Is music beyond age and time?

This week CNBC TV-18's special show Vh1 Club Class presented by Tata Manza interviewed Karl Slym, MD, Tata Motors. Slym is in charge of steering one of the largest automobile manufacturing companies in the country. He has the future and the steering in his hands.

Below is an edited transcript of Karl Slym's interview on CNBC-TV18 Q: What song were you listening to when you drove in? A: That’s an interesting start to the day. I don’t know, we don’t have a radio. Q: Do you know any Bollywood song? A: Not at the moment as far as this morning is concerned, although I have got hooked on a bollywood movie at the moment, it’s an old one; Om Shanti Om. I have now seen it seven times so people are ridiculed on me for watching this movie so many times. Q: You grew up in Dhabi, which has a lot of different influences, you got Roman influences, does that make a difference to the music, the local flavor of the place that you grew up in? A: The whole England especially the time when I was growing up in the 70’s was just a crazy music situation. Bands made it to the scene, made a one hit wonders, they were everywhere. It was not unusual if you look back to that period in time, where people have made one song that was a hit and then they have moved on and that was the end of their career. So it was a great time where you could have such a vibrant mix of music but rarely was it that the same guys making it throughout the entire decade. Q: What was the one song which really stuck your cord when you were growing up? A: Certainly the first song that I ever bought was by Cozy Powell, it was a drumming song, no lyrics, just a drum. But that really got me going and I was playing on the chair with some drum sticks, or on the table with a knife and fork and then eventually that got me into being interested in drums as well. So may be there was some indication of what I was going to like in those days. Also Read: The year the world lost legends and found sensations Q: What about your earlier musical inclination when you started off in school? Did you have a band? A: No I didn’t have a band. I played in a band, it was a marching band so I was walking down the streets playing my drum. That was something people came to see, for sure. Q: What was the very first record that you bought when you were young? A: The first one that I bought was the Cozy Powell. Q: Was it a complete set, was it a record? A: It was just a 45. If I go back to LPs then it was Queen; A Night At The Opera, which is the name of the album and Bohemian Rhapsody, the most famous track of the album. Q: What drew you to “The Queen” as a performing band? A: At that time we didn’t get to see the bands so much, we only got to hear and then Queen came on to the scene and brought entertainment package with them as well. The production of the record, the production of the video, it was just a whole entertainment and the Bohemian Rhapsody was the first song which went for so long, one of the longest tracks. So that was probably the first album that I bought and one that I still play now. Q: Was kind of music did you enjoy back then, I am presuming this is when you were past school and in college and university? A: A bit of a mixture. The Bohemian Rhapsody came out in the 1976-1977. My mother played it on the radio for me on my 14th birthday. So I was still at the end of school then, but it was wild to have a tune played for my birthday on the radio and they even mentioned my name. Q: What song can we start off with, for the time when you first met your wife?

A: I would like it to be Bohemian Rhapsody so that I could have it played for the second time live.