 "Vikram Bhat: the metalhead who managed one of Bengaluru's best known vegetarian restaurants")
When people think of Malleswaram, they think of temples; they think of the old-world chaos of 8th Cross; they think of masala dosa at CTR, and of idlis at Veena Stores. Some even think of Mantri Square, the huge concrete blob that claims to be India’s biggest mall. No one thinks of a metal concert. But it did happen.
1522, a pub in Malleswaram, has patrons whose musical tastes are much like what you would find in most of Bengaluru. They bob their heads to Deep Purple, they air-guitar to Led Zeppelin and they think Pink Floyd is really deep. But last year, on December 12, 1522 had a temporary stage that was cozy even for a three-piece band. Manzer, a French band that was all thunder and storm, gave Malleswaram its first taste of the metal underground. And if for a night, Malleswaram could shrug tradition off its rain tree-lined roads, it had one man to thank — Vikram Bhat.
Bhat, 39, has a physique that would elicit comments of “signs of prosperity”. Never shabbily dressed and with an earnest baby-faced look about him, he will always stand out at a metal concert, which tends to be all black T-shirts and angst. He has the look of a man who would feel just as at ease at the cash counter of an Udupi-style restaurant. And that’s exactly where most Bangaloreans have seen him. For Bhat led a dual life. There is Vikram Bhat, the metalhead and the big daddy of the underground scene in Bengaluru. And there is Vikram Bhat, the man who managed one of Bengaluru’s best known vegetarian restaurants — Ullas Refreshments.
Bhat’s father, Anant Srinivas Bhat, was from Shirali near Bhatkal — a gorgeous enough place, but with little opportunity. The senior Bhat moved to Hubli, where he joined Kamat Restaurant, and later on to Bengaluru. Here he set up Kamat as one of the first popular restaurant chains of the city. In 1976, Kamat Restaurant on MG Road became Ullas Refreshments. For most Bangaloreans of the 1980s and ’90s, a visit to MG Road was never complete without a dosa or a poori on the terrace of Ullas Refreshments. Gazing at the traffic passing by on the road below was usually as important an accompaniment as the excellent chutney or saagu given with the dosa/poori.
At Baldwin’s, Indonesian-born self-taught guitarist Jimmy Palkhivala had formed a band named Misanthrope with three others — Jai Kumar, Daniel David, and Deepak Prasad — over a shared love of Black Sabbath. They all lived within five minutes of one another and none of them planned to take up music as a means of earning his living, because, like Bhat, they were apprentices at places where they seemed predestined to eventually take over. David, for example, was expected to take over the reins from his father, Haskell David, one of India’s top horse trainers.
Misanthrope was not a “college band” as the term is understood by most. They were just a group of friends who would meet often and jam. David used to live in a colonial-era bungalow in Richmond Town and a room in the servant’s quarters was where they would meet after college and their “day jobs” and chill out. “I was two years their junior at Baldwin’s and shared both their musical tastes and lifestyle. So, I started hanging out with them,” says Bhat who initially filled in for an increasingly absent Prasad on vocals, eventually replacing him altogether.
Misanthrope, with its extreme sound, hardly ever got to play live. The first time it did, it had to pull off a con. A music festival at Richmond Park had invited applications from local bands. Every band was expected to give a brief description of its music. Misanthrope applied, describing its music as a heavier version of blues rock. With such a description, they were a shoo-in, and they got a reasonably prime slot. At the show, Bhat growled and snarled through their first song, and the man at the sound console was worried there was something wrong with the mike. Many in the audience were worried about what drugs they were on. By the time they got to their fifth song, the organisers realised that this was not what they had bargained for and disconnected Palkhivala's guitar cable from his amplifier, Misanthrope had given Bengaluru its first death metal show.
Misanthrope changed its name to Dying Embrace, and became a cult favourite in Bengaluru. It disbanded when David decided to move to Kolkata and train horses there, but Bhat and Palkhivala continued with other experiments in extreme metal — both live and in studio. There was Conflicting Theories. There was Gruesome Malady, India's first goregrind act. A Czech label released their album. There were split albums with other extreme metal bands from other parts of the world. Bhat and Palkhivala were no more just darlings of the Bengaluru metal underground, they were being heard all across the world by people who liked such music.
Soon there was burnout. Palkhivala decided that he had enough of playing the guitar. “I respected his decision. We called it a day, and I started putting in all my energies into Ullas,” says Bhat.
Ullas commandeered a much bigger cult than any of Bhat’s bands did. For many people, it was a throwback to an earlier Bengaluru before the era of Darshinis, Café Coffee Days and assorted food courts at malls. Bhat would cut the perfect figure of a genial host, usually behind the cash counter. And no one ever suspected him of the dual life he led.
Most bands that are in it purely for the joy of playing inevitably tend to get back together. And that is what happened to Dying Embrace as well. What was meant to be a one-off reunion gig in 2011 at a fest called Undergrind soon became a full-fledged revival with Bhat and Palkhivala being joined by Deepak Raghu and Pritam D’Souza — new blood and new ideas that led to Dying Embrace writing newer songs.
With Dying Embrace back on track and wanting to play shows with other bands of similar aesthetics, Bhat joined hands with a couple of other old-timers in the Bengaluru scene and started organising the kind of shows with the kind of bands that he wanted to see. Bengaluru was never short of underground metal gigs. But most of those were about “giving bands an opportunity”, “showing solidarity with the scene” et cetera. There was no curation, and unfortunately Sturgeon’s Law (“90 per cent of everything is crap”) meant that one had to endure a lot of ordinary bands alongside the one or two good ones at these gigs.
While Bhat was relishing his role as the frontman of the underground metal scene in Bengaluru, he was concerned about the other lynchpin of his identity — Ullas Refreshments. “Ullas was my father’s legacy, and I did not want to see it slowly fade into mediocrity just because I may not be able to put in as much effort as he did,” says Bhat. He took the call to close the Ullas chapter of his life, and, to borrow a phrase often used for sportsmen, “retire on a high”.
Where Ullas Refreshments’ ice-cream counter used to be is where Bhat continues to operate out of. He runs a record store called Mahatobar, which also serves as the de-facto office for a lot of the administrative work that goes into organising gigs. That is where Bhat sits today, not doling out ice-cream coupons anymore, but plotting which obscure band from where he needs to bring down to shake a place like 1522 in Malleswaram to its roots.
1522, a pub in Malleswaram, has patrons whose musical tastes are much like what you would find in most of Bengaluru. They bob their heads to Deep Purple, they air-guitar to Led Zeppelin and they think Pink Floyd is really deep. But last year, on December 12, 1522 had a temporary stage that was cozy even for a three-piece band. Manzer, a French band that was all thunder and storm, gave Malleswaram its first taste of the metal underground. And if for a night, Malleswaram could shrug tradition off its rain tree-lined roads, it had one man to thank — Vikram Bhat.
Bhat, 39, has a physique that would elicit comments of “signs of prosperity”. Never shabbily dressed and with an earnest baby-faced look about him, he will always stand out at a metal concert, which tends to be all black T-shirts and angst. He has the look of a man who would feel just as at ease at the cash counter of an Udupi-style restaurant. And that’s exactly where most Bangaloreans have seen him. For Bhat led a dual life. There is Vikram Bhat, the metalhead and the big daddy of the underground scene in Bengaluru. And there is Vikram Bhat, the man who managed one of Bengaluru’s best known vegetarian restaurants — Ullas Refreshments.
Bhat’s father, Anant Srinivas Bhat, was from Shirali near Bhatkal — a gorgeous enough place, but with little opportunity. The senior Bhat moved to Hubli, where he joined Kamat Restaurant, and later on to Bengaluru. Here he set up Kamat as one of the first popular restaurant chains of the city. In 1976, Kamat Restaurant on MG Road became Ullas Refreshments. For most Bangaloreans of the 1980s and ’90s, a visit to MG Road was never complete without a dosa or a poori on the terrace of Ullas Refreshments. Gazing at the traffic passing by on the road below was usually as important an accompaniment as the excellent chutney or saagu given with the dosa/poori.
Bhat (left) in his restaurant-owner avatar with Sihi Kahi Chandru, a popular food show host of Kannada television. Photo: Courtesy Pritham D'Souza
At Baldwin’s, Indonesian-born self-taught guitarist Jimmy Palkhivala had formed a band named Misanthrope with three others — Jai Kumar, Daniel David, and Deepak Prasad — over a shared love of Black Sabbath. They all lived within five minutes of one another and none of them planned to take up music as a means of earning his living, because, like Bhat, they were apprentices at places where they seemed predestined to eventually take over. David, for example, was expected to take over the reins from his father, Haskell David, one of India’s top horse trainers.
Misanthrope was not a “college band” as the term is understood by most. They were just a group of friends who would meet often and jam. David used to live in a colonial-era bungalow in Richmond Town and a room in the servant’s quarters was where they would meet after college and their “day jobs” and chill out. “I was two years their junior at Baldwin’s and shared both their musical tastes and lifestyle. So, I started hanging out with them,” says Bhat who initially filled in for an increasingly absent Prasad on vocals, eventually replacing him altogether.
Misanthrope, with its extreme sound, hardly ever got to play live. The first time it did, it had to pull off a con. A music festival at Richmond Park had invited applications from local bands. Every band was expected to give a brief description of its music. Misanthrope applied, describing its music as a heavier version of blues rock. With such a description, they were a shoo-in, and they got a reasonably prime slot. At the show, Bhat growled and snarled through their first song, and the man at the sound console was worried there was something wrong with the mike. Many in the audience were worried about what drugs they were on. By the time they got to their fifth song, the organisers realised that this was not what they had bargained for and disconnected Palkhivala's guitar cable from his amplifier, Misanthrope had given Bengaluru its first death metal show.
Misanthrope changed its name to Dying Embrace, and became a cult favourite in Bengaluru. It disbanded when David decided to move to Kolkata and train horses there, but Bhat and Palkhivala continued with other experiments in extreme metal — both live and in studio. There was Conflicting Theories. There was Gruesome Malady, India's first goregrind act. A Czech label released their album. There were split albums with other extreme metal bands from other parts of the world. Bhat and Palkhivala were no more just darlings of the Bengaluru metal underground, they were being heard all across the world by people who liked such music.
Soon there was burnout. Palkhivala decided that he had enough of playing the guitar. “I respected his decision. We called it a day, and I started putting in all my energies into Ullas,” says Bhat.
Ullas commandeered a much bigger cult than any of Bhat’s bands did. For many people, it was a throwback to an earlier Bengaluru before the era of Darshinis, Café Coffee Days and assorted food courts at malls. Bhat would cut the perfect figure of a genial host, usually behind the cash counter. And no one ever suspected him of the dual life he led.
Most bands that are in it purely for the joy of playing inevitably tend to get back together. And that is what happened to Dying Embrace as well. What was meant to be a one-off reunion gig in 2011 at a fest called Undergrind soon became a full-fledged revival with Bhat and Palkhivala being joined by Deepak Raghu and Pritam D’Souza — new blood and new ideas that led to Dying Embrace writing newer songs.
With Dying Embrace back on track and wanting to play shows with other bands of similar aesthetics, Bhat joined hands with a couple of other old-timers in the Bengaluru scene and started organising the kind of shows with the kind of bands that he wanted to see. Bengaluru was never short of underground metal gigs. But most of those were about “giving bands an opportunity”, “showing solidarity with the scene” et cetera. There was no curation, and unfortunately Sturgeon’s Law (“90 per cent of everything is crap”) meant that one had to endure a lot of ordinary bands alongside the one or two good ones at these gigs.
While Bhat was relishing his role as the frontman of the underground metal scene in Bengaluru, he was concerned about the other lynchpin of his identity — Ullas Refreshments. “Ullas was my father’s legacy, and I did not want to see it slowly fade into mediocrity just because I may not be able to put in as much effort as he did,” says Bhat. He took the call to close the Ullas chapter of his life, and, to borrow a phrase often used for sportsmen, “retire on a high”.
Where Ullas Refreshments’ ice-cream counter used to be is where Bhat continues to operate out of. He runs a record store called Mahatobar, which also serves as the de-facto office for a lot of the administrative work that goes into organising gigs. That is where Bhat sits today, not doling out ice-cream coupons anymore, but plotting which obscure band from where he needs to bring down to shake a place like 1522 in Malleswaram to its roots.