Little console-ation

Amarjot Kaur

DJ Dharak laughingly admits to being, probably, the only Patel DJ in Pennsylvania. Chandigarh’s Tamzara made it on his list of six-city tour in India, where he spun Bollywood records on Saturday night.

Dharak has been a resident DJ at several bars and pubs in UK, USA and Australia, and his romance with music was ignited by his passion for dance. With no formal training, at the age of 18, he began teaching dance to his peers when a friend’s birthday party introduced him to the basic DJ console. “I had only one thing in mind, the music mustn’t stop, and I enjoyed it. Also, at that time, I was in Ahmadabad. Indie pop and remix music was in. I’d frequent DJ Akbar Sami and DJ Taral’s gigs just to watch them handle the console. That’s where I learnt much of my deejaying skills too,” says 33-year-old Dharak.

From performing at a little banquet hall for Rs 500 to performing at Melbourne’s Khokolate Bar, where he worked as a bartender, Dharak also belted five series of an album called ‘D Effect’, each featuring at least five songs.

Back in the US, he runs his family business along with a dance studio called Vedanta Dance Academy. “I’d be a hypocrite to say that deejaying can pay the bills. Every DJ has a side-business too. I was recently playing in Kolkata and there were more than 25 female DJs, but only five nightclubs. We don’t have the any nightlife culture here,” he says.

Though Dharak swears by Jumma Chumma and Bachna E Haseeno, the two songs that are always on his set-list, he likes to play retro songs. “Like songs from Kal Ho Na Ho and 90s and early 2000s... that’s the kind of Bollywood music I like and then I fuse it with EDM. So, you wouldn’t know it’s an old song because it’s on a completely new beat. Also, I make my own beats,” he shares.

Dharak also credits his stint at Melbourne’s Khokolate Bar and its DJ Dan for his career in music. “That was the first nightclub I performed at and Dan taught me about mixing tracks. As a DJ, the most challenging part of shifting songs is mixing them. The mixing should be smooth enough for the audience to not realise that the song has changed,” he explains.

In India, too, Dharak finds a supporter in Mumbai’s underground gully rap music scene. “So, the man who organised this entire tour is Spin Doctor, who is a DJ for Divine and Naezy. I feel the underground music scene in India is soaring now. It’s a good time,” he signs off.