Touch-wood

I've been keeping my fingers crossed.

Makes it difficult to type, but I better get used to it. It's going to be a long month.

We were hoping to get Faithless for the festival. We were this close when we realised Faithless split up last year. Maxi Jazz has gone his own way.

Kaptaan is mystified. "And then I thought we could get the Beastie Boys. But it turns out one of them is dead!"

It's true. Adam Yauch passed away this year, barely a month after the legendary band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

R.I.P. MCA.

It seems there is a cloud of bad karma over the headliner spot. I have a terrible moment of panic when I recall a previous post and a passing reference to idol worship. Have I angered the gods?

Oops.

Fingers crossed.

Lists made

We make lists. We take things off them.

We sit around tables and close matters. Each day is a step ahead, a monumental climb. There are orders being placed, vendors being booked and purchases being made. Things move along. Days pass us by.

We delegate - departmentalise. Different groups meet different challenges, it's the simplest way forward.

We hit bumps we didn't think we would. We find problems we didn't expect to. It's a new story, every day. We adapt. We accommodate our plans to suit new developments.

We evolve.

We take our lists and add things to them.

On fire

Kaptaan is out with Grand Meister. They are making a business trip to Jodhpur and they aren't expected back until tomorrow. In that time, things will happen. Things are known to happen on business trips.

Batman should be here by then too. Back says he is in Jaipur right now. Who knows? Can one ever know, rather? His impending arrival has been spoken of in very high regard. He brings a lot of hope and clarity. And I see it coming from everyone. 

Sheriff, thanks heavens, is still here. He has to be. This is a young team and someone ought to take control of it. Earlier today, I heard him pass a whole lot of instructions to the deputies. Something about installing mobile ATMs at the venue. He was real intense about it too. I bet he is still on fire.

Everyone kind of is.

Saturday

It is a Saturday. It smells like beer.
I don't think anyone else notices that here.

The Happening

I had a disturbing conversation last night.

“Can I ask you something very frankly? You are a writer, so... very frankly.”

It’s late. A member of the local team stands at my door. He’s new – two days on board. He’s going to be an important part of the operation.

He’s a little shaky at the moment.

“Is this festival really happening?”

“What do you mean? Of course, it’s happening.”

“No, really, tell me. I won’t ask the others. But you are a writer, so... very frankly. You are not doing some kind of April Fool thing, are you?”

“Why would you think that?”

“No, try to understand. I am local. I have to live here. Tell me if it’s not happening.”

“It’s happening.”

“It really is?”

“Is something wrong? Isn’t everything on track?”

“What can I tell you? We’re trying to do too many things anyway. And one minute something is locked. Then it isn’t. Then it is. Isn’t.”

The poor guy looks a bit worse for the wear. He had been all smiles yesterday.

“Look,” I say. “If this festival happens, do you think it’ll be magical?”

“If it’s really happening.”

“Have you ever wanted to do something magical?”

He nods, I think. His face is sad and lopsided.

“Then help make it happen. And it will.”

There's all kinds of magic out here already

He looks in much better spirits today. Tired, though. There’s been a meeting up on the third floor till two in the night that I didn't know about till today. They were sorting out job lists. Crossing ‘t’s and dotting ‘i’s. He’s got his own job list now on a tangible sheet of paper.

That piece of paper makes a difference.

Sometimes it’s hard to believe what you can’t see. Yet.

Happy bellies

It is a storm.

I haven’t seen their faces all day and I imagine a tired army making its way back home.

The crew has been out for 11 hours now, toiling hard, making things happen. Three hours of extensive recee and setting plans to scale. Two hours of documenting the needful. Six hours spent hacking each other’s brains.
Almost an entire day spent gawking at the sheer enormity of the festival site.

I hear throats aching for some relief, eyes looking for some rest.

They surprise me.
They announce themselves hoarse, climb up the stairs to their second floor rooms and shout out a strange sort of jubilation. I tell myself that it's pointless to try and understand how such commotion can please. Yet I wonder what’s gotten into them. I try to overhear but it is an errand made in vain. The ambitious aren't easy to make sense of.

They slam the door behind them, retire their bags for the day, freshen up and run out for dinner.

I don’t see them for the next three hours.
I fear for the restaurant they have chosen.

They come back an even louder bunch. Dinner must have been sweet. They run straight into my room - all five of them, say too many things at the same time, hand me a take-out, smile incessantly, shake my hand, bid me a good night and swoop away with their happy bellies.

The floor is quiet again.

It is a storm.

Dhani, the Ragasthan village

The team spent all day at the site.

The dunes are fine, they report. Soft, golden and pristine. Untouched for miles.

But other things at the site have gone wrong.

The lower lying flat ground where many of the activities and some of the camps were planned now has a farm on it. It’s a small farm. But there it is. A patch of bright green in the desert. All around it, the barren ground has been tilled. It is rough and undulating.

It’s going to be difficult to construct anything here.

But that’s where it has to be. There’s no other way. It’s difficult to construct anything on the dunes – the sand keeps giving way – but that was always part of the plan as well.

It’s almost like this entire thing was thought up on a dare.

Take this, for example.

They’re putting up 200 Swiss Luxury Tents in the middle of the desert. But it’s not just the tents. The plumbing needs to be done for each tent so they are connected to sewage systems and water reservoirs. Electrical lines have to be laid for each tent. Pathways need to be created.

Did I say all this is happening miles away from the nearest civilisation?

That’s not a camp-site – that’s a little village!

That's just two. Imagine 200!

And have you seen a Swiss Tent? It’s like a hotel room. Certainly a damned size larger than my last apartment. Furnished better too. They tell me it takes four days to put up one such tent working without sleep.

We’re going to put up 200 in fifteen days.

They’ll stay up for only three days at the festival. And then it will take another fifteen days to dismantle them. All this, at a time when labour is in short supply and costs skyrocket.

The festival begins two days after Diwali and ends two days before Pushkar. This is when the highest density of tourists hit Jaisalmer. Locals tell us that at least 5000 tents are put up at Pushkar each year. Prices hit the roof. The people who are supplying us the tents could have made a killing. They have come into this knowing that they are giving up a sure thing.

They just really like the idea.

Can’t blame them.

Back Stabbed

The crew wakes up bright and early. I do not. I don’t have the same duties. I see myself as a different unit entirely. Back disagrees. He digs mornings.

The crew leaves for some work. They have been quite gung-ho about the whole thing. They leave Back behind, despite him having woken up quite in time. I dig their vibe.

A Sign

It’s been a hot day. Expected, for the middle of October. The locals say that the temperature will only start dropping in November. These days, around noon, it burns.

The road is long, dusty and straight as a homophobe. Rolling desert land lies on both sides. The sky is a bright robin blue. Except for one, large grey cloud right above us. And then, right on cue: drops of water on the windshield.

Desert rain.

We rolled the windows down and drove through it for five whole minutes. The desert was bathed in the soft fragrance of petrichor for miles. It gives you a heady feeling – everything’s going to be perfect.

“Damn. This is not good. Everything’s going to become green again!”

What?

There’s been a late monsoon this year. It has shifted the crop cycle ahead and left the desert looking... not very desert-like. It’s already almost as if the desert has a week-old stubble. Most of it is wild shrubbery and the desert had been drying and consuming them for a while. But now they’ll return to claim the land.

“How will people feel if they come to the desert and see that it’s green? Damn!”

Thunder and lightning!

Boot Camp

“Aur hamari fauj yahaan hai, sir.”

Kaptan points to the Ragasthan deputies. They are without their phones for once, and relieved, perhaps. The phones wouldn’t work here anyway. We’re too close to the border.

We are at Tanot, some 120 kilometres from Jaisalmer, at a temple set up and run (spectacularly) by the Indian army. Tanot Mata has a special place in the hearts of the Rajasthani people. And maybe much more for the army.

Remember that scene in JP Dutta’s Border where hundreds of enemy bombs are fired at a single temple in the desert and none explode? That’s right – none. Zero, as we can say thanks to Aryabhatta.

4000 bombs versus one Sunny Deol. Tanot Mata ki jai!

Well, it’s real. This is the place. This is where we mark the auspicious beginning of on-ground work. Or so was the plan. We were supposed to have been here at 6:30 am. We’re 12 hours late.

The team has heads bowed and eyes half shut in prayer most of the time. I'm not too keen on idol-worship. But I'm a fan of the army. Naturally, I wander around awe-struck all evening.

These are men who have signed their lives away to protect us. And today, they will perform the puja and the aarti. They are cooking for thousands, serving free food to all who have come to visit Tanot Mata. They are also frequently at work keeping the premises spotless. I've forgotten that I'm walking around barefoot.

And they do it all with straight-back discipline, and a humble smile. Probably also a schedule that details time-goals and responsibilities.

For the team, this is not just an opportunity for prayer. This is a workshop.

I’ve been up since 4 in the morning. Barely six hours of sleep between the last two nights. I could drop like a fly at any time. And I’ve still got goosebumps. The energy here is electric.

So we could have been here in the morning. But our own little army was at work all day.Which is just another form of worship, I say.

Frantic phone calls. Somebody needs more paperwork for the District Collector. The tent guys have come back with a debatable offer. Ground levelling at the festival site needs to begin today, if not yesterday. And suddenly, the team from Mumbai cannot be tracked for some time.

Batman's phone is off the hook.

Kaptaan calls and he gets: ‘This number does not exist’. He laughs as he tells us about it later. "I’m, like, ‘Don’t run away without me, man! Take me with you. We’ll hide in Mexico together.’”

It's bittersweet humour. But there'll be no need for that.

At the end of the day, when returning from the temple, there’s a sign that we might have blessings on our side after all. It’s a phone call that might really swing things into action.

Have you noticed that Ragasthan has not announced a headlining act yet?

The news is still too hot to be uncovered.

Let’s just say that those who have booked tickets on faith are in for an awesome night; there won’t be any tickets left for the faithless.

Praying for a miracle

We need a miracle. We pray for it. We beg and plead. We bow down to forces we cannot see. We drive over a hundred miles, from Jaisalmer to Tanot, to do just that.

We chase faith to find belief.

We gather around in an assembly hall with a thousand other devotees, clap our hands and sing our prayers. The temple reverberates in the vigour of our voices. For these seventeen minutes, we devote all of ourselves to Tanotrai Mata.

We raise our arms in hope. We know what lies ahead – a gruelling month of the real deal, the show behind the show. It is going to be a goddamn battle. A glorious time of chaos and creation.

We remind ourselves that a bunch of spirited men can indeed overcome all odds.

We kneel. We think of the countless legends dedicated to these four walls. After all, it’s not every day that we visit a temple widely regarded a war idol.

We choke in reverence.

We close our eyes and reflect on the astonishing past.

It is so said, even documented, that in the India-Pakistan war of 1971, Tanotrai Mata Mandir not only withstood the fury of more than 300 Pakistani bombs, it also somehow managed to prevent them from exploding.

We pray together, asking for a helping hand – asking Her for an encore.

We pause and get up. The way out is a slow walk through the temple premises. As we amble by, perhaps still lost in the echoing sounds of our claps, army men gaze upon us, their hearts burdened with debts they think they still owe the deity. We smile back.

We are quiet now. We are confident, content and strangely buoyant. We are ready.

Our prayers have left us. We now await the miracle.

Caravan

Couldn’t call it a night without sharing another crucial detail. A detail so cool you could probably chill your beer in it. (This madness is contagious!)

Do you know about the Ragasthan Caravan?

If you’ve been holding off on booking tickets because you don’t know how to get here, keep your eyes open and your ears pricked. They have started talking about it on their Facebook page but it’s still quite vague. All they say is that there’s a Festival Caravan leaving on the 15th – hop on.

We got the whole deal today. It's not just a bus. It's no less than Supertramp's mythical Magic Bus. I’m contemplating making the long trip to Mumbai just to get on that bus and come all the way back here for the festival.

Here’s a quick peek: It’s not just one bus from Mumbai and Delhi. There will be a convoy of buses travelling with the artists. And there’ll be space enough to take along a few hundred of you. Seats will be limited, though, so your hands better be on the buzzer when the tickets come out.

The buses (Volvos or the likes) will take you all the way – and back after the festival! It’s not just a bus ride either. Car-poolers and bikers (and, yes, a gang of Harleys) will join the merry convoy on the ‘road to Ragasthan’.

There’s more. Pitstops will not just be pitstops. They will be dinners at palaces and desert sunrises. Every route, every tiny experience, even the breakfast served when you board, is devised down to the last detail.

And there’s a gig just for the convoy on the way itself.

Deputy H is in charge of the Caravan. He wants the breakfast-stop to be by the desert, where buses from both routes could meet just before entering Jaisalmer. He wants to light bonfires and have everybody sipping warm chai around it as the sun comes up.

But would we find clean washrooms at a spot like that? There would be artists and passengers, tired from the night's journey and bursting to go.

Big Tony suggests the authentic Indian rural experience. Behind the bushes. Males on one side of the road, females on the other.

Vetoed.

Kaptaan explains to the team: “These are the people who are really kicked about the festival. They have bought tickets in advance and are already sold to the idea. We can’t let them down at any step. If they have a fucked experience getting to the festival, they’re not going to enjoy it when they’re here, are they? For them, the festival starts the moment they get on that bus. Nothing can go wrong.”

Respect.

The Ragasthan Caravan is going to solve the trip for a lot of people who waited too long to book tickets and now find train berths hard to get and air-fares expensive.

Plus, it's going to solve a major problem for the team. They’d be glad to see a drop in the hundreds of calls they field every day from people asking how they can get here. It frees their phones up for the hundreds others who are getting a busy tone.

Westwards to Eternity

It is a crescent.

The day has been and gone. Everybody is a tad disoriented. The air is thick with tension and anticipation. Some of us have our cigarettes. Some have phone calls they'd rather make. Some have their bottles of water, held close to their chests like prized trophies.

We're on a rooftop with our evening chai, awaiting another refill. To our right, is the city of Jaisalmer. To our left, is an endless stretch of open leading straight to the desert. It is quite a sight really, very much in sync with our heads - our thoughts. History on a side, an ocean of possibilities on the other. Uncanny almost, none of us can escape looking left. That's where the dream is. Westwards, to eternity.

And it has only just begun.
The festival crew, rather the first lot of five, got here just last night. 

Boys and men amped up and raring to go. Having driven down from Bombay in a SUV that's too tiny to hold their dreams together. It's barely been 18 hours since. With the festival kicking off in exactly 29 days, there's a lot a stake, lots to do. It is that time of the year when promises made need to be kept. A time to deliver every little deliverable that's expected of us. Ragasthan cannot falter. It cannot afford to. It's like a leaking tap. You can either stop it from leaking or let if flow.

Flow, catch a current, let it rip. That's the unifying thought.

There are maps, layouts and sketches scattered about. It's a slosh pile of ideas, of plans that sound as exciting as they are terrifying. Everything needs to be discussed. Everything seems equally important. Yet every time you ask a question, you are asked to kindly repeat it. The immensity of the occasion has crept in. Nobody can now afford paying attention to everybody at once. There's just so much to do, so much nervous energy floating around in a prickly bubble.

If there's one thing the guys are absolutely certain of, it's that they know what they want the festival to be like. They have the image, the personality nailed in their minds. They are in love. Given a choice, they would do it all by themselves. If they could somehow be at the venue, in the city and on the festival bus at the same time, they would have that in a wink. To them, this is an event beyond the actual purview of the event. Like life itself.

It's the kind of hopeful enthusiasm that makes you want to do something good yourself - makes you want to create.

It is a crescent.

Day One

The Eagle Has Landed.

First Unit Ragasthan is in Jaisalmer. And there's madness in the air.

"Cheeni, chai. Arre, this... this is the real Indian Redbull."

This quiet little teacup of a hotel is trying to contain a storm. But the team is everywhere, taking print-outs on the ground floor, holding a meeting on the third. Shouts volley and echo through the stairwells. There’s no other way. Nobody’s cellphone gets off the hook for very long.

There’s so much happening that you don’t get an idea of from the website or on their Twitter or Facebook page. There’s probably no way to give out that much information.

Maybe they want some of it to remain a surprise.

Or maybe they don't want to jinx it. What they're trying pull off is no short of a miracle, even though they make it look possible. Just hanging back and listening to all those details getting locked in and set into motion makes my jaw drop.

Like hundreds of kites of all sizes, shapes and colours going up into that bright blue desert sky at the same time. The India premiere of Marley (2012) – and that’s an open air screening in the desert at night. A mega gramophone-speaker made out of some three hundred ‘bhopus’. So many artists performing that there’d be enough music to play 24 hours straight for three whole days.

And that's just to wet your beak.

There'll be more detail to share soon. But remember, it's off the record. On the QT and very hush hush.