Diwali Pahat now a heady confluence of silken sitars and guitars

Ten Diwali dawns ago, when there was more hair on Sagar Joshi's head than on his chin, his group of fellow goatee-sporting, kurta-and-denim-pairing college buddies had confused a bunch of cops, fire brigade officials, municipal workers, ajjis, kakas and pigeons among thousands of other early birds at Thane's clogged artery, Ram Maruti Road.

- Sharmila Ganesan

After reassuring those in uniform that they were neither angry nor stoned, the five Marathi teens had proceeded to turn a sunlit 7 am town square into a strobe-lit 9 pm moshpit, unleashing 90 metallic minutes of improvised Marathi bhajans, folk numbers and anthems with their guttural guitars on ears that expected raag Bhoop and Yaman Kalyan to flow from silken sitars.

Then, minutes before the stage right opposite theirs could fill up with tablas, harmonium, octopad, synthesizers, "9-to-5 musicians" and other inhabitants typical to that morning's canvas, Joshi's rock band 'Moksh' wound up, almost disappointing a few Kolhapuri-chappal-sporters in the crowd. "They told us they were bracing for a fun jugalbandi," says Joshi, recalling the crackling day in 2012 when Moksh made its mildly-shocking, self-orchestrated debut at a 'Diwali Pahat'.