I still remember the blue Ibanez guitar.
It belonged to Vikram Chongtham, my friend’s elder brother, and when we were growing up, that was enough to make him something of a legend in our little world. He was older than us, much cooler than us, and seemed to know things about music that we were only beginning to discover, and there was something about watching him with that guitar that made us look at him with the particular mixture of admiration and envy that younger boys reserve for someone who seems to have arrived at a place they are still trying to find.
The guitar, bought from abroad, seemed almost impossibly exotic to us, not simply an instrument but a doorway into a world of music and possibility that seemed to belong to Vikram long before it belonged to us.
I am sure he played many other guitars over the years, perhaps ones far more beautiful or important to his musical journey, but memory does not always preserve what was most important to a person; sometimes it preserves what was most important to those who were watching.
And then there was Joe Satriani.
Vikram introduced us to Always With Me, Always With You, and many more bands and songs followed. More than that, he actually showed us how to play it, and for a bunch of younger boys watching an older brother who seemed to possess this almost magical understanding of music, it was quite something to see him play and then try to follow, until, for one brief and glorious moment, we could make it look as though we could play Joe Satriani too.
Alas.
But that was the joy of it—the music, the guitar, the discovery, and the slightly ridiculous confidence of young boys who had been shown something by someone they admired and suddenly believed they could do it too. Perhaps Vikram never knew what those moments meant to us; perhaps, for him, it was simply music he loved and something he was happy to share.
Over the years, Vikram became much more than the elder brother we had grown up admiring. There were bands, performances and accomplishments, and his musicianship took him well beyond that small world in which we had first known him, yet somehow he remained the same quiet person in my memory, never loud and never someone who needed to show off, even though he demanded much of himself and held his music to a high standard.
And as the years passed, life took its own course. His music took him in different directions, while those of us who had once watched him from the corner of a room moved along our own roads. We did not see each other as often, but some people remain familiar even when life places a distance between them.
Then came the news that Vikram was gone.
The first thought was not of the musician he had become, nor of the bands, performances or accomplishments that followed those early days.
It was the older brother who seemed to know something about music that the rest of us had yet to discover, the musician we were eager to watch, and the person who, without perhaps ever intending to, opened a world of music to a bunch of young boys.
And it was the blue Ibanez.
There is a particular privilege in having known someone before the world knew them.
Before the stages, the bands and the recognition, there was simply a brother, someone we looked up to, someone whose music made us curious, whose guitar made us envious, and whose playing made us stop whatever we were doing and listen.
Perhaps that is what I remember most—not only the musician Vikram became, but the world of music he opened to us when we were young, when a blue guitar and a song by Joe Satriani could make an afternoon feel like we had discovered something extraordinary.
Vikram left that memory with us.
So, Vikram, wherever you are, fly well.
Sam Khumanthem writes about home, identity, and the quiet complexities of life in Manipur. His work reflects a deep connection to place, shaped by both love and uncertainty.
