DJ Gan Gun

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Ganpath Gajraj Jadhav loved music… from a young age he loved playing the dhol. He had rhythm in his blood, before him, his father Ganesh Gajraaj Jadhav had made the 11 day Ganesh Chaturthi festival their USP. His father, grandfather and great grandfather were "percussion" experts. Ganpath's grandfather, Govindrao Gajraj Jadhav had started the company. Over the years, the Jadhav family were the go-to percussionists and band baaja people for all of Mumbai's multi-cultural festival and auspicious days. Every community if they wanted to take their prayers, their pandals, their processions and their religion to the streets, the gullies, or the byelanes, the Jadhav family were the best in the business.

Ganpat was sure he wanted to simplify things - his father had been a body builder so banging a dhol non-stop for five six hours was no problem. He didn't have the mindset or the muscle for this cardiovascular activity, plus he wanted to take his music to the city. He was a trained desi DJ, and like DJ Nas, he felt he was a Gully Boy - a DJ who had come out of the slums.

He renamed himself DJ Gan Gun, and presented himself as a DJ for all festival occasions. He would sit atop a truck and strut his stuff through his giant speakers. It was "dhamaal" for a few years, playing this brand of fusion, loud, in the open air, and making his smart talk, into street smart talk through his mic.

DJ Gan Gun was world renowned in Mumbai… on Visarjan nights, he was fully booked up in advance. During those eleven days, he was in high demand - sometimes he would go to 20-25 different processions and places.

But this year came the problem - the objections began. Complaints came from senior citizens and hospitals and patients. His music was deemed too loud, his announcements were too noisy. The work dried up, instantly. He was instructed, no DJing, only drums and dholaks allowed.

This is unfair to me, he felt, in other events they play loud, loud music, no one objects, only when we DJs play music during Ganesh, they are objecting.

This was a serious problem... it was impossible to play this kind of music soft also.

He thought to himself, this is my dhandha, this is my family business, not fair. All these organisers of different functions have their DJ favourites, for these shaadis. My neighbour DJ Shailesh Yadav, DJ Shaitan, he had captured the full marriage market, for generation we have "kabzaoed" the festival market. All communites come to us, we are road experts, we can play on your truck, we can play on your tempo - he suddenly had no work.

DJ Gan Gun tried to get side jobs… He went to discos and night clubs, but he couldn't get a breakthrough. Many of them, they had their licence suspended by Mundesaab, so he couldn't play there. He was stuck - how would he feed his family?

And then one day he had a brainwave - they were showing ‘Amar Akbar Anthony' on the cable, Vinod Khanna playing the role of Inspector Amar wore cymbals on his knees and he had attached tablas and played accordion. He was a three-in -one musician - I could have a similar set up, he thought. I could strap small speakers on my back, and all my DJ stuff could be around my neck and two small dhols strapped to my knees. This way he was very light, he could go anywhere, I can be on the streets, on roads, footpaths, I can come to terraces, to living rooms I could control the volume of the music, this way I can serve all kinds of festivals, from Ganesh, Chaat puja, Dahi handi, Navratri, Garba, Baisakhi.

In fact, he had made up his mind, he would change his name. Mo more was he just DJ Gun Gan. He was now DJ Quick Gan Gun Murugun.

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, filmmaker and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com