DJ⠀⠀'s Bright Night Party
The lead-up to a great party in Chitradurga.
I don’t know where the idea for this story came from. I thought vaguely of posters appearing.. and things took their course from there. It is up to the reader to judge whether it is an awfully clever concept or simply awful. I chose Chitradurga for the setting because I like the name.
The posters were unremarkable. Black background, neon purple text and motifs. At the centre was a stylish-looking young woman wearing sunglasses and a black jacket covered in decorative patches over a white crop top. She was standing behind a DJ deck, one arm raised and the other held to her ear. Stylised text set behind her head read, ‘DJ⠀⠀⠀’. The “Bright Night Party” was set to take place from 7pm onwards that Saturday at a nearby lake. Posters of this type are seen in their dozens on walls and bulletin boards across college campuses, student areas, and clubs in urban India.
What was strange was that over a hundred of these posters were pasted up and down a coconut tree, so densely that even an inch of bark couldn’t be seen. The other strange thing about these posters was that the tree they covered was in an empty plot on the outskirts of Chitradurga, an unassuming open space between Ratna Bar and Restaurant, and Reddy Wholesalers Ltd.
The crowd who came to see that in the morning took their photos and their videos, and then moved on to more profitable work.. In the hot and dusty townhall, the mayor gravely reassured the handful of bored newspaper reporters and civil representatives who attended his address that Chitradurga would not stand for such bare-faced vandalism. In a rare display of municipal vigor, the tree was cleaned of its posters that very evening, although stubborn traces of black and purple paper and fragments of DJ⠀⠀⠀’s face remained stuck on the trunk until the monsoon rains washed them off months later.
Overlaid with bombastic commentary, videos and photos of the tree reached lakhs of message groups and crores of social media users across the country. Politicians, headmasters, and chief guests at college functions cited it as an example of the degeneration of the youth for weeks afterward. It is not proper, they would tell their captive audiences, for a woman to advertise herself so flagrantly and extravagantly, encouraging the youth to waste their time in music and dancing and socialisation rather than focusing on their studies. Where was India going, if the youth were engaged in such frivolous activities? There was also the matter of the environment; surely the poster ink had damaged the poor tree somehow? And furthermore DJ music was poison to the ears, one had better listen to bhajans. Besides.. and also.. it went on and on.
Anish Sohni, age 24, of Meerut, overlaid a video of his face on a video of the postered tree in a passionate rant, and accused the mayor’s political party for being lax on law and order. Parag Pandey, age 27, of Raipur, posted a before-and-after video of the tree with captions praising the mayor’s party and accusing Mr. Sohni in no uncertain terms of being an anti-national. Naturally, each of their followers found irreconcilable differences with each other, and initiated a protracted flame war. The casualties of this conflict were a hundred and thirty-three suspended profiles, eighteen leaks of real names and addresses, and twenty-two tea-shop arguments that led to fistfights.
Numerous accounts popped up full of flashy visuals but empty of personally incriminating details, advertising exclusive tickets to the ‘coconut tree party’. Crores’ worth of gifts were bought for friends, girlfriends, mothers and wives from those ill gains. One advertising genius from Kolkata ended up with a very nice car by promising tickets to an exclusive afterparty, supposed to be attended by certain prominent cricketers. Not a few of the less-diligent of this breed were found out by local groups and imprisoned briefly, or at the very least thrashed soundly.
The news cycle graciously accommodated the whole thing. One venerable outlet was of the opinion that the posters were an act of psychological warfare by Pakistan’s ISI, that the DJ was being shipped in from Islamabad, and that the army better keep an eye out for attacks on the LoC that Saturday night. A more moderate theory was put forth by another doyen of primetime TV, who said that it was an attempt funded by certain American elites who wanted to destabilise Indian society by importing their degenerate social values. One opinion piece by a prize-winning author of literary fiction loudly supported the ‘radical expression of feminist expression’ coming up in Chitradurga, and placed DJ⠀⠀⠀ in a venerable genealogy of brave women tracing from Onake Obavva, the legendary medieval defender of Chitradurga fort. Another opinion piece came from a lawyer who spent more time in news studios than courthouses, wondering why people were so excited for an event just because it had a female DJ in western clothes, but shunned religious processions abounding in DJs.
Whatever was being said, no one had heard of DJ⠀⠀⠀ before. She had no social media accounts. No venue or festival could ever recall having booked her. Organisers, party-goers and DJs from Delhi to Bangalore to Shillong, from Goa to Pushkar to Tosh scratched their heads and trawled their networks to no avail. This was despite the fact that her face and stage name were clearly visible on the poster. Finding DJ⠀⠀⠀became a lucrative industry, and not a few ambitious young women used their resemblance to the elusive performer to launch lasting careers as social media influencers. Several online campaigns were launched, combing through musical artists in India and among the diaspora. Yet it proved to be impossible to find someone who had made no attempt to hide.
As Saturday grew closer, motley crowds began to descend on Chitradurga in numbers unprecedented by the city’s small hospitality industry. Assorted European nationals out of Goa, seasoned by sun and sea, looking for a good party and a good story to tell; Aspiring journalists and stringers looking for an exclusive interview and a juicy story to sell; Corporate workers from Bangalore, who drove five hours for the promise of an amazing weekend experience; Talent scouts from Bombay and Delhi, who were eager to meet the woman who had gotten the whole country into a frenzy; and young people from the nearby villages and towns dressed up in their most fashionable clothes, who were excited that something was finally happening in their neighbourhood.
All the established hotels and guesthouses were booked out for twenty kilometres around Chitradurga. Entrepreneurial spirits bought or borrowed tents according to their financial ability, for which they charged a heavy premium to visitors who came after the hotels ran out of room. A coconut grove owner made a fortune by slinging hammocks between his trees and offering them to visitors as a ‘raw, natural experience’. A man stalled the construction of his home to offer people space to set up sleeping bags on the floor of the concrete shell. In a hundred other ways a jugaad real estate industry was born.
The area around the now-naked coconut tree itself became an unofficial common ground for all the visitors. In a moment of unusual administrative foresight, a junior official was allowed autonomy to decorate the place to make it suitable for the crowds to sit in. The official requisitioned the finest decorations, reserved for election rallies and chief ministerial visits. Accordingly, the dusty ground around the tree was decorated with yards of red carpet, crowned by plastic chairs and shaded by colourful cloth pandals.
This became the site for an amazing convergence of musicians from all over. The Kamadeva Brass Band was in high demand for their flashy costumes, to provide a backdrop for the videos of a half-dozen aspiring musicians. This trend lasted all of Friday morning, after which Kamadeva had become too mainstream, and the artists pursued the dollu players from the temples instead. One European sought out a sitar player for a ‘revolutionary concept’ he had. The maestro Nagayya invited him to collaborate. Unfortunately their meeting was destined to be fruitless when the hapless foreigner, grateful for lunch at his home and used to more permissive environments, offered Nagayya a pick-me-up which he later found out was impermissible according to the Karnataka Prohibition Act of 1961.
Saturday finally came. People began moving toward the lake from the morning, hoping to get better seats or a better view- of what, no one knew yet. The lake was small, easy to swim across, and overshadowed by a monolithic hill. Around it was scrubby greenery. It was an interesting sight- farmers with their white turbans, socialites in the latest Bandra fashions, Europeans in open shirts and shorts, city youths in all sorts of clothes. Reporters weaved in and around the crowd, interviewing anyone who looked interesting in the persistent absence of DJ . People sold water and snacks at a huge markup, and had far harder-to-get things available for the asking. The police stood around, vaguely aware that they were to keep order, but not sure what order looked like for such a crowd on such a day.
Time dragged on to dusk. What, no speakers? No stage? No lights? No sign of DJ⠀⠀⠀? Rumbles of dissatisfaction began to shake the crowd. But what was the crowd going to ask? And to whom? DJ⠀⠀⠀ was untraceable, there was no organiser who they could rough up a bit. Many of those who had bought tickets online soon realised that they were invalid. Everyone was different shades of disappointed, angry and riled up. They dealt with it in different ways. Some people were swimming in the lake, others were convening around small speakers, others were quickly realising that their drinks would be better served to drown their sorrow. Some young men started shouting, “We want DJ ⠀⠀⠀!” Who was going to bring her?
The police grew nervous. If anything like a riot broke out, they knew they couldn’t deal with it. Who knew if they would end up thrashing the son of an MP or an industrialist? Quick negotiations took place and a sound system was arranged. A mike was called for, and anyone who could perform was sought. There was a line of volunteers: The Kamadeva Brass Band, the European visionary who had managed to exchange his prohibited substances for his freedom, a whole host of rappers, Carnatic singers, pop singers and bathroom singers.
It is not so important to describe the night’s revels in detail. You have surely had fun before, it is enough to know that you would have had fun there. When a large group gets conned and their passions rise, they are quick to accept any compromise that will cool their inflamed passions. It is better to be a fool with something than a fool with nothing. And in a hundred ways, everyone who was there that night left happy late the next morning.
And what about DJ⠀⠀⠀? She remained as elusive as before. What is known is that the grateful and newly formed Chitradurga Hotelier’s Association set up a temple around the coconut tree when they heard that the Bright Night Festival was set to happen annually.