Confessions of a Wedding Band-Baaja Member

“Most band mem­bers who play wind instruments last 15-20 years in the job. The strain on the mouth leads to tubercu­losis and cancer”

To be part of a wedding band is to live a dog’s life. There’s nothing to do the whole year. Then for twenty days, there’s nothing else we can do. That’s why you find us feverish and sniffling this time of the year. We’re overworked.

Earlier, we could do three jobs a day, but heavy traffic has put that out of the question. Now we do about two. That’s because we have to travel by road. Can you imagine us climbing into a Mumbai train with our instruments? So we make it a point to set aside an hour-and-a-half for travel. We usu­ally arrive an hour in advance.

There’s always a lot of waiting. But if I don’t show up early, my phone rings every two minutes till I arrive. If I forget the location, or turn up at the wrong place, the hosts don’t forgive me. Even if I tell them to call me ex­actly half an hour be­fore the baraat leaves, they make me show up hours in advance. But I can understand that.

The marriage season peaks in December. We begin rehearsing around the time of Ganesh Chaturthi. We practise each song for three days. This season we’re play­ing Munni Badnaam Hui everywhere. We can’t play  techno, though.

This profession will die soon. There’s too little money. Each of us makes Rs 500-600 per job. A lot of us are uneducated. This is a last-resort career. You do this if you have nothing else to do.

Most band members who play wind instruments last 15-20 years in the job. The strain on the mouth leads to tuberculosis and cancer. If it isn’t that, they tend to be heavy drinkers. I’m tired of it my­self. It’s 7 pm right now. At 1.30 pm, my colleagues and I reached a wedding. The bidaai still hasn’t taken place. I don’t think we’re getting paid for this one.

I’ve never seen a horse die at a wedding, but earli­er this year, after a job in Powai, our horse died on Dadar Bridge. That’s a loss of Rs 2 lakh right there.

(The band member has played at weddings for 30 years)

As told to Rahul Bhatia

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