Halabelu Hooligans

Of all the outrageous ideas that we came up in school, the idea of starting a rock band would take the cake. While we were known to come up with quite a few outlandish ideas and schemes on what to do with our lives after school, nothing ever came close to this one. The very fact that yours truly was considered for this band is evidence enough that it was crazy.

It all started when we were in our 11th standard. The school had a cultural competition amongst the various classes in the primary, high school, and pre-university sections. Competing in the pre-university section had its advantages. You were assured of at least the second prize; after all, you had only 11th and 12th competing. Of course, things changed if there were multiple contestants from either class, but generally that was for individual events and not for the group ones. Being blessed with a talented lot in our class, we were dominating the events quite easily. One event in which we really did well was the group song section. A group of musically inclined got together and decided on "Rhythm of the Rain" by The Cascades and the qawwali "Tu badi maasha allah" from the Malayalam movie, "His Highness Abdullah." Needless to say, we won the group song contest quite easily.

An interesting aside to this was the fact that there was this girl who had joined our school that year in our class. In the only class devoid of feminine charms, she was bound to grab lots of attention. But then, it was just too good to last. She announced couple of months later that she managed to secure a scholarship in an outside university and would be leaving our school around the Christmas vacations. "Rhythm of the Rain" became a tribute of sorts by all the boys in our class to her. The guys who chose the song insisted that the choice of song had nothing to do with her, but there was always some who never believed that. The success of the group song motivated the lead singer to try his hand even at the solo event. This time, it was another romantic song, "Sealed with a Kiss" by Brian Hyland, and he managed to secure a third spot.

All of this singing success really got into our head. While we saw it as a victory of 11th over 12th at the school level, within the class it was a sign of superiority over the girls. The fact that we had the only class in the entire school where girls struggled even to compete on Indian classical dance made it rather a hollow victory, but we really didn't mind that. Basking in the glory of this victory within the victory, on a balmy Friday evening, with the weekend fast approaching, we decided to exercise our vocal chords. Taking the opportunity of a teacher's absence, we decided to sing the song "Karakaanakadalala mele" from "Naadodikkaattu." With the wooden desks providing the only accompaniment to the singers of varying degrees of musical ability, we later realized we must have been creating quite a ruckus. This realization dawned on us when a shadow fell over the window and the one sitting right next to it fell silent with his enthusiastic, but totally offkey, drumming. One by one, we all saw the school principal standing outside the window, seeing what was going on. This, though, wasn't enough to stop the lead singer, who was into the song in a big way, closing his eyes and trying to reach the highest pitch possible. It was only at the peak of the pitch that he suddenly realized that the rest of the room had fallen silent. Incredibly, he managed to stop the song at that point. Quite a feat, any seasoned singer would say, to stop a song while at its highest pitch. Unfortunately, his greatest achievement as a singer would thus be forgotten as the principal came in and warned us that one more sound from our class for the remainder of the year and he would suspend the entire class and left.

While the school principal's age ensured that he forgot all about his threat, we did sober up after that. We decided that the rest of the school was envious of us and our singing abilities, even though there were quite loud murmurs of the nuisance our singing was creating. All was forgotten and forgiven when we were chosen to sing our prize-winning qawwali for the school's annual day function. With a few of the guys from the original group backing out, we needed replacements, and I was one of the guys drafted in. While I was a regular in the drama group, singing was a totally new territory for me. Apart from being tone deaf, my singing skills left a lot to be desired. The group, though, felt that they could drown out my voice in the chorus section. I had decided even earlier that I would just lip sync, though I kept this information to myself. With this wonderful exhibition of teamwork, we managed to complete the song reasonably well, even though the audience wondered why it was being sung at a higher pitch than was needed.

By the time we reached 12th, we realized that this would be the last time we would have a chance to compete together as a team before we left our different ways. This thought made quite a few of us do stuff we otherwise wouldn't have. One guy decided to enter the classical singing competition without having learnt it. He listened to "Omkaara naatha" from "Shankarabharanam" and tried the same on stage. For the first time in our school's history, a classical song was being accompanied like a hard rock metal. One curious class member later found the marks sheet for his performance and found zeroes marked in all column with a "DISGRACE" left in the comments section.

For the group song, we decided to give a chance to all of us in the class to get on stage. With a better sense they seem to have, the girls refused to get on stage, but all of us boys promptly went up. This time, there was no holding back any of us, and all of us gave it the worst we had. Amazingly, our juniors managed to outdo us. The judges said that we both were so pathetic that they refused to give anyone the first prize. We were given second, while our juniors ended up getting third. The song we had chosen was "California Dreamin" by Mamas and Papas and "Ramayanakkaatte" from "Abhimanyu."

The fact that we pulled off "California Dreamin," albeit in quite an ordinary fashion, was the fuel for our rockband dreams. During our daily commute to the school, with our minds fresh early in the morning, we would let our imagination run wild. That particular week, though, it went bonkers. About 7 of us decided to form this group and toyed with a few names for the band. While we tossed around quite a few names, the one that still remains in my mind is Halabelu Hooligans. Why we came up with something as crazy or meaningless as that, I don't remember. For someone as removed from rock music as I was, any name was good enough. The very fact that I was being considered was good enough for me. Even then, though, I had made the note to remain in the background and concentrate more on anything other than related to music. For all my flights of fancy, picturing myself as a singer wasn't one of them. This, though, I kept to myself.

How we finally moved to our next plan, I don't remember. I do remember, though, that this was one project which we very keenly discussed. Now, apart from me in Bangalore and another guy in San Jose, I am not sure where exactly the others are. I don't think they are doing much of singing nowadays, and this dream of starting a band probably isn't even a happy memory in their thoughts. In fact, I wonder if they even remember these things. But it is all these things that made school life oh-so-colorful and some of the most exciting times of my life. For all those from that batch who might read this, I just wanted to say that Halabelu Hooligans still stays alive in my mind.