A member of Divine Rockers in Siliguri. A Telegraph picture

Siliguri, Oct. 6: Their music had Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, founder of Vyakti Vikas Kendra and the Art of Living, tapping his feet. Not only that, at the end of a seven-song performance, the usually reserved spiritual leader had said: ?Very good. You can rock the country.?

The young band seems well on their way to doing just that. Within two months of that performance in Bangalore (on August 9 this year), Divine Rockers have been invited to sing in Mumbai, Goa, Delhi, Calcutta and Siliguri, with ?Guruji?s praises opening a floodgate of requests?.

So get ready for a new music mantra, where devotional songs, whether classical or bhajan-based, are being converted to rock, which is proving to be a quite popular rhythm.

?After a surfeit of pop songs and remixes, the youth are looking for something new and, with audience participation, this kind of music has caught on in Bangalore,? said 17-year-old Suddha Roy, the lead singer and guitarist of the seven-member band.

Not just the youth, but the sceptical older generations too ? after an initial hesitation ? are accepting the new mix of Western music with devotional songs.

?I remember our performance at Christ College on August 20, where we shared the stage with our mentor Sahil Jagtiani?s group. Some elderly people were sitting in the front row and became restless during the first song, which was based on hard rock. They were even thinking of leaving,? said the Class XII student of Sri Ravi Shankar P.U. College.

Then the second, slow-paced song made them settle down. With words from bhajans, senior citizens began to relate to the new kind of music. ?At the end they had even started dancing. I was surprised to see Mr Jagtiani?s grandmother joining them as well,? said Suddha.

The Divine Rockers are performing here tomorrow at Dinabandhu Mancha, and have programmes fixed at Haldibari, Ward 13 Puja pandal (where Mayor Bikash Ghosh is a committee member), Kalchini and Malbazar. With studies in between, the group?s next major show is at Mumbai on Christmas Day and Goa two days later.

Other than Suddha, who is a Siliguri boy now studying in Bangalore, the group has a rhythm guitarist, two flautists, digital drummer and percussionist, dholak and congo players, and keyboard experts.

?Our group also has three back-up vocalists, including an NRI girl from Abu Dhabi who, like the other band members, studies in our college. The idea of forming a band came from Mr Jagtiani, who is a youth teacher at our college. He suggested that we should have a band so that we could participate in college fests,? the teenager said.

In between their repertoire of 20 songs, which includes four English and two pop numbers (the others being in Sanskrit interspersed with rap), the band coordinator speaks about improving individual performance. ?At one time, these people were on the other side like you,? she tells the audience. ?But with a spiritual push, the talent in anyone can come out.?