When and how did Gandu Circus come into being?

Neel: All the songs for the film Gandu were created in this room (Neel’s living room in his house on Lake Road) and there were many instances when Q was sitting here with pen and paper while we were jamming on the songs. From the way it was sounding, we knew it had to go live. After my band Five Little Indians (FLI) broke up, I went to Q and said that I still wanted to go live with this. Although I did have a lot of doubts about the kind of commotion that would follow if it went live!

Q: Yes, Neel kept trying to motivate me. He’s a musician, so he likes going live on stage unlike me who is pretty scared of doing that.

Neel: The language is very explicit, brutal and if you get into the second layer of the songs, it raises questions on everything that you’re doing, political connotations and conventions. The ideology of our songs is to make fun of that. Therefore it’s material that agitates people.

But you guys have managed a breakthrough at various festivals in and outside the country…

Neel: Yes, we set ourselves up for a two-man performance and it worked very well at the Escape Festival in Naukuchiatal (Uttarakhand) in May last year, followed by performances in Slovakia.

Q: For us it was an acid test to see if it could really happen. But the way people received the gig at Naukichiatal gave us an enormous boost and we realised that what we were most concerned about — the language — didn’t really matter. Rap is universal and people were reacting to the music in a very visceral, physical way. They were getting the anarchist vibe and they liked it.

Neel: It’s the texture, energy and soul in the music that worked. Many a times, from the melody, intonation and facial expressions, one can vaguely follow what the other person is talking about. There’s a song called Dhoa, which is about intoxication and fun, and the way we perform it, people get into that hippie mode. When we perform Neel chhobi, they get the drift and start reacting to that.

Q: And the visuals that keep rolling in the background are like video installations that are very stylised, using film footage, wall art, letters and images that are symbolic. That helps them connect. We’re going to be in London this summer with the act, and then Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Amsterdam and Berlin, funded by the British Arts Council. It’s planned like a musical event around the film Gandu being screened at various film festivals.

A lot of things come to mind when you call it a ‘circus’...

Neel: We’re calling it a circus because we’re not looking at it as purely a musical gig but a movement. It’s the circus that comes out of the film.The film had its own spin and the music has started its own; so Gandu Circus is the physical manifestation of that.

Q: It’s a performance. Got a lot to do with identity, which is what the film is about also. Gandu was a film made with no intentions or objectives. It was completely bizarre and new, that everyone told us cannot be created. The music was a seed of that and we really enjoyed the liberating feel of what we were doing. It never felt like Neel Adhikari or Q’s stuff but another entity.

We were like jokers putting on a completely different appearance which gave us the feeling of being in a circus. It’s also about not taking ourselves seriously. What we’re trying to do is very serious, it’s political and has extreme leanings. However, we don’t take it seriously. That’s where everything goes wrong. The circus is an idea of fun, spectacle, it’s a performance with music and visuals in it. It’s a complete show.

What does your act comprise?

Q: What’s inspired us majorly are collective bands like the Gorillaz, Asian Dub Foundation and Massive Attack. All this new music with symbolic politics, including the the importance of arts. It’s about the visual and the live act and the music and the way you interact with the audience and the vibe that you’re feeding on that come together to form the Circus vibe.

Neel: The idea was to preach doing what you like doing but you don’t usually do.

How do you define the music you play?

Neel: It’s Bangla rap with an anarchist undertone which makes it very punk. And now there’s electronica after Jiver (Jivraj Singh) joined us. It’s also more about texture and melody than about intricacy. Our music is highly charged. We’re not trying to do Eagles here.

Q: It’s post-modern music, it cannot be classified.

Neel: I can’t imagine ourselves playing to a seated audience at Gyan Manch or GD Birla Sabhagar.

Q: We love the fact that this is all Bangla. If you look around, we’re still stuck in that rock vibe and in the context of international music, Bangla has no place anywhere. Our target was to not get bothered by what would resonate well with the language. We don’t think Bangla would limit your audience and as you can see we’re selling more in Slovakia than in Calcutta!

Was music an easier medium to connect with audiences as the film did not find a proper release?

Q: People often ask me this — whether this was a promotional or publicity drive for the film. We make a film purely for the joy of making a film, same with the music. We don’t know who our audience is and don’t want to classify it either. It’s open to anyone who likes it and overwhelmingly, it’s been the youth. Even though the film hasn’t got a mainstream release (which we didn’t look at either), the vent was for various reasons. The entire idea of Gandu is like that. It’s about ranting and voicing your frustrations. Also, film is a finite medium, so for me the Circus is a continuation of the film. Gandu’s life is over cinematically but as a rapper he can make a second album and do shows.

Neel: The character has sort of moved from the screen to the stage. We had a total of six or seven songs which were from the film and now we’re working on new stuff.

Is there also an intention to shock and provoke with the kind of in-your-face sexuality in your films and music?

Q: Extremism can be in any form. But one thing that we like tickling people with is sexuality because people are ticklish about it. Shock is an important element of my filmmaking and the writing is meant to provoke. But I think people are comforted more than shocked and provoked. The question is about identity and for me identity always boils down to sexual identity.

You’ve hardly performed in Calcutta and your music isn’t available in music stores… How did you manage to build such a large fan base?

Q: I guess they’re relying on the Net and we give away our music for free. For us, it’s not about audience building but getting some information out. We own and protect this kind of information and it is filtered out. There were many options available for us to go mainstream with the music but why should I? Audio censorship will happen and watering down of the content to appeal to a certain audience. It would be a f****** nightmare! The Internet is the most democratic way to do it. We don’t want money. We just want to make the music viable so that we can live peacefully. Our website is called www.overdosejoint.in where you find our music and everything we do.

Neel: It is circulating but it’s underground. And even before the film was out, at one of the Open Mic sessions, a band covered one verse of Horihor they’d heard in the trailer.

Q: I’ve been more interested in the general vibe. Since the time I’ve been trying to make these odd films, people have been telling me it would freak people out, they would throw stones. Not one stone has come our way so far. We’re so repressed that everyone is itching to get out and get into a confrontation with what we really are.

Neel: I know of a schoolgirl and 17 of her friends who put up ‘Tumi hobey balloon ar ami safety pin’, a line from one of the songs, as their status update.

Q: Another day, somebody wrote his own interpretation of Neel chhobi. So people are writing, creating art like doodles, sketches and posters inspired by Gandu. We just want to keep the momentum and see what else comes off it. Our main thing is the live act and the second album. We’d like to go out and perform more, but I’m not sure if anyone can actually approach their col