WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS

BY BISWADEEP GHOSH

Almost three decades ago, I was viewed as a musical prodigy. I could play the bongo, the tabla and, above all, sing decently enough to be able to appear for a degree examination when 14. Pompous? If so, here is a confession. I didn't dare play a stringed instrument ever. Be it the guitar or the sitar, I kept off any instrument that had metallic threads as compulsory components. I was intimidated by the thought that I would miss the right note sooner or later, resulting in cacophony I did not wish to hear. And which, I was sure, no one else did.

That is why I hate Rishi Kapoor, Mithun Chakraborty and, yes, even the great Amitabh Bachchan once in a while. All these guys appear so effortless when they play the guitar onscreen, but their moving fingers tell horror stories. If the tune were to be Somalia, the fingers indicate England, Germany, every country on the international map except Somalia. The onscreen guitaring is an unending parade of mistakes, although what we hear is oh-so perfect. Why it is so, all of us know. But I ignore it, blaming it on God's inability to be kind to me in a way I wanted Him to be.

Have you seen Mithun play a singing-dancing axeman in Disco Dancer? I have, in a small town where coins aviated towards the screen when the actor made music onscreen, which was people's way of paying tribute to their Mithunda's genius. If the actor's dance was a copy of John Travolta, the way he held the guitar suggested he was idolising Jimi Hendrix. If that was an impossible reel-life combo, one special moment was when Mithun played the guitar but a different instrumental sound emanated from the background. Since one disco song from composer Bappi Lahiri's stable was Krishna, I guess that was divine intervention.

Zeenat Aman stole millions of hearts when she played the rhythm guitar and sang Chura Liya Hai. She must have been specially blessed for the sounds to come out the way they did. But, the man who played the instrument matchlessly was Bachchan. In Sharaabi, when he sat on the floor and lip-synched to Intehaa ho gayee, the expressions were superb. Every inch of the man's face conveyed histrionic skills in a scene where he waited for the heroine, singing a lullaby with romantic lyrics. I remember him shaking his head, closing his eyes, mumbling the lyrics, at times, simply forgetting that he was supposed to do a few things with the guitar he held close to his heart. But the background music continued, one of Bollywood's countless miracles.

It was a long time ago that I first saw an actor play the guitar onscreen, making it sound like a moaning saxophone. Since then, several years have gone by. Till today, I don't understand why most filmmakers don't engage specialists to direct actors in music-driven scenes. Could be that our makers view such exercises as a waste of money, while our actors are too busy doing too much work to think of such details anyway. As long as the masses are fooled, do they need to care?