A Surreptitious Shit Storm

‘It’s a car, dude’.

‘Yeah! I can see that. What is it doing out there’?

‘It’s stuck’.

‘Stuck? But that’s BYOT, man. And this ain't even a crew car. How did it fucking get there’?

‘I don’t know. Someone must have driven it’.

‘Driven it - yeah, no shit. Real piece of work you are, man’.

‘Say what’?

That was then - November 16, 2012, the mother of all mothers, inaugural day – inaugural edition. Ragasthan 1.0 – a surreptitious shit storm that sneaked up on us like it was nobody’s business.

‘What do we do, dude’?

‘What? I am no Sunny Deol, man. My hands don’t weigh as much as an elephant’s trunk – you know that’.

‘What then, what do you have in mind’?

‘Well. I suggest we walk right past it’.

‘Say what’?

We were all waiting for it, yes. We had been. Some of us, in fact, had been waiting for this day since late 2009 – three years and counting.

Yet not one of us was the least bit ready for it.

Is that a Bat Signal?

It's not always that you can think back to the year gone by and remember to the day, to the minute, exactly what you were doing.

I was doing antibiotics. And Contramol.

It had been about three weeks in Jaisalmer. We'd been waiting for the Ragasthan team to arrive. Meanwhile, we were done with the touristy thing already. We'd been all over the Golden Fort. We knew where to park for free, which alleys to duck into when eager guides and shopkeepers chased after you. Not that they did any more.

We were creating reviews and content for the Ragasthan social media, guidebooks and whatnot. In the process, we were having each meal at a different place almost every day for three weeks. One of them had sent my stomach to hell and I'd locked myself in the loo to exorcise the demon for two days. That was this day, this minute, last year.

Beer. Takes you back in time faster than a DeLorean.

A day after that, Ragasthan Unit One arrives. And then things get hazy.

It's like I stepped on a carousel and it went so hard, so fast and for so long that now that I've stepped off, all I can remember is a barrage of music, colours, lights and shapes. It's all mixed together in a giant, euphoric smoothie of a memory.

That's what makes this a little difficult.

A couple of days back, a post showed up on the Ragasthan Facebook page that looked oddly familiar. As it should. It’s the first entry from this blog. They’re hosting the blog on their page one post at a time as a run-up to the next edition.

Correction: That was less eagle and more Black Hawk

This is a bit of a worry. Because this blog is not complete. Two days before the festival, our walkie-talkies switched on at the site and the blog switched to total radio silence. What happened in the days to come would fill this blog once over. There was just no way and no time to put it down.

And after it was all done, there was no reason to either. The blog wasn’t a marketing vehicle. There was no audience we were writing for. If we stopped, there was no one we’d disappoint. We’d only started because we thought there was a story to tell.

Which is why, now that Batman is taking this skeleton out of the closet for spring cleaning, it seems rather unfair that the blog stopped just before the story really got started.

Before the devilish design of the festival site had driven us all to tears, before that first disastrous day when Murphy’s Law made us its bitch, before the intruders, before the scorpions, before that magical sunrise over Ammara, before the power went out for two hours at sunset over a two square kilometre festival site in the middle of a desert with no other source of light for miles.

There’s a story there, and then some. And just for that, it deserves to be told.

So. I'm Back.

All but inspirational

Sheriff has lost his voice. Ragasthan 2012 has announced another casualty. It’s probably the intense man management that’s speaking for itself. High time those morning speeches and drinking binges acted out.
At its best, his throat can now utter muffled noises.

Yet he speaks.
When not a terrible reminder of the shithole we’re in, it’s all but inspirational.

Exchanged identities

‘Come in Deputy S. This is Batman’.

‘What’?

‘Oh, shit! So sorry! Come in, Batman. This is Deputy S’.

Overworked and sleep deprived, the deputies now get confused with their own names. I can only imagine what lies ahead.

One for the Team

‘Stage, do you mind taking one more for the team’?

Smi is spitting fire. She wants someone to put up posters, banners and direction signs on the road to Kanoi. She insists that it has to happen today itself. I haven’t seen her so animated since that time in Ladakh when she lost all pictures from her camera. Well, someone else deleted them actually but that’s probably a story suited for later.

‘And don’t you worry. You’ll have Den and Volunteer SK to help you out. Take a few labourers along. You might need them’.

‘Is that all, Smi’? Just the posters’?

‘Well, yeah, pretty much. Den does have a few other things to take care of but you need not stress about that. In fact, in that time, you can probably sit at a café and get some writing done. What say’?

‘I’d love that, yeah. When do you want me to leave’?

‘Right now’!

So we begin.
We take Young Zuzu along. He is a good driver for his age. I really trust his sense of the local terrain.

Deputy SK follows us in a pickup truck. He is supposed to bring with him a few labourers and some 24 bamboo poles. Two for each poster, I am intimated. However, we soon realise that the truck isn’t following us at all. It’s nowhere to be seen. We try getting in touch with Deputy SK but his phone refuses to comply. No network, it seems.

Den and I decide to head to the city anyway. We might as well finish what we can, in the meantime.

He tells me that he has to send a courier each to Pushkar and Ahmedabad. It’s for the caravan guys. They need a few banners for their buses. He also has some work at a bank in town. Money transfer, I presume. A lot of that has been happening.

He drops me at the fort and leaves.
I head straight to La Puerta Del Sol, my favourite restaurant in the city. The idea is to sit back with countless cups of chai and write some shit. Like always, it works like magic. Now that I think of it, I have probably spent more time here than anywhere else in the last 45 days.

Den comes back in a few hours with absolutely nothing to show for his efforts. He looks like he is going to pull his hair out of his skull. That could mean one thing and one thing only, a shit day. Apparently, all banks and courier shops in and around the city are still shut in lieu of Diwali. Lost and irritated, he chokes with anger.

‘Please tell me Deputy SK is here with everything we need. I can’t stand wasting an entire day, man’.
I make a final call to his number. This time around, it rings.

‘Where are you, dude’?
‘In the city. Why’?
‘What do you mean, why? We’ve been waiting for you for over 3 hours now’.
‘Waiting for me?
‘Arrey! Ajeeb aadmi hai yaar. You were supposed to get us some stuff from the venue, remember’?
‘No. No, I don’t. What are you talking about’?
‘What? Are you serious, bro? No shit, you are serious. What a fucktard, I should have seen it coming’.

Denver is absolutely shattered. He looks at the posters and cusses hoarse, like gentleman King Kong. I think he is a little too familiar with this act of taking one for the team.

Buzzing with activity

The flies are here again. They haven’t yet missed a date. Every day, bright and early, they throng to our faces and wake us up. They are our alarm clocks.

I put my hat on and walk out the tent. Without the hat, braving the desert sun isn’t too great an idea. It feels pretty much like walking straight into an overexposed film. Any other day, I would have put my shades on. Not today, though. Not since Batman flicked mine last night. He is an exceptionally cheeky man, that one.

Sheriff is up and about as always. He is beaming with joy. The man wakes up at 5 in the morning, works all day like a motherfucking machine and never sleeps for more than 3 hours. Yet somehow, he always greets with a smile.

He tells me it’s Diwali today, even gives me a bear hug to prove it. Forget dates, I can’t even tell a rabbit from a car. Is it Diwali already? If it is, moreover, shouldn’t we be scared shitless? Aren’t we too close for comfort now? In just about three days, we are going to open our shores for an ocean of people to alight upon. They will obviously want to find everything they have been promised. Are we even prepared?

It turns out we are.

The venue is buzzing with activity. Walking in, I find a man draping a 30 feet canopy. He looks really happy to be up there. Further ahead, I see a man working under a canopy of tables. I can’t quite make out what he is doing but he seems intent on doing it. I presume it is important.

There is movement all around.

‘Haan! Now it looks like we’re going to have a festival here’.

Batman can see no wrong. It could well be my shades. They tend to make things look better than they actually are.

Brothers in tights

Robin is here.
Batman must be absolutely thrilled to have him.

All Ye Faithful

A couple of days back, Deputy S asked me, “You want a story for the blog?”

“Sure.”

“Musician has bought a new tractor!”

But that’s not the story. The story is that Master and Musician have been on-site every day since Day One. They have been there sun-up to sun-down and beyond. They have cleared land and transported supplies all over the site. When not on their tractors, they have gone about on foot doing every odd and even job possible.

They are no less than any member on this team. They are friends.

I ride in Musician’s tractor every evening. It’s ritual by now. And every morning, Master comes by to share his cigarette with me. He found me at noon today, hiding behind the tent for shade while I write. He offered a cigarette and said, “I was looking for you all day. I have been saving this.”

Musician has bought himself a new tractor because he knows we’ll need a more powerful machine at the site. He has bought it because he knows we’ll be here again next year. Because he knows he will again be part of this team. Because he has faith in us.

This festival would not be possible without bucket-loads of such faith.

It’s not just Master and Musician. Gajju Banna was only supposed to put up a colony of 200 Swiss Tents for us. He has been with us every day on every small detail. He has let us use his own camp site wily-nily. He has helped us supervise and pull through more than his domain.

Grand Meister and his brother, Padam Ji, have been with us every step of the way. We are strangers in this land, helpless without them. They are the two able feet this festival is standing on.

But why? It’s not the money. It cannot be. I personally don’t think there’s enough to go around for the hours and the sweat that has gone into this festival already. What they do it for is worth much more than money.

They do it because they share our dream. They believe that even if not probable given the time and resources, it is still possible. They believe that, together, we will make it happen. They have faith.

Faith makes stronger men of us all.

The only problem with it is that acting on faith has stolen Musician’s mojo, his eponymous identity. The new tractor plays no music.

Can we please buy him a transistor for it?

MIA

Deputy V and Deputy N have been missing in action. But they are finally here again. They had been in Jodhpur for five days sourcing equipment and materials for pretty much the whole festival. They would check out at nine in the morning every day, hoping to wrap up and leave for Jaisalmer. But every night, they would have to check back in.

“Arre, it was so embarrassing,” laughs Deputy V.

“Wahan toh dukan-wale bhi pehchaan-ne lage apne ko,” says Deputy N.

They are a welcome sight. They have been sorely missed. Especially when the sun bites and the shade looks like heaven and you need all eyes on the field.

“Woh log hote, na, toh yeh sab kaam aaraam se sambhal lete,” said Deputy S one day.

I doffed my hat at the fire in the sky and agreed. So did Deputy H. “Woh to akela hi poora ek team hai,” he said about Deputy V.

And now Deputy H himself is missing in action. At this time, it is exactly three days to the festival. And he has gone back to Delhi. We suspect it’s because he doesn’t want to miss the Diwali goodies at home.

We hope he gets back some at least.

Dark Night

It was a scary Saturday night at the campsite this week.

The team had scattered. Some had gone to get drinking water. We keep running out of it. Some had gone to get diesel for the generator. We keep running out of that too. Trucks needed to be directed over dirt roads into the venue. Some had gone to rescue one that had its wheels stuck in a pocket of sand.

The crew camp was plunged in darkness when Batman snuck in to the tent.

“I need to figure out five lakhs cash in ten minutes,” he said in a hoarse Batman whisper. Very unlike him. “I mean, I had to figure out five lakhs in one hour,” he said. “I’ve been trying for the last fifty minutes already. Think, think. How do we do this?”

Holy shit-my-pants, Batman! I don’t think I’ve ever seen five lakhs worth of currency.

So I did the best I could. I held my knees to keep them from knocking, zipped my lips to keep them from hyperventilating, and racked my brain to oblivion.

A couple of weeks earlier, something similar had happened. Batman walked out of the ATM with a grin and said, “There’s no money in the company account.” It was Navratri week. Banks opened and shut every alternate day. Deposits stayed uncleared. But advances paid to vendors had been immediately debited.

At that time, Batman said they would probably need to crowd-source investment for the festival. Sponsors are few and the scale is immense. The partners have been reaching into their own pockets already. Before leaving for Mumbai, Batman had asked Kaptaan, “So should we start looking for alternate sources of money? ...Moms and Dads, I mean.”

Batman laughed then. Not now.

Less than a week to the festival, Saturday night, 45 kms from an ATM, and a vendor is refusing to unload his goods if not paid five lakhs in cash immediately.

This time, Batman hit the panic button. It’s a rare sight. It’s terrifying. But what else can you do at gunpoint? What can you do when one hitch threatens to dismantle everything you’ve brought to the table? What can you do when there are trip wires at the finish line?

Later that night, Batman confessed, “This... this was my lowest point of the entire festival.”

We’re beyond that point now. Things still go wrong every day as they are bound to. And sometimes we’re definitely in the gutter. But, God, we’re looking at the stars again.

Chores on hold

‘No water? Again? I hate this shit, bro’.
Kaptaan is enraged.

Early morning isn't the time to run out of water.

Back Story

The last three days – or was it four? – have been a flurry of heat, sand and Brownian motion. There have been no words at my fingertips. Only stone, chalk, rope and bamboo. And bhuruts.

This was not the plan.

I’m Back.

I’m a writer.

When Batman invited me to stay in Jaisalmer for six weeks and create content for the Ragasthan Facebook page, I had my reservations. They needed only a few posts per day; that’s a couple of hours work at most. I didn’t want to be on holiday. Besides, I dread being a drag on resources.

I told him so. And he mailed me some images of the venue.

I kicked myself and booked the earliest train out. I met Stage at Bikaner (he drove down from Delhi) and we were off to Jaisalmer in the Rabbit.

The first two weeks were placid. Touristy. We put on our shades and roamed this little desert city. We met the people, read the lay of the land and its legends. We went looking for honey pancakes, lemon soda and stories in every serpentine gully. We wrote. We relaxed.

And then Unit One arrived.

That night, they blew the lid off the room. There was so much energy buzzing around that I was zapped long into the night. I told Stage maybe we should write a blog. Just to keep an account of how the team pulled off a desert Woodstock – or not. Either way, it would be a good story.

We would keep it honest. We would keep it unofficial. And we would keep it up every day.

I figured it would be easy. It’s not been.

How do you maintain perspective when you’re writing about an idea you’re in love with? How do you keep yourself in and out of the story at the same time? How do you detail all the little waves that push this boat along?

Besides, how do you write? Electricity is rare. The internet is fussy. And hours go by in the blink of an eye.

Still, this story must be told.

So I left for Jaisalmer this morning. Once there, I pottered around with a pen for an hour, all the while wondering if the barricade has been marked, if the registration counters are up, if the pathway to the BYOT has been fixed, if the backdrops for the stages have arrived, and so on.

There are only four days to the festival now. Every minute spent away from the venue is fraught with concern.

I hopped into the next vehicle back.

It is now night. Almost midnight. Half the team is still on-site. As I write sitting on my dorm bed in the crew tent, my mind wanders and goes out to them. My feet will soon follow.

For now, I’m part of the crew. I’m labour, I’m supervisor, I’m a small cog in a mountain moving machine. For now, as Kaptaan calls it, I’m the Pathfinder. I’m anything Ragasthan needs me to be.

Tomorrow, I’ll be Back again.

For a while.

Deputy Stage, is it?

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A carnival of superheroes

Batman calls for a crew meeting. He needs to know who’s taking care of what. Only then can he best decipher how to distribute responsibilities amongst them.
The guys get together and gather around under a food stall at Mauro. They wait for him to begin.

‘You were wondering what’s next on your plate, right? I’ll tell you what is. Go after Kingfisher. Your deal is to sort all the alcohol and all the water. Get it’?
Deputy M responds with a relieved smile. She has been begging for a piece of the action.

‘Shaktimaan ka kya hua? Have we ordered any’?

‘Shaktimaan’?

Deputy NS can’t quite understand why Batman needs an aging superhero at his disposal. Are we under a threat of some kind? Were those calendar freaks serious about the year 2012?

‘Arrey, those Shaktimaan trucks, dude! We were planning to rent some, remember? The idea was to paint them in striking colours, decorate them with frills and drapes and use them as a festival carrier. You guys don’t remember that’?

‘I do. But I didn’t think you were serious. Were you’?
Sheriff adds in a hushed tone.

‘I most definitely was. Look at it this way, okay. People are going to make trips to the city on a regular basis, crew and guests alike. Correct? Won’t it be absolutely badass then to have a festival truck that ferries them to and fro? All we need is some paint and some streamers. We’ll empty the entire section behind and place mattresses for seating. It’ll be fun, man. Plus it’s excellent branding, you know. There’s no way people won’t notice it’.

Sheriff and Deputy R make a note of all requirements.

Shaktimaan is called for.
This festival has turned into a superhero carnival.

Projected Repercussions

Out here, a good night of sleep comes with a lot of guilt. The thought itself is like blasphemy.

And the thing about blasphemy is that she’s my bitch for all eternity. Every now and then, she crawls back into my life like a forgotten debt. Take last night for instance, when she sneaked into our tents and lured me right to bed. She grabbed hold of me and didn’t let go till the sun came up. It must have been around midnight. I can’t really be sure. Such was her insistence. Such was the severity in her advances that I lost all track of time and went for tot submission.

No wonder I woke up ripe with repent. It was a shit move on my part, very unbecoming and totally uncool. Not implying that I didn’t have my reasons, no, that’s definitely not the case. I was immensely tired. But I sure could have braved the fatigue just a bit longer.

Take a leaf from the crew and their exploits, maybe.

They work out of their skins, throughout the day, in conditions that aren’t conducive to any kind of labour. They give it their all. Compared to them, I can really only disappoint. Those guys have raised the bar so fucking high that it seems inappropriate to even yawn. And I went so far ahead as sleeping.

Yet in hindsight, I know I must have been extremely worn down to have done what I did. I am not the kind that bails out on his team, you know. I am a hard worker and I like to play fair. You know what they say, though. Hindsight doesn’t count for shit. Repercussions do.

‘You missed quite a night, Stage. Check these out’.

At breakfast, Mod gave me a sneak peek into their travails of last night. The guys were up till 4, experimenting with different ideas for visual projections and imagery. They even locked a few concepts down.

Even Deputy R couldn’t stop talking about it.

‘Arrey, kya baat kar raha hai yaar! It was out of this world. Viktor was right on the button. It looked like a magic curtain. Batman was dancing around it. Mod and Deputy SK were clicking photographs. Kaptaan was swearing like he never has. Everyone was totally gushing’.

I missed it all. I was sleeping with my bitch.
It comes with a lot of guilt.

Whiskers and Bunny ears

'Do you think we can make an art installation out of Rabbit? Haan, stage? We'll give him whiskers and bunny years and put him on top of the dunes. He could bear our story, bro. Like a mascot. Pictures. Messages. Signatures. Excerpts from the blog. Heck, we'll have the whole blog on him. All the drama. All the chatter. I say it'd be banging. What say you'?  

Kaptaan is charmed. Not many can escape the big ball of cute that is my man, Rabbit.

'I'm serious, guys. What, you don't think we should do that? Okay, maybe not on top of the dunes. Somewhere else. But think about it, bro. A car that looks like a cute white rabbit standing at the art society. That shit will make people stop and stare'.

He seems adamant. I like the direction this conversation is headed to.

'Early October, was it? Haan? What date was it'?

'It was the 3rd. I was in Delhi. I woke up at 6 and drove Rabbit all the way down to Jaisalmer in 12 hours. Back was there too. He met me at Bikaner'.

'My point exactly'!

'What'?

'Rabbit has seen this thing get built from scratch, you know. He must have a lot of stories. Let's have them on him. Let the world read our story on our car'.

That kind of enthusiasm is hard to brush off. The floor is absolutely bought on the idea. 

Kaptaan scores. Rabbit wins.

The Ragasthan Palette

The festival colours are here. And how!

Earlier today, I saw Batman leaving the camp site with some weight on his head. The weight of pride. The weight of a glorious history. The weight of an illustrious clan of warriors and rulers.

He was sporting a turban - a stiff, bright Jaisalmeri Pheta.
All he needs now is a mean moustache. 

The Thirteenth Bengali

I’m not sure where this story begins.

Memories of the day are fragmented. The words in my head struggle to make phrases tonight.

It wasn’t the plan this morning. Not even at breakfast when Viktor was explaining that it’s possible, and maybe even interesting, to do something and document it at the same time.

Was it this evening, when the last production vendor backed out completely? No, that’s where the story ends.

It might have been a couple of days ago, when people here began to tell us that we need Bengali decorators. Jaisalmer cannot handle it. They have never seen anything on this scale. When an order is placed for 1100 tables, they say, “Take 800. Why 1100? 800 is enough. ...Take it!”

They have never experienced the intended quality either. When they put up stages, the benchmark is to be somewhat certain that it won’t fall down.

The festival is in a week. Except for Gajinder Singh who is putting up the Swiss Tents, everybody who got on board to build the festival has waited till the last minute to abscond. The team is now doing everything on their own. ‘Everything’ is not as small a word as it seems.

Neither is ‘team’.

But back to the Bengali decorators. We expect twelve of them tomorrow. We expect – we hope – they can deliver on the dream. I have my doubts. Bengalis are notorious rice-eaters. Rice makes you sleepy. And there is nothing lazier than a well fed Bengali.

I hope I’m wrong.

There is so much to be done. And they need doing.

So I put down the notebook and picked up a measuring tape. I was on-site with the deputies all day, marking every ten metres of both sides of every pathway on the festival site. The festival site is about a square kilometre big.

What a day.

On the field, there are three things I realised.

One is that making a straight line is not as easy as it seems. Not on undulating sand, and not when the line is 150 metres long. Especially when it’s not just one line that you’re making.

The other is that chalk is about as effective to mark spots in the desert as sand. One baby sandstorm wipes everything clean.

So we went back over the lines, this time with bamboos. We ran with them, racing the setting sun for daylight. We put bamboos down at every ten metres, everywhere we had already made the chalk markings. Tomorrow, when the decorators arrive, they just have to fit those bamboos in.

A few hours saved.

And then this news about the last production vendor backing out. A dark end to the evening.

Today was tiring. We got back at 8:30, Deputy S and I, the last remaining soldiers on the field. I melted into a chair the moment I sat down. My spine went limp, my jaw dropped and my eyes looked to the heavens for comfort.

The stars further disoriented me.

Which brings me to the third thing I realised on-site.

It was tiring but the deputies I rubbed shoulders with today have been doing this every day. Every day. In case someone forgets when everything is done and people have come and had a great time and gone home and the site has been cleared of every remnant of these memories – this is how the war was won.

Switching teams

Back wasn’t anywhere close to a shade. He wasn’t even writing.
I got it all wrong.

The man was in the field, helping Sheriff and the deputies mark pathways with chalk. He was really purposeful about it too. He was so engrossed in the job that he almost drank chalk from a bottle thinking it was water.

That was probably around noon. The sun must have been at its meanest.

Between then and now, the guys have stopped only for lunch. It’s almost seven now. They are marking certain spots on the pathway with bamboo poles four times my size. Back is still out there. He is really forcing the issue. The dude has eight bamboo poles on his aging shoulders. Everyone else has two at best.

I wonder if he has switched teams.

Extract. Come back.

‘Chalein Ammara’?
A part of the crew heads out with Kaptaan. They have their hats, caps and shades on. A pickup truck takes them to the farthest point of the festival, the electronic music stage. Back tells me it needs immediate attention. What doesn't?

Mod, Viktor and Rock stay back at the camp.

Here as a team that thrives within itself, they talk about their plans for today. They are here to create visuals for us, the kind of stuff that sounds too cool and improbable to execute. But then, that’s just me. I lack imagination. These guys definitely don’t. One look at their notebook screens and I'm astonished already.

Batman too is at the camp. I can hear him talking on his phone. That’s how he gets most of his work done. That’s how he keeps this festival from falling apart. I can’t quite get how that makes any sense, but I am told he cannot afford being off it even for an instant.

Sometimes, I wonder if he is actually just talking to the phone and psyching himself out.

Back is nowhere to be seen. He must be working in a quiet spot with some shade. That’s how he gets his creative juices flowing. That’s his mojo. That’s how he comes up with gold. If not for him, I don’t think this blog would have any readers.

‘Makes a lot of sense, I think. He is looking at the centre from outside the centre. He is making an objective view. Fuck yeah, that makes sense. He is a smart guy’.

Viktor gets it too. He endorses it in fact.

I clearly don’t. I have my headphones. They are loud and clear and fucking intense. I use them to extract from the centre. Are they any help? Well, my posts read like a load of crap and my ear hurts like a sting.

I must soon find a quiet spot with some shade.