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| Members of the band Paras Pathar receive the golden disc award from Sourav Ganguly after their album sales cross the one-lakh mark and (below) the band Great Bear, circa 1969 |
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I was told that around 250 bands had entered the competition billed as Band-e Mataram, which can be followed on one of the television channels. A few years ago, I judged a competition, live, at Nazrul Mancha in which eight Bangla rock bands competed, shortlisted from about three times as many. Only two of these bands were Calcutta-based, the rest were from small towns around Bengal.
There were many original pieces performed by the bands that day and I was struck by their creativity. At their best, they had witty lyrics with typically Bengali humour, catchy melodies, good arrangements and various styles ? soft rock ballads, country, heavy metal ? were authentically presented.
It is a pyramid with a broad base. Young people all over Bengal are getting involved with music. The people at the top of the pyramid who have tasted success ? bands such as Bhoomi, Fossils, Chandrabindoo, Parash Pathar, Cactus, Lakkhichhara, Kaya and Kalpurush ? have tasted it in no small measure; album sales have crossed the one-lakh mark, international venues have witnessed their performances and with sustained commitment and creative drive, there is promise of more to come. Small wonder that every other day there are new kids on the block.
Bangladeshi bands were the first to conceive the idea that Bengali bands could be written within the rock idiom and as early as the Seventies, bands across the border were forming and creating songs and delivering them using drum beats (no octopads then), electric guitars, bass guitars and keyboards. Their sound, chord structures and arrangements were influenced by the work of international rock legends like Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles and The Doors among others.
There were, of course, very strong elements of their own artistic and cultural heritage represented in their work and the amalgam was Bangla rock.
In Calcutta, Gautam Chattopadhyay’s band Mohiner Ghoraguli were pioneers of sorts but there was no movement. They were the lone rangers and also their work was not as obviously rock influenced; there were touches, and it was never heavy. The early Nineties saw the serious arrival of Bangla rock in Bengal and there has been no looking back since then. The movement has spread everywhere.
This side of the border, too, the legends of British and American rock have had a strong influence. Closer home, the influences on these bands have been the works of Rabindranath Tagore, Salil Chowdhury, Sudhin Dasgupta, Satyajit Ray, Mohiner Ghoraguli and others. In fact, Tagore himself used western melodies and the concepts of harmony and counterpoint.
The folk music of Bengal has also figured prominently, but on stage they look, sound and feel like rock bands particularly as the instrumentation is always one or two electric guitars, drums (or octopads), bass guitars, keyboards and usually some percussion. Some line-ups will have instruments like flute and violins as well.
A most interesting feature is that, because an appreciation of western rock has played a big part in this movement, many of the musicians are completely bilingual. Two members of Hip Pocket, the band in which I play, are also in Parash Pathar which is enjoying a resurgence after a short period of less activity.
Soumitra Roy of Bhoomi played a lot of English rock before Bhoomi was formed and in a recent competition I judged, the standard of English rock was exceptionally high, and each band had a distinct, convincing musical identity. Yet, there were several musicians among them who were also playing Bengali rock. One of them, a talented young dreamer, is singing in Bengali, English and Spanish.
Sometimes people ask me how come I don’t play Bengali rock? I would be glad to, if someone wrote a Bangla song in a rock idiom where I could contribute meaningfully, I would surely play. I have, in fact, jammed with Cactus and in the Eighties I played in a band backing up Sabita and Antara Chowdhury, wife and daughter of the late Salil Chowdhury. His son Sanjoy was on keyboards, but that was not a rock band really.
What is personally very heartening, though, is that the music I have played all my life has acquired a new meaning. In the late Sixties when, in a band called Great Bear, and in the Seventies in High, when we were playing the music of Hendrix, Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, apart from our original work, we had a good audience, but it could have remained a coterie relationship between artistes and audience
With Bangla rock spreading its roots, young musicians are singing about their own lives, loves and aspirations, but they have pictures of Hendrix on the wall just as we did. And closer home, people like Lew Hilt, Amyt Dutta, myself and others have created some sort of a benchmark. One feels that one has contributed indirectly, and that gives more value to our art.
A gut feeling also is that Bangla and English rock will co-exist, though of course in a different ratio. Hopefully there will be still more give-and-take and new directions to discover, and that young people in this part of the world will continue to dream about music instead of politics.