It simply was one of my favorite cartoons on TV while growing up. The main reason for that, now that I think about it, might be that it was one of the rare real cool action animation series that time for me. Sure, there were fantastic animation series like good ol’ Disney cartoons, Popeye, Bugs Bunny and so on. There were also action animations as He-Man. But I guess SWAT Kats was one of the early entrants in the category of kick-ass action animation genre.
From whatever exposure we kids got to the American action flicks through The Terminator, Predator etc, back then I had set certain parameters for a good action movie in my subconscious mind: Some fantastic visual effects, guns blazing, cars & airplanes getting exploded, bike chases, a little romantic interest for the heroes, some supernatural powers and so on. And for a boy whose action-entertainment values were highly influenced by (unfortunately - only by) Hollywood, SWAT Kats proved to be something which perfectly captured all these features. Their jet fighter Turbokat, Cyclotron (my personal favorite - a motorcycle built into the jet) along with some other vehicles were super brilliant. Every episode also had quite engaging nice little story which entertained me thoroughly. Despite the fact that it used to be just an half an hour cartoon episode, the personalities of the characters were given quite good attention too, as I started finding T-Bone & Razor pretty big-hearted, cool & friendly dudes; absolutely hated Commander Feral; and somehow found Callie quite pretty, although she was, after all, a cat!
Another reason which refreshed SWAT Kats in my mind was its music – especially the title track. I now realize that the effect of this music was so profound on my mind - even as a boy who didn’t have much exposure to western music back then – that when I thought of SWAT Kats yesterday, my heart immediately drew a rough sketch of the title tune in my head and told the brain: dude, please go and listen to it as soon as possible - I want to enjoy that rock piece once again! Back then, as a boy I didn’t even care about what sort of sound that was being played at the background. But today when I saw the intro on youtube after so many years, I realized how rocking even the intro was! Of course, one can not compare this to the rock music of the likes of Joe Satriani's, Steve Vai's and so on, but the nice little title tune was a kick-ass piece of rock in its own right - nice start with the drums, pumped up by amazing guitar sound with distortion and good old rock guitar solos building up towards a nice end – setting the scene perfectly for yet another adventure of the SWAT Kats!
As far as my relationship with music goes, I have gone through and going through different phases. The phases have lasted for different periods, some as short as a week, some as long as 3-4 years. Sometimes I have been obsessed with some heavy metal song for a few days, while sometimes artists like Kishor Kumar, Eric Clapton have ruled my music system quite prominently.
There was a time in my life, when music was just around. I mean, there was my mother pursuing her vocal music, father enthusiastic about collecting different music cassettes, my brother Amod dada and cousin Manasi tai actively taking interest in different cultures of music, my grandmother having sessions of bhajan at our house and so on. There were classical music cassettes, gazhals, bhajans, pop, little bit of rock, lot of Hindi music, lots of old classics. But the music was just there. Around. I myself had not taken any effort to understand and/or excel at it.
Then there came that time when my mother thankfully realized that I had some talent in music too! She made me take harmonium lessons, which I hated from the bottom of my heart at that time. I made every effort to run away from them. But thankfully she stuck by it and I finally developed an interest for it in some time. From then on till possibly my early college days, I was generally learning Indian classical music as interest. Well, little more than just an interest, but not something I couldn’t live without. It was just one of the fun things I was doing along with studies, playing, watching films, reading etc.
Somewhere around my 12th standard examination, I became more exposed to the Hindi film music and understood how the modern Hindi music was being influenced by western music traditions - different chords, harmonies and so on. This was something I had never ever thought of till then since the Indian classical music is strongly based on melody rather than harmony. It was probably this time that I slowly started opening up to other diverse genres of music and tried to imitate the songs on my harmonium and keyboard.
But still, I was strongly influenced by the Indian style of music. I was finding great joy in trying to learn more ragas, different styles of playing, music from different Indian regions on harmonium. For some reason, instead of keyboard, I always had harmonium closer to my heart and spent hours practicing different compositions made by some of the greatest Indian musicians. The following may sound as an Oscar speech, but I got really great guidance from many friends and gurus I was fortunate enough to have in those 3-4 years of DegreeCollege – mainly due to the participation in different competitions and musical programs. I do have some regrets about my inability to strive for musical excellence in my early college years, but I am very grateful for the music I performed and enjoyed with my friends during some later-years of college.
And just when I thought that I was slowly settling with my taste in music (being largely Indian classical), the guitar happened. Actually I was greatly impressed by the guitar performance in the song Rubaru from the film Rang De Basanti. It just hit me somewhere in the heart. A voice inside was telling me to learn guitar, but I just ignored that voice. I thought that having spent last few years in learning harmonium, why should I now try to learn a seemingly difficult instrument right from the scratch? But then I suppose learning guitar was just meant to happen.
While hanging around at a friend’s place, one day I found a guitar lying there. Having been quite curious about it, I simply started plucking a guitar string using a 50 paisa coin. And boy o boy! I realized that it was not at all an impossible instrument to start learning! I said, well, alright, the technique is difficult, but then, hey, I am at least able to produce rather decent musical sounds through it without having any knowledge about it at all!
I was sooo not aware that that moment was going to start a new hurricane in my life. First I forced my parents to buy me a guitar. I started doing some R&D (actually I prefer the Marathi expression for it – kide karne) on it. I started looking out for teachers. I started discussing my doubts about western music with my friends or any new acquaintances I made. Pop, rock, blues, jazz, blues-rock, classic rock, metal, heavy metal, flamenco, western classical…oh my god! Those zillions of genres never seemed to end! Something which started as a light attempt to be able to play common Hindi/Western songs ended up being an obsession which accompanied me throughout all the other things that were happening around.
But somehow I stuck by it. However confused I became after knowing different styles of guitar, however frustrated I became due to contradictory suggestions of different gurus, however annoyed I became due to my inability to prioritize my music, studies, career; I just did not stop practicing the guitar. Now that I think of it, it seems to me as if it has been like that phase in Forrest Gump’s life where he just ran. He ran, he ran and he ran more.
I was trying (hell, I still am trying!) to find my way through my musical interests and passions. I wanted to play Indian classical music on guitar, but then sometimes I spend hours and hours watching Eric Clapton videos and trying to learn something from that. Sometimes I try to decipher some excellent Spanish guitar music while sometimes I just love accompanying my friends on some contemporary Hindi songs. Then again there is that sweet aroma of jazz in some back corner of my mind while the classic rock styles still try to make me lose myself in their sea.
Now that I am thinking of all the above, I think how less exposed I was to music when I was in my early college days! I wasn’t even fully exposed to Indian classical music and I was already trying to make myself restrict to it. The more exposure you get about some thing, the more you realize how less you knew about it initially and how insignificant your so-called-achievements were at that time.
Not that I have a fair idea of world of music right now, but now I have got the taste of its diversity and I am totally hooked on to it. Given the probabilistic nature of our life, I don’t know whether I will become a professional musician somewhere down the line. But one thing I know for sure, that this musical itch inside me is never going let me settle at one place – somehow managing to push me into one more magical experience – just like Alice in Wonderland! :)
