Parvez Dewan
Book: Not just rock ‘n’ roll
Author: Ajay Mankotia
Language: English
Publisher: Readomania, New Delhi
Year: 2025
Price: Rs 899
Pages: 308
When Bruce Springsteen came to India in 1988, a venerable Indian newspaper organised his concert. It was the 150th anniversary of that newspaper. But,as Ajay Mankotia tells us, the paper gave little prominence to the fact that the concert was a benefit for Amnesty International. The newspaper’s promotions highlighted its own anniversary instead. Springsteen was angry and said, “We didn’t come all this way for a birthday party.”
We in Jammu and Kashmir can relate to Springsteen’s feelings.
During the same year, the Tourism Department of our state decided to host a series of concerts featuring India’s top classical dancers and musicians at different tourist destinations across the Kashmir Valley. The contract for organising these open-air shows was awarded to the same newspaper. Though the government had paid the paper for its work, it soon began describing the Kashmir Festival as if it too were part of its own anniversary celebrations.
Two years ago, Ajay Mankotia gave his readers an insider’s insight into the music industry that supports Hindi-Urdu films. Since he had been a top-ranking Income Tax (Indian Revenue Service) Commissioner, people assumed he gained these insights because of his official position, dealing with talented people from a position of strength.
But Mankotia has music in his blood. He was trained at home. His uncle, Satish Bhatia, scored the music of V. Shantaram’s hit Boond Jo Ban Gayi Moti (1967), while his mother, Usha Bhatia, was a singer for All India Radio in the 1950s. Not only can Mankotia play music, but as a child he often sang on stage, especially when his uncle had composed the tunes. Later, he performed in his own right and came to be known as the “Singing Taxman.” For a while, he was even the DJ at Delhi’s top-rated Cellar discotheque.
Outside India, however, he had none of these advantages. Yet his meetings with rock legends were impressive enough to be written up on a German fan site, which described his backstage encounter with David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. That story itself is fascinating. While studying in Paris, he learnt that Pink Floyd would be performing there. Most concerts are filmed, so Mankotia joined the crew shooting the event in order to watch it free.
The rock opera Tommy was written by The Who in 1969 and staged in Delhi in 1978. Mankotia was part of that production. So, when he later saw the opera live in London, he was in a much better position to appreciate the high notes touched by lead singer Roger Daltrey.
With his new book on Anglo-American rock music, Mankotia has done what no other Indian has achieved. The cover glows with an endorsement from none other than Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. Inside are pictures of him with Brian May of Queen; David Gilmour of Pink Floyd; Ian Paice of Deep Purple; Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin; Rick Wakeman of Yes; Roger Glover of Deep Purple; most of the Rolling Stones; and members of Uriah Heep. Each of these names ranks at the very top of the global rock hierarchy. It could hardly be more impressive.
If the Beatles are an omission, it is only because they had already split up when Mankotia was still a schoolboy. He makes up for this with four chapters about them, covering their time in Rishikesh and George Harrison’s role in drawing the world’s attention to Bangladesh’s struggle for independence.
So, the stories that Mankotia tells, and the insights he offers, are drawn not just from secondary sources but from first-hand experience.
The book is much more than just personal memories. It features accounts of nearly forty of the best-known rock musicians who recorded in English, including the two Grammy-winning daughters of Pandit Ravi Shankar, Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar. One chapter even traces the evolution of English-language pop songs in India.
Because he was formally trained in music, Mankotia can analyse voices with insight. He shows, for example, how the enormous popularity of Mick Jagger made his unusual voice acceptable, paving the way for audiences to embrace the equally unconventional voices of Neil Young, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan.
Mankotia is so steeped in rock that he has told his wife that if he ever slips into a coma, she should play Jethro Tull’s Back-Door Angels at full blast. Needless to say, this will bring him back to life-just as he has brought to life, in his book, some forty of the greatest Anglo-American rock stars.
The post Much more than just personal memories appeared first on Daily Excelsior.