Meet Arjun Vagale.
Text, photographs, video: Hitesh Harisinghani/Rediff.com

Non-techno junkies may not know this but Arjun Vagale is the pioneer of techno in India.

Vagale doesn’t really believe in publicity.

The 39-year-old, however, did make the time to drop by at the BUDx: The Electronic Music Lab event held in Delhi last week.

A special session featuring Vagale was hosted by journalist Kenneth Lobo, who started the conversation by saying both of them were children of the 1980s.

“I'm old,” grinned Vagale, “but I still look young, man.”

Vagale says he’s a vagabond at heart. “I’ve been travelling all my life. In fact, I just landed an hour ago. My brother, Nakul, and I have changed around nine schools in 12 years. My dad worked in botel industry so I have lived all over… in Delhi, Mangaluru, Bangaluru, Agra, etc.

In the video below, he recalls a funny anecdote made him realise he was well and truly bitten by the music bug.

Luck and hard work, he believes, are important partners on the road to success, but one is more important than the other.

“You have to be at the right place at the right time doing the right thing. Luck is important, but hard work is extremely important. If you want something bad enough, you will get it no matter what.”

His mantra today is “quality over quantity. Do the things you like. Don’t have a herd mentality. Somebody's cool today, tomorrow they may not be.”

He’s quite enjoying the current underground music scenario, “I’m very happy with it. Imagine, we are doing warehouse parties like this one! It’s incredible.”