A tribute to Indian music directors and artistes down the ages was the idea behind Dil Se, an evening organised by Arko Mukherjee, Rajkumar Sengupta and Debopratim Bakshi of the band Friends of Fusion at The Basement on July 16.

A band in performance at The Basement. Picture by Rashbehari Das

The pub at Hotel Samilton was a full house with a mixed bag of college students, young professionals and even the motley lot of middle-aged couples, tapping their feet to the beats of familiar Hindi and Bengali numbers.

From the likes of SD Burman, Hemant Kumar, RD Burman, Shankar Jaikishan, Salil Chowdhury to the more contemporary Shankar Ehsaan Loy, it was music that everyone could sing along to.

“I have always been mesmerised by artistes like SD Burmanji and Salil Chowdhury saab. So I decided to organise a night like this just to bring back the magic they had created,” says Arko.

He opened the night by belting out two of his favourite numbers Sar jo tera chakraye and Neel akasher neeche, as people gathered closer to the stage.

Satrujit Dasgupta of Catch 22 and Souvik Gupta of Insomnia took over next, singing popular Bollywood songs like Kaisi paheli, Humdum suniyo re, Mustafa Mustafa and Dil se re.

Newcomer Yajnaseni Chatterjee and Krishna Dwaipayan Mukherjee sang Iktara from Wake Up Sid. The band Underground Authority performed A.R. Rahman specials like Rukmani Rukmani and Humma humma, giving them a Western twist with a bit of rapping, Linkin Park-style.

Upcoming city band Colours performed their rendition of tracks like Rock on, Emotional atyachaar and Allah ke bande.

“We have been influenced by Shankar Ehsaan Loy so we mixed our own elements to their composition. It’s our way of paying homage to them,” said Nilanjan Mukherjee and Nabarun Bose of Colours.