To Ian Anderson, with love

Even as this article goes into print, rock band Jethro Tull’s frontman Ian Anderson would have begun partying. It's his 70th birthday, and all fans would know how the landmark deserves a special bash.

A year ago, I had written about his amazing sense of humour in this column. This time, I will focus on my growth from being a Tull buff to an occasional email acquaintance. Sorry folks, for reasons of privacy, I will not reveal his ID.

Most Tull fans are hardcore addicts, and I am no exception. They are either totally into their music, or completely oblivious. Strangely, the first few times a heard them, I wondered what the hype was all about. A band named after the inventor of some ancient seed drill!

I was a 20-year-old disco generation kid then, back in New Delhi in 1982. A friend loved Tull so much, and used a term which I heard as ‘rabbit fan’. Years later, I realised he was a rabid fan. He played the

Bursting Out live album, and I hated the title. One song attracted me though. I thought it was ‘Backward On My Bench’ but eventually realised it was ‘Aqualung My Friend’.

It took me a year to get the hang of Tull. Suddenly, I was singing the lines from the album Thick As A Brick , an LP I begged my father to gift me – “The poet and the painter casting shadows on the water as the sun plays on the infantry returning from the sea...” etc etc. At Hansraj College, famous for a younger Shah Rukh Khan, I became the self-imposed president and perhaps only member of the non-existent New Delhi Jethro Tull Fan Club.

The others heard R.D. Burman, Pink Floyd, Iron Maiden and even Donna Summer. I tried to convert them. Got Tull albums recorded on cassette from Pyramid, a shop in Palika Bazaar.

Aqualung ,

Living In The Past ,

Heavy Horses ,

Songs From The Wood ,

War Child ,

Stormwatch ,

Minstrel In The Gallery ,

The Broadsword and The Beast ,

Benefit .

The problem was time. I heard one album and was hooked for six months. After Thick As A Brick , the others took turns. In 1985, I shifted to Jaipur. The landlady barely knew five English words but hummed the tunes of all songs from Heavy Horses and Songs From The Wood . She confused the song ‘Rover’ with the Punjabi surname Grover. Mission accomplished, finally.

Life moved on. A Tull album a day kept the doctor away. In 1993, I met Anderson briefly at an autograph session at the Rhythm House music store in Kala Ghoda. The following year, I sneaked into his (then) Oberoi press conference and attended his concert at Rang Bhavan. In 1995, I did my first phone interview with him. My colleagues were around and laughed at the British accent I suddenly developed.

I was lucky. Three more phone interviews and three personal interactions when he came to perform with flautist Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, the band Alms For Shanti and sitar player Anoushka Shankar. Later, he focused on solo albums, avoiding the moniker Jethro Tull. Ever since, I've been in touch over email. And he always responded, two days or two months later.

To quote some examples, Mumbai flautist Rajeev Raja did a wonderful tribute to Anderson, playing the instrumental ‘Bouree’ at Rhythm House before it shut down last February. I sent Andreson the YouTube link and he got back with, “What a wonderful tribute”.

A few months ago, I sent him a pencil illustration by a friend Priyabrata Satpati. Anderson replied, “Always a bit scary of seeing art work of yourself. I get enough of that shaving or walking past shop windows. Thank goodness beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Talented artist and the old pencil is the ultimate test of skill.”

That’s Anderson, the gentleman. A music idol, a mentor, a subconscious writing influence, and for someone of my 17-year-younger generation, the friendliest uncle. He wouldn't even remember what I look like, but let me celebrate his 70th birthday by listening to his 2014 album Homo Erraticus . Latin for ‘wandering man’, according to Wikipedia. Happy wandering, Ian.