Rhythms inside and outside: The valet attendant who tunes parking cones to play his favourite beats

Meet Mohan Ramachandran, the valet parking attendant with a hidden musical talent, drumming rhythms on a traffic cone.

Fifty-six-year-old Mohan Ramachandran deftly takes over the steering of a deep blue Audi, swerving the vehicle before parking it neat into an available slot at The Music Academy. He gets a small break as some of his friends take turns to park the vehicles. He then walks to the nearest bright orange traffic safety cone and begins drumming on it. The fingers that had just controlled the steering wheel were playing some delightful rhythmic strokes, imagining the cone to be his mridangam. Mr. Ramachandran may not be schooled in thalams, nadais or layam but he loves music and doesn’t miss an opportunity to play.

The musical talent of Mr. Ramachandran who works as a valet parking attendant came to the fore when musician Prince Rama Varma posted a video of him playing rhythms with the traffic safety cone on YouTube.

“I just love music, be it Carnatic music or film songs. I may not know the name of the song or the thalam. But I enjoy listening to music. I make it a point to listen to at least one song before a concert ends. Listening to various concerts over the years, I just play some beats, with anything that is available with me, be it a parking cone, a plate or the bonnet of a car,” he says.

Born and raised in Chennai, his interest was kindled when he watched the Margazhi Veedhi Bhajans near his residence. For many decades now, he has been working as a driver and much to his joy, he has had the opportunity to drive quite a lot of musical legends from S.P.Balasubramaniam to A.R.Rahman.

Does he have favourites? From Sudha Ragunathan to Lalgudi G.J.R Krishnan, he enjoys the concerts of quite a few musicians. But he says, he holds T.M. Krishna close to his heart. “I think he has taken Carnatic music to the common man like me with his choice of Tamil songs,” he says.

His job is pretty demanding, with some days giving him immense satisfaction and some tension and anxiety too. “But when I feel happy or down, I immediately take to music. It is therapeutic,” he adds.

When the music connoisseurs enjoy Thani Avarthanam inside the auditorium, Mr. Ramachandran and his friends have their own little lovely jamming sessions outside.