Neha Kirpal reviews The Extraordinary Life of Max Bulandi by Sidharth Singh (published by Harper Fiction India, 2024).
Mumbai-based writer, filmmaker, and sports producer Sidharth Singh’s new novel is as much an interesting story about a fictional character called Max Bulandi as it is about the history of rock music, particularly in India.
“It’s a story that resonates in these times of cultural homogeneity, when individualism and dissent are crushed with official sanction. It’s a classic story of rebellion that needs to be told.”
– Sidharth Singh, The Extraordinary Life of Max Bulandi
The book’s protagonist is Nirvana, a jilted lover, bored addict and disillusioned journalist. One day, he discovers old issues of Junior Standard, one of India’s premier youth magazines from the 1970s. An article about a famed rock concert of the time in Bombay catches his eye.
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“There were hordes of long-haired youths, both male and female, dressed in strange garb – batik and tie-dye T-shirts, bell-bottomed pants, peace pendants and beads dangling from their necks – waiting outside the gates of the famous Shankarji Hall.
Though one could have easily mistaken them for a bunch of hippies from Haight-Ashbury, they were, in fact, regular college-going students from the so-called ‘good families’ that all of us belong to. As they milled about, engulfed in the smell of marijuana smoke and the gentle strains of an acoustic guitar playing Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, it seemed they were trying to say, rise and shine, Bombay! The India Beat ’70 is here!”
– Sidharth Singh, The Extraordinary Life of Max Bulandi
The article mentions a band called The Flow, whose lead singer, Max Bulandi, is hailed as India’s Jim Morrison. Intrigued by the story, Nirvana embarks on a self-funded research trip to search for the enigmatic Max Bulandi and the early pioneers of the Indian rock music scene—a journey that takes him through Bombay, Calcutta, Shillong, and Benaras. The book is narrated through a series of interviews that Nirvana takes while gradually unravelling Max Bulandi’s fascinating story.
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The Life and Times of Max Bulandi
In a sense, the book is a hat-tip to the legends of Indian rock music. Though filled with images of what was undoubtedly the golden age of music – where “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll” became a kind of anthem – the book is also about the changing music scene in India over the decades. “Now it’s just in-your-face consumerism riding fast on social media updates, using the currency of likes, shares and hashtags,” ponders Nirvana at one point.
While now it is much easier for young musicians, in the early days, rock music was still frowned upon by most. “No money, no equipment, no venues and everybody strictly against your choice of career” is how Vikram Baxi, a musician in the book, sums up the struggle of all those crazy ones who were into western music in India during the 1970s – a lost generation “with our minds full of LSD and our hearts full of love and the misplaced passion of youth.”
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So many of his generation perished unrecognized, languishing in poverty. But those unsung heroes paved the way for us. Their revolt against the old order created the necessary social churn for something new to emerge.
– Sidharth Singh, The Extraordinary Life of Max Bulandi
Favourite Quote from The Extraordinary Life of Max Bulandi by Sidharth Singh
For sometimes, one has to go far from himself to find himself. The outer journey is a great teacher that prepares one for the inner journey and for the final ride to the great beyond.
Conclusion
Rebels and countercultures have always fascinated Sidharth Singh. That was how the idea of writing a fictional biography about a rock musician from the 1970s began to take root. Further, Singh’s late father studied in Calcutta through the politically turbulent but musically fertile period between 1968 and 1971. “His colourful exploits on Park Street became my primary source of research and provided an authentic springboard for the story, after which the writing turned into a blissful outpouring of my own adolescent influences: Beatniks, Hippies, rock and roll, psychadelia and Gonzo journalism, mashed up with the history of Indian rock music, and elevated to the realm of fiction,” writes the author.
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While still in school, I once dreamt of creating an audiovisual on the history of rock music, particularly the cool hippie era between the 1960s and 1970s—complete with free love and flower power. This book comes quite close to doing that. Reading it is like a recap of the history of rock music in the world, particularly in India.
Through the turbulence of the ‘70s, the chaos of the ‘80s, the confusion of the ‘90s, through lack of jobs, through drugs and alcoholism, through failed marriages and broken friendships and the unbearable loss of loved ones – the music helped us pull through.
– Sidharth Singh, The Extraordinary Life of Max Bulandi
Have you read this novel about the 1970s music scene, cultural revolutions, and the journey of Max Bulandi? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below, and let us know!
