Page 34 - Seniors Today - March Issue

Nostalgia
Trincas and
the Calcutta of the ’60s
The Summer of ’69 was not just a song – it was an entire musical experience for
the band Savages, writes Prabhakar Mundkur
Four weary young men alighted from the
Calcutta Mail at Howrah. The six-week
contract at Trincas in the summer of ’69 was
somehow the icing on the cake for the band
called the Savages, having scored many
victories across the country entertaining
people with their music. They didn’t know it
yet, but it was going to be the experience of
a lifetime. I remember later reminiscing that
this was perhaps the equivalent of playing at
the Caesar’s Palace of that time.
As they made their way towards Park
Street with their audio equipment, they
caught their first glimpses of old Calcutta. In
those days the amplifiers and the speakers
were quite heavy. The amps were only made
out of tubes, something that would become
obsolescent forever, except for a handful of
audiophiles around the world who believed
that you couldn’t get the same sound with
the transistor. On reaching Trincas, they
were asked to park their equipment at the
stage and proceed to their living quarters on
Free School Street.
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Middle-class morals
The thought of spending the night at the flat
they were allotted somehow irked the four
young men who came from decent middle-
class families, complete with their rigid
middle-class morals. So they decided to sleep
the night at Eden Gardens and inform Mr
Joshua, one of the partners at Trincas along
with Mr Puri, that they wished to return to
Mumbai if they had to stay on Free School
Street. As it happened there was a certain
indignity around the players of music in the
’60s and the flat at Free School Street was
the assigned residence for bands that came
out of Mumbai and other cities. Mr Joshua
was quick to understand our predicament
and, quickly recognising that we were not a
run-of-the-mill band, placed us in a flat right
below his house on 87 Park Street, opposite
the St Xavier’s College. The flat was air-
conditioned and the Savages couldn’t have
asked for a better residence for the rest of the
6 weeks in Calcutta. They were greeted by
Mr Joshua himself who would visit us in the