Ellipsis in Mumbai

You’ll hear them before you see them. But that’s only because Ellipsis — Ashwin Vaswani - lead vocals; Farhad Udwadia - lead guitar; Advay Lulla - rhythm guitar; Sharangdev Mohta - drums and Cyrus Choksey - bass — know how to fill up a performance area with the kind of fat sound that can peel paint off the walls!
Formed in July-August last year (all are in senior school, in the 10th and 11th grades), each of these young rockers used to be in other band before they coalesced into Ellipsis.“Our annual school concert at the Cathedral and John Connon school, which is quite a big event at Cathedral, helped motivate us to start playing together. I wanted to learn the guitar for a really long time, and about two years ago I bought an acoustic and really enjoyed playing it, so it just went on from there.
Also, my cousin has his own band, so watching them perform, helped introduce me to the band aspect of music,” says the entirely self-taught lead axe-man Farhad, as bassman Cyrus adds, “My family's always been into music so as a small child ive been playing the piano and then switched to guitar and then to bass. I grew up with music playing in my house and I’ve always had fun with whatever instrument I’ve played.” Word of the band’s prowess spread when they started playing college gigs and a repeated set at a South Mumbai venue that was so taken by the group’s classic rock repertoire, that they were asked them to keep coming back! Speaking about classic rock, Udwadia adds, “My cousin made me listen to stuff like The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith and The Beatles. I loved it and ever since then I’ve started exploring and listening to more types of music, classic rock being my favorite.” For drummer Sharangdev, classic rock “is one of the most interesting and enjoyed genre of music over the world.
It has a typical style which is quite enthralling. I too am a great fan of classic rock along with metal and progressive rock.” And surely, being in a band must get them a lot of attention from hot chicks? Yes, they all unabashedly agree to that! But they also agree that everything is about maintaining a good balance. “My parents have been very supportive. They’ve always given me time off to practice and they really like the band as well,” says Cyrus while Farhad sagely states, “Obviously studies is more important at this stage in our life. What I do is, I study for a bit and after studying for some time I pick up my guitar and start playing. As a sort of break. It does clash sometimes as practicing does take up a lot of time, but so far we have managed to do pretty well. They rehearse “normally around once or twice a month but when we have a gig coming up about 3-4 times a week,” says Advay Lulla. However, both Ashwin and Advay say that that have been focusing on other venues while continuing to play where they already are playing, but touring is not on the immediate agenda says Farhad. The reason being, as Sharangdev says, is that they aren’t old enough to tour. All in good time!
It’s pretty clear that these dudes are clearly in love with their musical equipment. Sharangdev always liked percussion while Farhad loves the palette of sounds a guitar offers. “I love the fact that you can do so much on a guitar, change the tone, the sound. Theres also so much to learn about it, so many styles and techniques...” he says. Cyrus (who plays the Hofner bass that McCartney uses) however had switched from guitar to bass. “I used to play the guitar then I decided to give the bass a shot so i borrowed a bass from my neighbour and really liked it,” he says. Ashwin, who is trained Indian classical singer, loves the vocal opportunites that classic rock singing offers while Advay cites Slash and Santana as great influences.
The camaraderie is apparent amongst the group, as we wind up the session. They’re all great friends apart from playing together. Let’s hope it always stays that way and here’s to some great music!