Remembering guitarist Mahesh Tinaikar: ‘Brothers right until we die…’ | India News

Words feel like tears when you have to write about someone who, though not your blood, was a brother to you for nearly four decades of your life. Mahesh Tinaikar was my brother, and always will be, like the lyrics to one of his songs: “Brothers right until we die…”

 

Mahesh was the greatest guitar player in our country, a self-taught musician who played his music through his soul. If god was a guitarist, he would play like Mahesh.

 

I first saw Mahesh in 1988 when I was a teenager. I had just started singing and playing the guitar in a rock band and at St Xavier’s College in Mumbai, where I was studying. The word was that Mahesh Tinaikar was the ultimate rocking guitar player in the city. So there I was, at my first Rock Machine concert at the JJ School of Art’s compound. I went right up front to the right of the stage to see India’s rock music legend. I walked out of that concert wanting to play the guitar like Mahesh, but I realised over the years that you can be a good player but you can never be like him.

  

My destiny brought me closer to my guitar hero in 1989. Singing and playing the guitar in a rock band in the city gave me the good fortune of meeting Rock Machine, and all the members of the band: Mahesh Tinaikar, Jayesh Gandhi, Mark Selwyn, Uday Benegal, Zubin Balaporia and Mark Menezes.

 

One day, Mark Selwyn asked me if I could join them as a guitar technician and travel with them for shows. I was ecstatic. What more can a teenager ask for when he gets to travel across the country — and then the world — with the greatest rock band?

 

My first show with this band was in the city of Baroda, and guess who I got to share my room with? My guitar hero, Mahesh. For me, it was a surreal feeling. Just a few days ago, I was at the bottom of the stage at one of his concerts watching him in awe, and here I was, sharing a room with him.

 

My insight into this great guitarist began here. I would watch him practice the guitar and write songs for hours.

 

Rock Machine was the pioneer in writing original songs, and some of the best guitar riffs of their original songs were composed by Mahesh. I was privileged to hear them at their inception.

 

There was another side to this hard rock, guitar-shredding musician. He was a quiet man. He spoke very little, and let his guitar do all the talking. He was a gentle soul who was loved by everyone who came into his life. He probably believed in the saying, “Speak when you are spoken to and talk when you are supposed to”, because the rest of the time it was his guitar that spoke.

 

In an era when the country had no internet or social media, these six young men created their credibility and popularity organically through sheer talent and hard work. Hours and hours of practice made them the greatest rock band of India — with a lead guitar player like Mahesh, they had to be.

 

There are many anecdotes from my travels with the rock band. Some I can write about; others have to be kept secret. I can narrate one funny one about Mahesh. Whenever we travelled, we carried a lot of band luggage. Whether a station or an airport, we all had our jobs listed out. Mahesh, too, had his: He was called the “Defender of the hand baggage.” He would stand in one place, and we would all leave our hand baggage at the king’s feet. He would just stand there. The logic: He had an eye on the bags. If someone picked one up, he might not run after that person, but would definitely alert us.

 

Our brother has left us too soon. For the first time in my life, I saw my brothers — Mark, Zubin, Uday, Jayesh —and many others, including me, crying like children. It just goes to show how dearly he was loved by the people whose lives and hearts he had touched.

 

“Thank you for the music, Mahesha, Until we meet again…” I love Rock Machine, ’cause I am a Rock ’n’ Roll Renegade.