Flashback

Four of us hung our heads in silence, trapped in deep thoughts.

Name.. what kinda name? Should be indicative of the style. Can't be cliched, which it usually turns out to be. Don't want a wannabe tag either. Nothing plain too. Damn, I was eating away into the scope of the whole exercise. RP muttered something. MJ looked up from his seat and motioned for a repeat.

"7th DoF", he said. Degree of freedom being the punchline. It broke the hush environment. MJ got up."It sounds whacked. But its worth a try" he said, chuckling to himself.

I wasn't sure. Unique, as it was, the oomph factor was somewhat missing. The whole thing just fizzled out.Ten minutes later we were back to square one.

Ahead in time, we got around to ATKT (Allowed To Keep Terms), a household acronym for any engineer within the scope of the 400,000 graduates that graduate (or attempt to) each year. It did find itself a size-able liking within the premises of 500 odd individuals. That was a good draw we had formulated. At least with respect to the name. However, performance was the key and we knew it. We tried hard over the years, a relentless but an almost-never flawless delivery of music. It was a challenge to create (replicate actually) music, which was a strong and common thread amidst the group.

Of course, we had a few originals. I recall our first single, (LOL) desperately titled "I Hate You". I know. Typical. Cliched. Call it what you will. Even today, the lyrics get me laughing. Every single time. However, the song in itself had a decent riff attached to it. It was definitely catchy. And it suited the mood too. The best part is, people liked it at the first public outing. Getting approval from close friends and associates is alright but if you get appreciation from a third person, it feels good. It sure did. We also added a B part to the song, you know.. the bit where the song tune deviates into a different section and mood.

We had another couple I think, but they never got around to completion so it got dropped. MJ and I had composed a few combo riffs too. We recorded one or two of those. They'd do great as fillers in a song but we never really made an entire track.

Jam sessions were the highlight of the whole thing. Post dinner, we'd meet up at my place (majority of the time) and go on till 3 or 4 am. We'd start off slow and play some really silly stuff for kicks but once in full flow, we'd practice songs over and over again. It got to a point where MJ, who was half asleep, would time and again fall back on his timing and jump start to the next riff on awakening. Super fun. TJ and I would give him the look and he'd apologise. It was all in jest though. TJ was rusty at the start but at the end of the 4 years I think he'd done pretty damn good. He could'nt jump across an octave but he put in solid efforts. Without RP,PK and MK's backing, things would've been different.

All of us were queasy before a performance, no denying that. But the thrill of performing was something I can't even describe. It's all teamwork that gets you the winning post in the end. And to enjoy getting to that peak is what counts.

Long live ATKT.