The MFM Jam Chronicle: The low and high, slow and fast jam of 23rd Sept @ Bandra Bandstand

When Ali sent in the weather report that day, it was not good news-he reported bad weather and we decided to call the jam off but a stinger call from Monika and Pulin (who had already endeavoured to reach bandstand) sent everyone skeltering and getting there! I got there late and in a philosophical and contemplative mood, wanting to keep it all low key...We started with some Credence Clearwater Revival, some great meaningful songs and I felt that I had been missing playing these songs, for the jam is primarily all Hindi singing. Not that its a bad thing, for the jam should be beyond genres and languages, and there is no dearth of meaning in Hindi music, and one of the purposes of the jam is to bring people together and playing popular music helps to do that.

We had a bit of discussion about the purpose of the jam, about our individual roles and what each one seeks out of them, and how do we benefit fulfilling our and thus others' requirements (for human needs are more or less common..belonging to a community, interacting with like minded people, finding an uninhibited atmosphere to let go..etc. etc.) and we discussed regarding the jam wagon road trip that some of us had planned to embark upon (and are now almost through with) .

Coming back to the more real things of the jam, we started pretty low key, but a young 14 years old son-of-a-gun called Aakash livened up the whole evening with his energy. A wannabe in the city of dreams, he was on the point of returning home when he met us at bandstand and got everyone enthralled. Another closed group at bandstand who seemed to be rivalling us (!!) let go of their inhibitions and joined in the fun with us! We ended with some rain forcing us to hit the road. It was a good jam. A jam of reflection for me, and as I sit here in Bhopal and write this long due post, and having missed one jam in Mumbai, in a bittersweet way, I have a renewed hope that MFM will spread far and wide! Keep on rocking in a free world!

Points to ponder? we were in a thoughtful mood...