Everyone knows him from MTV. Everyone knows of his fascination with music, obsession with outdoors and inclination towards filling his fingers with more rings than it can hold. Nikhil Chinappa, the popular MTV VJ who loves to DJ was in Mysore to perform at Club Hookah. Our correspondent caught up with the man who has charmed his way into the hearts of both the young and the old with his wicked wit and mild-mannered mischievousness to talk about the kind of music he likes to play, his music movement and about how real his reality show really is.

So Nikhil, how does it feel to be in Mysore?
Good good, I keep coming to Mysore. I have family here and even when I was studying in Bangalore I used to keep visiting Mysore quite often.

What kind of music will you be playing tonight?
I'll play what I’ve always played but I think it will be a new experience for Mysoreans because there isn't too much of a club scene here yet. I say "yet" because I know Coorg is close by and Kodavas generally love to party. So it's only a matter of time before club scene takes off here. But musically yes, it might be a different experience as I am going to be playing electronic music.

Do you do Bollywood remixes?
No, I prefer not to play that. There is nothing wrong with it; it's just a question of preference. Just like how there's nothing wrong with classical music or Jazz. I've grown up on hard rock and heavy metal so it's just a question of preference... and I know its clichéd and boring to say but I generally do respect people with varied music tastes.

You have been with MTV for 10 years now, you feel fatigue yet?
No and apparently neither is the channel. They haven't replaced me with anybody else. Funny thing is that the show that I do, my regular show which is MTV Super Select was launched with me in 1997 and it still rates as one of the top three shows on MTV. So, something is either very right with the show or very wrong with the audience. (Laughs)

So how's MTV Roadies going?
Roadies is doing phenomenally well. In fact last week's episode had the highest ratings that MTV has ever achieved. Actually it was the highest that any music channel has ever received — in the music channel segment. And it seems to be going through the roof. In fact one of the boys in roadies is from Mysore, Nihal.

Though the channel is Music television, there is hardly any music nowadays. Would you agree?
There's actually a lot of music… It's just that it’s not the music that you and I enjoy. So, yes, the channel is doing more reality programming and there's a reason for that. It's because they've always maintained a focus on being a youth - centered channel. As technology has evolved and the tastes of the youth have evolved, so the channel has evolved as well. Then they've got to do reality programming because that’s what the youth of the country are finding good. I mean, just the success of the Roadies is proof.

So how real are these reality shows?
I can’t talk about the other reality shows, but I took part in one of them, Fame X. And they had a different format as well. But the thing with the Roadies is, Raghu and I have a role to choose thirteen people. We’re not choosing the fastest, strongest, most muscular, prettiest or the quickest person for the TV show. We're looking to cast and this is important to remember – it is a casting — we’re looking to cast thirteen people who we think would have interesting dynamics when put together in a space and put under pressure. Once we pick these people, there's no more reality that’s engineered. There is a question of putting them in a space, not letting them sleep, not giving them enough food to eat and saying, one of you guys is going home today. It’s a nightmarish situation to be in and it creates its own reality. So, the situations are engineered, but the reality is not. What you see on the air is only a one hour show. You only see the most interesting bits.

You got angry during one of the auditions. We usually don't associate you with anger. So was that just for the cameras?
Oh! I get angry. No, actually some of it is real. Some of it is done purely to see how the person in front of you is going to react. We're trying to judge based on 45 minutes with each person who sits with us. On television, you see two minutes. So in that 45 minutes that we spend with them, we start by saying, “hi, how are you? What's your favourite food? Do you like Chinese? Even I like Chinese”. So, you get into a friendly situation, and then Raghu from the side will just throw one curve ball to see how this person reacts. Then while they're having a conversation we’ll pick up one silly point, we know it’s a silly point, and then we say “no, you’re wrong”. Again to see how the person reacts. We put them under different situations of stress, relaxation, allowing them to express themselves. “Cause again, it's a casting”.

Tell us about this music movement you've started “Submerge”.
Submerge was born purely out of frustration. Seven years ago, Pearl, my then girlfriend and my wife now used to go out clubbing. Kaliyon ka chaman was the hit song in those days. And wherever you went, they were playing the same song. Every club was playing it. They would play it in the beginning, in the middle, twice in the end and it was getting too much. Some friends of ours had taken up managing a club and since nobody was there on Thursday nights they asked if I wanted to do something, so I said 'yes'. So we started it saying, let's do a night where we can call our own friends and play the music that we enjoy. So the very first night that we did, I played a five and a half hour set for about forty people. In three nights we were up to about five hundred people. Because at that point of time there were enough people in Bombay who were, just like us — sick of Kaliyon ka chaman.

So the movement started from there. It became a place where we started forming some basic rules. No requests were allowed. If we invite a DJ to play at Submerge, we acknowledge that the DJ has some kind of experience. He is of some value, he knows the job. In most clubs big spenders and owners request for songs and two minutes later they say, “what man, you haven’t played it yet?” (Laughs) So it gets very irritating for DJs. And these guys DJ because they’re passionate about the music. Nobody becomes a DJ to earn money. Because, you know there’s no money in it. It’s not a financially rewarding career unless you become one of the best. We also encourage DJs to not use a microphone because a lot of DJs will say, “come on, come on, get up, shake you’re ass!” we want the music to do the talking, instead of you doing the talking.

Submerge annual parties have become very popular now, where do you host it?
Yes. Last year it was called Sunburn and it was in Goa. We do a Submerge annual party every year in Goa on the 20th of December. And it's a party that starts at four in the evening on the beach and goes on till six o’clock in the morning.

So Submerge also promotes upcoming and talented DJs?
The only thing is that it takes time. If someone says, “listen I’m a DJ, I want to become a star day after tomorrow”, it’s not going to happen. And I always give them the example of Nawed who's one of the best DJs in the country now. When we launched Submerge, nobody knew he did the opening slot. And it took him three years to get his first main slot. Now, he’s very popular in the music circuit. You can’t do it overnight.

Do you have any other shows coming up? Are you producing any shows?
I’ve done something very interesting in the Maldives now. I love scuba - diving, so I have some friends there who are scuba - divers and underwater cameramen. So I told MTV, “I want to go there and shoot”, so MTV said fine, take a week off, gave me a budget, some tapes a camera and said go shoot. I shot six episodes of MTV Select. We stayed in a boat, and we basically sailed around the Maldives for one week and stopped at different places and it was just fantastic. It was just four guys, living on a boat, sailing around, scuba - diving and I got some great footage.

How is your wife Pearl doing?
Pearl's well, she's in Bombay. She’s working on her first album — in fact Submerge has tied up with the world’s biggest dance music label, Defect Records. We’re doing our first album together. It’s a twin CD release. It’s coming out at the end of April. It’s a compilation CD.

You’ve been in Mumbai for 10 years now. You still a Bangalore boy?
It's like... (Laughs). In Bombay I watch football games, when Bombay plays Bangalore. Bombay guys ask me, “So who're you supporting?” I say, “what a stupid question, of course I'm supporting Bangalore” (Laughs). Bombay’s where I live, Bangalore’s home.

As a DJ, which city in India would you prefer to live and work in?
Bangalore. No questions asked.

But Bangalore seems to have a lot of issues — every two months there’s a club shutting down, there is ban on dancing and there are time restrictions?
They do have issues, but they’ve also got the most open minded audience for any form of music, whether it's hard rock or hip - hop or jazz or classical music or electronic dance music. It's a fantastic audience to play to because whatever song you’re playing they listen to it before they judge you. As Nikhil Chinappa, I can get away with a lot of stuff because of my MTV image, but in Bangalore I still feel nervous when I play because those guys know their music. You can put two steps wrong and they'll say 'Fine, Nikhil, you look nice on television’, but as a DJ, you're not cutting it.

Where do you see yourself a few years from now?
Hopefully on a boat somewhere. I'm seriously considering of investing on a nice boat (Laughs). Finally as Nikhil was stepping out to perform the inevitable question was asked — Are you interested in Bollywood? To which he says "No I don’t see myself there. Movie - making is boring. It's too slow for me. You go for a shoot in the morning, you put on your make up and then you sit. You sit and sit and wait drinking over-sweet tea until some one calls you for the shot in the afternoon. You finish the shoot in half – an - hour and then you wait again. It's too tedious and I'm not cut out for it."

Finally his message to everyone at Club Hookah was to support the local DJs as he put it "the club may get DJs from China and Paris but please support your local DJ."

After the show Nikhil chatted up with everyone and obliged the clubbers for photographs and as one of the staff asked him what food he preferred, he just looked at the host saying "food, just any food that you guys can serve at this hour." No pomp, nothing fancy, Nikhil Chinappa is pretty much how you see him on TV, a jovial down to earth guy who is funny and smart. Just the kind of guy who helps you kill time.

Courtesy: Star of Mysore

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