The hand that hands out ice cream cones and paper to take print-outs on also plays a guitar and writes lyrics. Swapan Kumar Dey Choudhury, who runs Paradise, an ice cream shop (and till recently, a cyber cafe) in the swimming pool area, has taken his customers by surprise by launching an album on Saturday. Titled Surer Akashe, it features songs composed and written by him.

Choudhury says he had been trained by Hawaiian guitarist Sunil Ganguly and had even done shows with him when he was in his late 20s. In those days, the Technical School of Music in Sealdah had teachers like Ganguly, Batuk Nandi, Manabendra Mukhopadhyay and Debdulal Bandyopadhyay. A tabla player since the age of four, here he also picked up playing the drums, the congo and the electric guitar. “The first show I did was at Laban Hrad Mancha when I was seven months into my course. I did it without telling my teacher as he was opposed to public performances before at least two years of training. I played a couple of popular tunes like Sanam teri kasam and Aap jaisa koi. Listeners carried me back to the stage for more.”

But Choudhury had to give up his ambitions in music due to financial compulsions. “I became known as a shop-keeper.”

A turning point came three decades later. By then, he was a senior citizen. “This February, a former student came from Canada and handed me a guitar. After fiddling with it for a week or so, I realised it was all coming back. So I started writing songs on the backs of used print-outs in between servicing customers and recorded tunes that came to my head on a Rs 800 mobile phone. For five months, I hardly slept as I would work on those songs at night,” he says, sporting a wan smile.  

This effort led to the formation of a band named Katha. Daughter Kalyani was an automatic choice as a vocalist, others joined through word of mouth, through social media and in case of the keyboardist cum vocalist Pulak Mondal, through an advertisement in the newspaper. That route would have occurred naturally to Choudhury, who also is a classified advertisement agent. The songs were mixed and mastered under the baton of music director duo Samik-Debu at a Karunamoyee studio. 

Releasing the album, Upal of the band Chandrabindoo recalled how he came to know Choudhury. “I wanted to learn how to play the guitar. My office was near CF Block. I used to go to the area for snacks. That’s how I heard he is a guitarist.”

Though the album of the five-member band is of songs, the guitar remains Chowdhury’s first love. “Now the Hawaiian guitar is almost dead. But Upal tells me it is making a comeback. When my band does shows, I will play a few tunes on the guitar first,” says the resident of BD Block, who idolises Salil Chowdhury, Pulak Bandyopadhyay and Gauriprasanna Majumdar.