The Magic of ABBA

Late on the night of 16 August, I saw an ad for a concert ‘A tribute to ABBA’ scheduled for the next day by some group called Name of the Game. Who doesn’t know ABBA and it is a favourite group of our family who has been enjoying their music since the mid-70s. But with the short notice and non-familiarity with the performing group, I was inclined to ignore the event. Starting with ABBA the Movie which we saw in 1981 in Chanakya, Delhi, on my birthday, Mamma Mia the musical which we saw on Broadway, the movie with the same name and its sequel Mamma Mia Here We Go Again which we saw just last year, a visit to the ABBA Museum in Stockholm in June 2016, we had done it all. But Ruchir persuaded us to go for the show and so we went.

It was a fascinating concert. The group about which we knew nothing did extremely well to replicate ABBA. They even looked like ABBA and, of course, were dressed like them. They sang all the well-known hits with the joie de vivre associated with ABBA. There was Waterloo, Fernando, Mamma Mia, SOS, Money Money Money, Take A Chance On Me, The Winner Takes All and much more. The audience was mesmerized and by the time the performance came towards the end with Dancing Queen, every one was on the floor singing and dancing.  Young and old, the magic of ABBA had cast its spell on everyone. And that is the beauty of ABBA- their music is for all ages and their popularity eternal.

The beat, the rhythm, the style, the emotion, the smooth flow with which they sang, everything contributes to their winning appeal. And the lyrics which are full of hope, joy and optimism, tug at one’s heartstrings. I shall quote 3 of my favourites which were also part of the evening’s fare.

Chiquitita

 “…..How the heartaches come and they go and the scars they are leaving,

You’ll be dancing once again and the pain will end

You will have no time for grieving.”

I Have A Dream

“….If you see the wonder of a fairy tale,

You can take the future even if you fail,

……

And my destination makes it worth the while,

Pushing through the darkness still another mile,

I believe in angels, something good in everything I see,

I believe in angels, when I know the time is right for me,

I’ll cross the stream, I have a dream.”

Thank You For The Music (which was rightly sung as an encore to end the concert)

“….Thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing,

Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing,

Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty,

What would life be,

Without a song or dance what are we,

So I thank you for the music

For giving it to me.”

Thank you ABBA.

Footnote- ABBA is not yet done. After 35 years of breaking up, they are working on 3 songs which are likely to be out this year!

Musical Bombay of the 60s

Sometime ago I chanced upon a coffee table book, “Taj Mahal Foxtrot – the Story of Bombay’s Jazz Age” by Naresh Fernandes. Glancing through it and finding familiar names transported me to my happy days in Bombay of the 60s and brought back sweet memories of my favourite haunts from Kalaghoda to Churchgate.

 Near Kalaghoda was a restaurant called ‘La Bella’ where I spent many evenings   requesting the band to play one particular song they did fabulously and of which I just could not get enough, “All of Me”.  Strangely enough, I never heard any other band play that superb number!

Moving near Flora Fountain, there was Volga with the famous Hecke Kingdom casting a spell with his saxophone. I also remember Volga for my favourite dish, Vegetable Petrograd, which was mouth-watering croquettes filled with butter. Nearby was Bistro which I preferred for coffee and morning jam sessions.

My favourites for jam sessions and cabarets though were Venice and The Little Hut at Churchgate. Many a time one had to return disappointed as getting a table there was extremely difficult unless one lined up early enough. My memory may be playing tricks but I am willing to bet my boots that a charming teenager, Pam Crain, started singing at one of these restaurants before moving to Calcutta. One particular cabaret dancer those days was a ravishing girl I would have liked to know better but for the fact that she was always escorted by a companion considerably bigger than me!

From Churchgate to Marine Drive, restaurants with great bands abounded on both sides of the road bearing famous names such as Gaylord, Berry’s and Bombelli’s. Towards the waterfront was Napoli’s, a smaller place suitable for tea/coffee, which had the novelty of a jukebox so you could play all your favourite numbers if you carried a sufficient number of 25p coins!

Later in the 60s, on the waterfront the other side of Napoli, a restaurant called The Talk of The Town came up. I had not heard of it till one evening my friend Aku Roy and I happened to notice it and decided to go inside. We were waiting for our order when a band including a modest, conservative-looking lady in a sari took the stage. We thought we were in for some run-of-the-mill Hindi film songs but were thunderstruck when the lady belted out ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ and other rock numbers in the most enthralling way. On inquiry, we were told she was Usha Iyer.  Soon after, I was transferred to Cochin and was dumbfounded when I bumped into her in company of my tea-planter friend, Jani Uthup, who she had married in the meantime! As we all know, she soon became a top singer in Bollywood.

Around that time Bombay’s first discotheque, Blow Up, started functioning at the Taj with the sound of music going up many decibels accompanied by mind-blowing psychedelic lighting making one dizzy. Those were the days of Beatles’ “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da” and Sam the Sham’s “Wooly Bully”.

A top favourite band for occasions like the New Year Dance and the Navy Ball was that of Goody Seervai.  He would have an entire crowd on the lawns of the National Sports Club of India or the United Services Club at Colaba swinging and dancing with everyone accompanying him throatily as he sang his signature tune, “Goody Goody”.

Yes, those were the days!

Dimitri Jouralov- Blue-blooded Russian?

During our trip to Russia, Akhila asked our guide if any descendants of the Czar families still exist. The guide replied no, they were all killed. Some claimed to be relations but without any proof: remember Anastasia!

That’s when I remembered Dimitri Jouralov, the Russian in NDA about whom I have written elsewhere. So here is a refresher.

When I joined NDA as a cadet in July 1955, I noticed a frail, short, oldish foreigner, perhaps the only one, among the staff. In due course, I learnt that he was Dimitri Jouralov, a Russian employed as an instructor to teach that language. I did not opt for Russian as a foreign language and so for the first four terms, I had nothing to do with him. In the 5^th and 6^th terms, I opted for Golf and Western Classical Music respectively as my hobbies both of which were supervised by Mr. Jouralov. As cadets in NDA tend to view most things as compulsions thrust on them, I did not take much interest in either although later, they were to become my lifelong pleasures. Consequently, Mr. Jouralov remained a distant figure during my training days in the NDA.

Five and a half years later, I was back in NDA as a Divisional Officer and ran into Mr. Jouralov again. By then, he was considered too old to teach but was retained as officer-in-charge Golf. He was a bachelor and was given a small hutment by way of accommodation on the way to Peacock Bay. I was a bachelor myself staying in the Officers’ Mess which Mr. Jouralov frequented every evening.  Running into him was therefore inevitable. Those were days of prohibition and being a civilian, Dimmy could not buy liquor. So he devised a unique way of getting it. He would come to the Mess in the evening and catch us bachelors with his favourite ruse, “Water is the best drink but I cant afford the best, so give me the second best- a glass of rum!” Because of his loving, humble personality, it was impossible not to fall for that line.

So when my friends, Subodh ‘Guppy’ Gupta and Lalit ‘Tiger’ Talwar insisted on my taking up golf which I had dismissed till then as an old man’s game, I came in closer contact with Dimmy. We played a lot of golf together and though he was pretty weak and aged by then, he would regularly drive 150 yards straight down the centre of the fairway and his game was as precise as a Swiss clock. One day I said to Dimmy that I had developed a pain in the neck during a round. He strongly chided me and said, “Nonsense! You can never get a crick in the neck if you really play golf’!”

Dimmy had a fascinating story to tell. He said he was from a blue-blooded Czar family and ran away from Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. He had a natural talent for music and had learnt how to play a few instruments. He travelled across Central Asia scrounging a living playing in various bands and thus found his way to India where he became the drummer and later the leader of  Maharaja of Patiala’s band. Eventually, he moved to Dehradun and took up the job of teaching Russian at the Joint Services Wing. When the JSW shifted to Kharakvasla as the National Defence Academy, Dimmy moved along with it.

Transferred out of NDA in 1965, I lost touch with Dimmy. It was sad when I learnt sometime later that loneliness caught up with Dimmy and one morning he was found hanging from the ceiling in his modest abode.