Tuesday, July 29, 2014

GUITAR, GRASS & GIRLS - A MUSICAL THRILLER NOVEL



Mark Loffler looked at his watch and it was almost 1 pm. 

He had to start immediately else he would be missing the meeting. Mark quickly went to the last page of the diary. The decaying page looked yellowish-brown with a small hole burnt in it. It could be from an absent minded blazing cigarette tip, he pondered.  He brought the diary close to his eyes as the crumbling letters were tough to read. Gradually, the words entered his mind and soul sending a frosty mystic chill down his spine.

                                               ‘How long had I waited for this day. The flashing lights on the stage, the maddening noise of the crowd! Jerose on drums, Akhil on keypad, Gora on electric Guitar...and I, with my last song! Wish Jeniffer was here to see me for the last time. I know my fate and I am the reason for it. But never in my whole life had I thought it will happen! It’s so strange that two souls alive and breathing at totally different geographies can think, act and do alike....and I, I had to stop it! As the soft breeze coming from my broken old window tries to pacify my fervent soul at this hour of night, I remember Gurudev’s song of parting

Death, thy servant, is at my door. He
has crossed the unknown sea and brought
thy call to my home.
  The night is dark and my heart is
Fearful-yet I will take up the lamp, open
my gates and bow to him my welcome

Goodbye- Rabindranath ‘Jim’ Bose


He stopped at the slanted autograph of Mokhsa’s lead singer for a moment. A strange pain crept inside his although puzzled heart. He knew that the journey to know the unknown has begun. Suddenly, Mark looked at the date. 

It was written on 3rd July, 1971 –the same day Jim Morrison died!



SYNOPSIS :

Paris. July 2, 1971, early evening. 

Jim Morrison and his girlfriend Pamela Courson went to the cinema to see Pursued, a western starring Robert Mitchum. At another theater, Jim Morrison sat alone, watching a documentary called Death Valley. Across town, at the Rock ’n’ Roll Circus nightclub, Jim Morrison scored some heroin and OD’d in the bathroom. At the same time, Jim Morrison walked the streets of Paris and shot up with some junkies on skid row. Meanwhile, at Orly Airport, Jim Morrison boarded a plane for an unknown destination.

No one knows for sure where…The very next day, Morrison’s lifeless body was found…was it accident, drug overdose..or was it Occult?       
        
                                    Mark Loffler, a German student studying literature at the University of Tübingen is highly influenced by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore and his works. He takes up his post doctorate research on Tagore’s music .Luckily, he gets a sponsored fellowship Program from Rabindra Bharati University ,Kolkata  after submitting one of his research papers .Mark comes to Kolkata and takes up a room in a small hotel in Park Street.

                               As he starts investigating about Bengali music and Tagore’s influence in it, he comes to know about Mokhsa, the first English rock band set up in Kolkata in the 70’s but it died an unnatural death, having done only 1 major show. 

The founder of this band was called Jimmy by his band members; his actually name was Rabindranath Bose, a converted Christian. 

Kolkata is slowly gripped with the Naxal movement and the socio-economic conditions get very affected.Some of Moksha’s members gets highly influenced by naxalite philosophies and it also influences Jimmy’s songs.

Jimmy died a very suspicious death on the very stage while performing for the first and last time.

It was on 3rd July, 1971 –the same day Jim Morrison died!



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