Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Tapan Bhatt: A Multi-faceted Man

We were invited to Tapan Bhatt's home for our weekly practice session. With rains finally arriving in Ahmedabad, a round of hot dalwada was what we were greeted and treated with by Tapan and his wife. As we get to interact more and more with the members of the Harmonica Club, we come to know of the various aspects of a member's personality. This time, we got a chance to have a glimpse of Tapan's varied interests - music, computer software, yoga, past life regression, hypnotism, interior design, post construction work, photography, spiritualism...
Tapan, a product of Puttaparthy, provides his services to the police in cracking crime. This he does by hypnotizing the suspects and criminals to make them confess to their crime. He also uses his hypnotizing powers to help mentally challenged children in their studies. It was his desire to perform at the annual function of his alma mater that Tapan picked up harmonica six months ago. My, what a fast learner he is. His only problem is that he has not listened to Hindi film songs.

Purnendu Dave

A lawyer by profession, Purnendu picked up harmonica while studying in college in Kolkata. His brother too had the same passion for the mouth organ and the two formed a small band which performed at college functions and at social gatherings. Soon they gathered more players to form a full-fledged orchestra. The contingency of a busy career made Purnendu give up music. His passion revived when he learned about the Harmonica Club of Gujarat.

We present here a few of the numbers he played recently:

Bansibhai Gajjar


The scion of a well-known business family, Bansibhai lives life kingsize. Passionate about harmonica, Bansibhai would crack any film song he likes, whatever may be the time. Plays the tremelo mouth organ.