s awareness, constant philosopher, kind mentor and imaginative inspirer, a bright beacon of encouragement. And since we were all “Pahade”-s, she christened our group The Hillians – so there! She supported me and my efforts all the way, oftentimes even buying new 45rpm and LP records for me and The Hillians to learn from and add to our repertory. This comradeship continued until the group started earning its own huge seasonal fees as a professional band, making us the richest teenagers in Darjeelingtown while our friends had to beg their parents for pocket money and weekly allowances! Choden and I parted for the first time when she went for her Masters in Economics at Bombay University in 1965; the second permanent parting happened in December 1966 when I left Darjeeling (for good, as it turned out). Her last letter to me is dated early 1968 when she was about to leave her lecturer’s post at North Point to join the IAS. Since then, we have been out of touch with each other. As I write for this blog in September 2008, I believe she is now a most senior bureaucrat at the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs in New Delhi. Playing grounds As made clear above, The Hillians played and performed at many levels – at the Art Academy, at Sangam, our college socials during festive seasons and at annual events, and so on. But by 1962, I was able to form a full-complement band of three guitars – rhythm, lead and bass – and a drum set, which allowed us to operate as a full-fledged band of three voices, three instruments, and percussion backup. Later, Phurba joined in as our instrumentalist on trumpet and flutes. We were eventually, and very soon, equipped with electric/electronic equipment such as electric guitars, preamps, amplifiers and speakers which were brought to Darjeeling mostly by Thai students at North Point and other schools in town. We had our two regular tourist-season (March-April-May and September-October-November) contracts at the Gymkhana Club, Planter’s Club, Central Hotel, and Lobo’s Restaurant in Darjeelingtown. When Mr. Louis Banks left Darjeeling for Soaltee Hotel in Kathmandu, he left his turfs to The Hillians, even recommending us to the Indian Army and Indian Air Force which allowed us to travel to Gangtok, Bag Dogra and other forces clubs in winter for the great galas and parties they held. The Indian Armed Forces threw regular parties to impress the Chinese next door at Nathu-La and other border areas, and The Hillians greatly profited from these social events. But come to think of it, as I did many times: Just one single MIG bomb run by the Chinese from their nearby Tibetan airfield on the Norkhil dancehall in Gangtok, and it would obliterate many four-star generals, powerful bureaucrats, industrialists, royal invitees, and important public figures of the region. But it did not happen, thank God! However, such a possibility was never far from my own mind while our amplifiers blasted the night into the wee hours of the dawn. Beatles of the East The label is courtesy of Time Magazine and its correspondent covering the exotic coronation of the Chhogyal of Sikkim. It reported to the effect that the Chhogyal and his Gyalmo (the American Hope Cook) did the Twist (under the canopy of the huge tented reception samiana on the royal palace grounds in Gangtok) to the “Sikkimese Beatles” and their “Himalayan version” of “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” The Hillians’ “royal command performance” as enlisted by the Gyalmo happened by pure accident. Mark and I were merely visiting Gangtok at the invitation of Lalit who was a teacher at a high school there and also to see an unmet distant cousin called Alfred Karthak (who, I believe, is a big shot in the State Government of Sikkim!) and to attend his birthday party and do some sing-along, too. We had taken only one guitar, a jumbo-like acoustic electric bought recently from Ajay Gurung (mentioned above), without amplifier, but which could be plugged in to the public address system (“mike”) for electric sound and amplification for public performance. Lalit was an important member of a major reception committee for the royal pomp and ceremony to be attended by a record number of foreign representatives in Sikkim’s modern history. In his runarounds, Lalit happened to meet the famous writer and editor Mr. Desmond Doig of The Statesman of Calcutta (he spent his last decades in Kathmandu), heard our three-tenor singing of the latest Beatles hits at Alfred’s birthday party and quickly filled the queen’s ears about a possible performance by the trio. The Gyalmo “most graciously” assented, and three gold-embroidered royal invitation badges arrived in no time for the evening reception following the daylong coronation ceremony. Since Mark and I were in casual traveling clothes only, we had no proper black suits or tuxedos for the royal do. So we became three men in black – black leather jackets, black string ties, and black tight trousers and so on. For the gala, there was the resident band from Moulin Rouge of Park Street with the voluptuous crooner, Delilah, who announced us. We borrowed the band’s electric guitar and cued the drummer for the beats. We belted out four Beatles hits and an Elvis one, taking fifteen minutes – our strict scheduled slot – and then we were off. But we made our marks, because the rest of the evening no longer maintained the same old behaved and careful diplomatic protocol. Every pair did the Twist, Loco Motion and Jive to our beats and sounds. When the Sikkimese ruler and his consort themselves took to the floor to gyrate their royal pelvises under their richly brocaded “bakkhu”-s, everybody danced with jolly abandon – including the Indian super brats called Rajiv and Sanjay Gandhi who had come with their mother, Indira Gandhi, then the I&B Minister, representing India at the coronation. Our instant popularity resulted in an extended stay in Gangtok. One particular patron turned out to be Princess Yuthok, the Chhogyal’s younger sister whose residence at the end of Lal Bazaar became our station. We sang at her child’s birthday at Norkhil which the Chhogyal and his Gyalmo graced with their presence The Hillians had an “audience” with the Gyalmo who whispered rather than spoke audibly. She commented, “Since you sing in English, we hope you speak English well, too!” The Yuthoks, living in Hong Kong and Japan many months of the year, were in Gangtok for the coronation, and they took us to many picnics and outings, followed by a bevy of girl fans of Gangtok. The Princess promised us electric guitars and amplifiers, but they never materialized, which later surprised her officials because “she never forgets the promises she makes.” But she wrote an explanatory letter to the Father Principal of North Point, requesting him to excuse the long absence from classes incurred by Mark and me. It was in the college library that very week that Lek showed me the Time magazine clip and wondered if the news was about The Hillians. He was very happy to know that it was indeed about the very local group he had been supplying stuffs to for so long. I can’t close our uncanny Sikkim Coronation chapter without bringing in Mr. Desmond Doig again. We missed him in Gangtok, but it turned out we were not out of his mind. In a few weeks, back in town, Mr. Dilip Bose, The Statesman’s representative in Darjeeling, came around to the Orient Restaurant, one of our regular hangouts in town, asking “Who are the Hillians? I’m looking for the Hillians.” I introduced myself, and he showed me a telegram, which said, ‘Interview the Hillians for JS. Desmond.’ “This is from Desmond Doig. How come he knows you and I don’t?” Dilip Da wondered in a kind of self-pity. I explained that he had not been around to the social events of the town where we mostly played during the seasons. Then we met twice in his house, answered his questions and handed him our best group photographs. The interview was for a new youth magazine called JS, short for “Junior Statesman” which was rapidly gaining popularity and circulation in India. The JS was Mr. Doig’s concept at The Statesman to cater to the young generation of India. In a few days, The Hillians were carried in the next issue of the youth magazine, becoming the first Rock ‘n’ Roll group to be covered from the Hills or the Northeast. Thus were opened the media gates of the vaster plains to the remote peoples of India, isolated in distant and far-flung nooks and corners. The Hillians broke up just like that, as they say. As I said above, three of us (Ranjit, Phurba and I) landed in Birgunj as teachers and consultants to a new “English medium” school there. It happened just after my graduation from North Point, and I was planning for my future when the Birgunj adventurism took place. I was also preparing for The Hillians’ winter schedules out of Darjeeling – the Army in Gangtok, the Air Force at Bag Dogra, and possibly a stint at Trinca’s in Calcutta, and so on. It was then the invitation came from Phurba who had already been to the new school during our seasonal hiatus and academic recess. In the process, Mark and Kamal were left behind in Darjeeling because they had one more year at college. I had intended to be in Birgunj for just about 10 months and be back in Darjeeling to plan my future course of actions. But fate dictated otherwise, and we three found ourselves in Kathmandu after our fiasco in Birgunj. The three Hillians continued as musicians at Radio Nepal, Royal Nepal Academy and elsewhere, but the old band’s formation did not take place even when Mark also joined us in Kathmandu. The two main reasons were the lack of modern equipment and 20th century club culture in Kathmandu while most of our seasoned and professional electric and electronic gears, too, were left behind in Darjeeling, not talking about our lucrative business turfs there and in the neighborhoods. And I had planned to go back to Darjeeling well within 12 months anyway, not knowing, however, that I would overstay in Kathmandu, which is running into its 42nd year in 2008! Even then, honestly speaking, The Hillians were mostly a college boys’ band, and permanency was not something on the cards. However, two British tea planters of Darjeeling were interested in our other hit – “Ramra Ramra Bhavama”, custom-composed for The Hillians by Mr. Amber Gurung – and they proposed that we record the song in Britain. But we foresaw long bureaucratic passport hassles in distant Delhi, and other pros and cons of travel and equipment and foreign exchange also loomed large. The proposal thus died a natural death as well as the longevity of The Hillians themselves. In retrospect, frankly, I still find it easy to recall today that our breakup happened spontaneously and casually. Therefore, no hang-ups and regrets were allowed to enter and linger. This was possible because we were not at all aware during those years that The Hillians were making history in creative Nepali popular music and its live performance. It took Pop historians and researchers like Tshering Choden and Yubakar Rajcarnikar of Kathmandu to see the very first milepost erected by The Hillians on the highway of the particular genre. But when the two journalists found out the truth, nearly four decades had passed by before they made the discovery! [To be continued……] Pics: 1 - The Hillian band founder member, Peter J Karthak with Choden Tshering Bhutia, who gave the name “Hillians” to the band. (Copyrighted material - copyright held by Mr. Peter J Karthak) 2, 3, 4 - Wedding pics of then Prince of Sikkim Palden Thondup Namgyal and HRH Princess Hope 5, 6 - Pic from coronation ceremony of His Royal Highness King Palden Thondup Namgyal and Gyalmo Hope-La of Sikkim and memorabilia coin
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 01:10:57 +0000
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