Guest Post - Music was my first love by Biddu

Music was my first love

Music was my first love….Then came girls. Okay, seriously, I got into music as a kid aged 13, when most parent wanted their children to study and become engineers, doctors, a salaried job in the government with a pension on retirement or whatever. I was lucky. My mother was cool and broadminded. I was into music professionally from the age of 15. Remember this was the 60’s. I mean 1960, when India was only known for its poverty and annual famine. Today things are a bit different. It’s now known for its poverty and corrupt politicians !!! Okay I digress a bit… So sue me!

What I’m saying is I took up music as a career when it was so left field, it was off the pitch. Nobody in their right mind would allow their son or daughter to become singers. It was considered a lowly trade. Even a funeral director received more respect. But you cannot live your life by the whims of  others or society in general. As Bob Dylan sang ‘The times they are a changin’. At that time India was a very conservative country. (In many ways it still is with its religious straight jacket, but in music and films the progress has been phenomenal.) So by taking up music as a career I was going against the norm, like a salmon I was swimming upstream. Following a dream. What good is a dream if you can’t make it come true? It’s just wishful thinking. 

But following one’s dream is fine, if you have the talent and by that I mean truck loads plus some luck to go with the talent. Now your favourite uncle or aunty saying you have a lovely voice doesn’t mean you decide to throw away the degree you’re studying and resolve hell bent it’s music or death! Also, just because you wrote a nice ‘thank you’ letter to grandma for her present and she said ‘you write so beautiful beta’, doesn’t you’re going to be the next JK Rowling. In the world of music, less than five percent make a living from it and if you want to be an author because of what granny said the chances are even less. So ask yourself truly, can you make the sacrifice? Do you have the talent? Are you going to swim in the pool of the 5percent or drown in the ocean of 95 percent?  The choice my friend… is yours.

About the Book

As a child, Biddu dreamt of going west and making it big as a composer. At the age of sixteen, he formed a band and started playing in a cafe in Bangalore, his home town, At eighteen, he was part of a popular act at Trinca's, a nightclub in Calcutta devoted to food, wine and music, At nineteen, he had college students in Bombay dancing to his music.

In his early twenties, he left the country and ended up hitchhiking across the Middle East before arriving in London with only the clothes on his back and his trusty guitar. What followed were years of hardship and struggle but also great music and gathering fame. From the nine million selling "Kung Fu Fighting" to the iconic youth anthem of "Made in India" and the numerous hits in between. Biddu's music made him a household name in India and elsewhere.
In this first public account of all that came his way: the people, the events, the music tours and companies Biddu writes with a gripping sense of humor about his remarkable journey with its fairy tale ending. Charming, witty, and entirely likable, Biddu is a man you are going to enjoy getting to know.

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An Excerpt from Made In India

I was greeted by an army in White: almost 400 men draped in white robes and with shaven heads; some had beads in their hands, mouthing silent prayers, parading on the deck like holy warriors awaiting god or his nemesis. They were pilgrims on their way to Hajj. I looked at them, stunned into a momentary silence. The visual was dramatic and surreal, like egg-white stalagmites against an endless blue sky on a bobbing ocean. They, in return, observed me with subtle confusion. A cowboy hat, boots, a guitar and hair like a woman’s. What kind of apparition was this? The devil incarnate? I felt as welcome as swine flu.

I walked nervously through the multitude as they peacefully parted to receive this newcomer, and made my way to the sleeping quarters below deck. I thought it best to pick out my cabin and unpack my meagre belongings and set my territory; hang up my guitar and hat on a hook, close the door behind me, kick off my boots and relax. I walked down the stairs and came across a miniature stadium of row upon row of wooden slatted slabs. Most of them had bedrolls unfurled over them. I looked around. There were no cabins in sight. It dawned on me these were my sleeping quarters. It was another jaw-dropping moment.

‘Okay,’ I thought, ‘I can handle this. But first, the bathrooms.’

I must tell you I have a thing about bathrooms. Call it a fetish, but they must be pristine, clean and modern. So I strolled towards the toilet zone and peeked through the swing doors. There were six Indian-style squat-on-your-haunches-type toilets. I shuddered at the sight of these unseemly hole-in-the-ground jobs. I noticed six sinks for washing and shaving. Four hundred of us were to share these facilities. My heart sank into my ankles. I would fight them in the trenches, I would fight them on the shore, but I could not fight them in the rush to an Indian-style kazi.

I sat on a wooden slab for a while, thinking up Plan B. Suddenly I felt a jolt as the boat came to life. I could hear the drone of an engine and the ungainly movement as the vessel lurched forward clumsily and we were on our way. This I could not miss. So I scrambled back up, onto the deck and looked at the city I was leaving behind. It was nearing sunset and against a blood-red sky, the Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Hotel steadily decreased in size as our boat cut through the frothy dark-emerald waters of the open sea. I stood there clutching my rucksack, that little suitcase full of dreams, till the shoreline disappeared.

About the Author

Biddu was born in India, where he started his career playing in a pop band whose influences lay in the classic repertoire of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Following his early success, he decided to hear West and move into the international music arena. He struck gold, signing the unknown Carl Douglas and producing "Kung Fu Fighting?" which went on to become a hit all over the world. He also wrote and produced hits for Tina Charles and soul legend Jimmy James.

Around this time, Biddu became involved in Indian music: he composed the cult "Aap Jaise Koi" for the film Qurbani which set a new landmark for sales in India He followed this up with a pop album, Disco Deewane, with Nazia Hassan, which became the largest selling pop album in Asian history, and was the first Indian album to hit the charts in fourteen countries. In 1995, Biddu wrote and produced the three-million-selling album Made in India with the singer Alisha Chinai. To date, Biddu has sold over thirty-eight million records worldwide.

For more details on Biddu, Visit the Wikipedia Page 

Tour Stops So Far

15th September - Spotlight @ All Bookish Things
                             - Spotlight @ Crazy Bibliophile

16th September - Spotlight @ Fantastic Feathers
                             - Review @ The Tales Pensieve

17th September - Spotlight @ Butterfly on a Broomstick

18th September - Spotlight @ Love Bites & Silk

21st September - Interview @ Eclectic Moods

22nd September - Review @ I am Stri

28th September - Review @ Scattered Thoughts

29th September - Author Interview @ Metro Reader

30th September - Review @ So Many Books, So Little Time
                             - Spotlight @ My Writing Workshop

1st October - Review @ W.R. Watkins
                   - Interview @ Random Musings of a Constant Quiller

2nd October - Review @ Bibliotheque
                    - Interview @ Privy Trifles

5th October - Spotlight @ The Readdicts

7th October - Interview @ Klishmaklaver
                   - Review @ Passey.info

8th October - Review @ I Luv Fiction

9th October - Spotlight @ Reading... Dreaming...

10th October - Spotlight @ Andrea Buginsky

15th October - Review @ Words' Worth
                     - Review @ Just Another Bookaholic

17th October - Review @ Fabric of Life

18th October - Review @ Errors & Kaushal

19th October - Interview @ Rachelle's Window

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