May 7, 2003

Indus Elementz performs at Penn State:

“Is there any way we can get this backdrop down”, Rajaram is talking on the cell phone, backstage in the State College Area High School auditorium. Its Sunday and already past 4 pm. The concert starts in less than couple of hours. Someone forgot to get the backdrop down and now the stage open from the back side. The band is furiously practicing and tuning the instruments, trying to get it right. Its their first concert. We run to Wal-mart and buy all the yards of black cloth available, hoping to cover the back of the stage. It works, we are in business… Its starting time now. “Ram, make sure you turn off the auditorium lights after you finish your introduction.”, “Okay”. Stage lights out. Cheers. Ram is now on the stage, spotlight on him, “Friends, on behalf of Association of India’s Development, Penn State Chapter, I welcome you all…”.

“Presenting, the Indus Elementz”. Lights out. Cheers. Silence. The music begins with Rahman-esque beats, “Vande Mataram”. Here we go…

Sometime during the spring of 2002, a bunch of graduate students, mostly from engineering got took initiative to form a band. Vicky, (Chandrashekar Ramaswamy) was always a music enthusiast and had played in concerts during his college days in Trichy. He was sure there were other students like him who would love to play music here. Arvindan, who had joined Penn State in fall of 2002, too had played in concerts at Pilani and they were confident they could pull off one here. Vicky sent out emails to all the Indian mailing lists asking if anyone would like to join their band and soon they had a band of thirteen. Arvindan and Vishal on the keyboard, Angshuman, Vicky, Madhu,  Jaspreet and Batra on the guitars, Kamal on the drums, Sameer, Lalu, Jasanjyot (Jassi), Dheeraj (DJ) with the male vocals and Vidhya, the female vocalist. The Indus Elementz was born. With friends of the band members active in AID, it was natural that AID would conduct its annual fund raising concert featuring the Indus Elemtentz.

“Can everyone hear the sound in all parts of the auditorium”, Vicky is asking the crowd. They have stopped mid-song in “Aap ki dua…”. Something always goes wrong. Looks like some of the sound equipment isn’t working. Jaspreet provides the audience some diversion with some impromptu playing and singing on the guitar while the sound technician, Tim, is figuring out what’s going wrong. Finally they decide its time to take a break. The crowd enjoys bhel, pakoras and soda that have been coordinated by Jayshree, our faculty advisor. Back in the hall, all the problems are cleared and we are ready to rock-n-roll again. “Intehaan ho gayi, intezaar ki…”. It sounds great. We are back on track.

Rajaram and Vibha took up the responsibility of being the concert coordinators for AID. We were just done with the Food Fest in March, which was a super success and in less than three weeks we are having the concert. Being a small student based community in State College, PA, as the cliché goes, in the middle of nowhere, we put in a lot of efforts for fund raising. There was so much to be done for the concert, from booking the hall and printing the tickets to publicity and event-management. It is always a great learning experience. The commitment of the members and volunteers for the cause is always inspiring and AID is a great way to bring together Indians from diverse backgrounds.

The crowd is really into the concert now. They have been treated to some excellent numbers. From the foot tapping “Humma humma…” to the evergreen (or blue?) “Neele neele amber se…” The concert reaches the top gear with the Amitabh medly. “Rang barse…”, “Dekha na hai re…”, “Khaike paan banaras…”, ”Sara Zamaana…”, they just keep on flowing. The crowd is out of their seats now. To quote Tony Greig, they are dancing in the aisles. As the concert comes to an end, we listen to a brilliantly sequenced version of “Pudhu Vellai Mazhai” from Roja and the concert signs off with the nostalgic “Poorani Jeans…”. That was some performance. Phew…

Epilogue: We are at Jayshree’s place, having a post concert dinner. Arvindan is playing on the piano and everyone is singing. It is great to see that a mission has brought us all together and we are enjoying it. Events like the concert, never mind we didn’t make that much money, definitely help in spreading the message. Its sad we can’t do more.