'Bangla Rock Compendium' is a multi-part series examining the self-sustaining vernacular and cultural phenomenon of Bangla rock music unfolding in Bengal since the 1970s, and the pioneering ideas and figures that continue to drive the movement.
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For the Bengali bhodrolok, the term ‘Bangla rock’ often evokes macabre images of long-haired, substance-abusing men screaming incomprehensible lyrics into microphones and violently shaking their heads to agonisingly loud music. However, some of the children of the same bhodroloks grew up listening to these "unsavoury" numbers, adopting them as their personal and collective anthems.
But before the term ‘Bangla band’ became the tour de force in Bengali culture since the late ’90s, it identified itself by a simpler moniker — ‘gaan-er group’ (musical group). The first such "group" was Moheener Ghoraguli, formed in 1975. Incidentally, they were also the first Indian band who made original music in a vernacular language.
“We wanted to make something new out of whatever existed then,” says Pradip Chattopadhyay, the band’s bassist and flautist. He quotes a line from their song ‘Ei Shure Bohu Dure’ — "Shob kichu ja ache puronotey (Everything exists in the old)". Referring to the failed Naxalbari uprising of the late 1960s, he says: “At that time, the youth was frustrated after their attempt to remake the world, which was crushed by authorities. Since we couldn’t be vocal politically, we chose music to keep that spirit of resistance alive.”
Their leader, the late Gautam Chattopadhyay, had been actively involved in the Naxalite movement. Naturally, his ideologies strongly influenced their musical philosophy.
Moheen released three EPs — Shongbigno Pakhikul o Kolkata Bishayak (1977), Ajaana Uronto Bostu ba Aw-Oo-Baw (1978) and Drishyomaan Moheener Ghoraguli (1979) — introducing a vastly new sound to an audience that found it difficult to accept a group of young men with guitars, violin, organ and saxophone belt out Bengali songs — that too about the plight of farmers, city life, a post-apocalypse world, UFOs, and death of comrades with an undertone of leftist politics.
Not hesitating to experiment, they forged the first instance of folk fusion in the song ‘Maroon Shondhyalok’ by blending a piano-based ballad with a Bengali folk tune. The otherworldly psychedelic outro of ‘Ajaana Uronto Bostu ba Aw-Oo-Baw’ was also new to Bengali music.
Even though Chattopadhyay envisioned a new cultural scene, Moheen was unable to survive economically and disbanded in 1981. But their songs continued to live on in university campuses, inspiring others. The seed had been planted.
The motives behind doing original music in the native tongue were two-fold — identity and equality. “In the music industry, people only know the names of singers and music directors. The musicians — ‘hands’ as they are called — who play on the songs are not usually credited,” says Gautam Chattopadhyay’s son Gaurab, the drummer of Lakkhichhara. “Baba wanted to change that and make music as a group where everybody is equal.”
While Gautam had graced the throbbing nightlife of Park Street in the late ’60s with his English cover band The Urge, somewhere, the Bengali in him wanted to play music in his native tongue only, and not a foreign one. As a result, Moheen’s songs had traditional cultural elements and affiliation with its land of origin, all strongly asserting their native identity.
Now, one might wonder why this happened in Bengal only and not in any other part of the country?
“Earlier, Bengalis used to sing kobi gaan (songs of poets), then there were the bauls (folk minstrels). Even Rabindranath Tagore took a different vehicle to talk about his feelings. The streak to do something original always existed because in Bengali songs, the words used and the message conveyed is primary,” says Subrata Ghosh of Garer Math, who had a big hand in the resurgence of the band movement in the ’90s.
Parallelly, in a newly independent Bangladesh, assertion of cultural identity was closely tied to nationalism. Music was a tool to unify the war-ravaged population. The most prominent figure of this era was singer-songwriter Azam Khan, who fought in the Liberation War — a culmination of the Bengali Language Movement which protested the imposition of English and Urdu as official languages on (then) East Pakistan.
Formed in 1973, Khan’s band Uccharon performed everywhere from movie halls to neighbourhoods to open air concerts. His songs bore the mark of pain, blood, poverty, misery of the people as well as hope, which the masses related to. Gradually, bands like Souls and Feelings came up later in the decade, giving birth to a robust rock scene that is the biggest stakeholder in Bangladesh's music industry today.
Songs of the liberal, urban youth
Back in West Bengal, however, the scene wasn’t growing much. Inspired by Moheen, a handful of acts like Debojyoti Mishra’s (currently a famed film music director) band Bicycle, Nagar Philomel and Ekka came up in the ’80s.
Interestingly, none of these bands thought of pursuing music professionally. It was simply unthinkable to survive by performing original music back then. So, they usually disbanded within a few years when members enrolled in traditional jobs. Yet, their creations have a sincerity that can only come from pure passion.
While Bicycle produced a full-length album in 1980, Ekka walked a more eccentric path — they performed only thrice in the mid-80s, but all were concept concerts. One was on the theme 'Mahakasher Gaan' (Song of the Universe) held at the Birla Planetarium, whose staff used all their available lights, gimmicks and effects to provide visuals to their music.
But more thought-provoking was the non-verbal theatre production titled Acid Brishtir Pore (After the Acid Rain), where Ekka provided the soundtrack. Talking about the concept, Ekka’s founder Avijit Adhikari says, “When pollution reaches a fatal level, humanity perishes due to acid rain and only trees are left behind. Those trees create new life but they are non-humans. The physical movement, countenance and costumes of the performers all indicated that.”
Nagar Philomel, however, achieved a moderate amount of success with their heavily urban-themed songs. “Primarily, the lyrical themes dealt with different interactions of city dwellers and contemporary social phenomena of that time,” says Gautam Nag, who penned all of their songs.
Their eponymous album, recorded in 1984, gave voice to the age-old Bengali custom of adda sessions at tea shops alongside the economic distress of the working man in ‘Bijoner Chayer Cabin’. Around this time, the sight of a woman in an office was gradually becoming familiar and that found mention in ‘Kajer Meye’.
Musically too, they broke new ground; the peppy title track had a fuzzy psychedelic guitar while the piano-driven ‘Priya Mahanagaree’ was one of the first instances of a Bengali song made in the blues format.
Their only political track, a cover of Harsha’s Dasgupta’s song ‘Neel Nirbashon’, called for taking up arms against the establishment. This only shows Moheen’s indelible influence on bands of that era. From depicting the life of common people and resistance to extraterrestrial exploration and apocalyptic imagery, the thematic legacy continued.
The first signs of the movement
Now, university campuses were the most convenient vehicle for this kind of music to reach masses. Jotugriher Pakhi, a pop band formed by some students from Presidency College, found fame in this manner. Led by music director Pritam and Parthasarathi Bhattacharjee, their songs like ‘Arjun Sen’ and ‘Chena Kon Borsha Teh Mon’ spread by word of mouth in college fests, wherever they performed.
Parellelly, clubs and neighbourhood pujos were also warming up to the thought of hiring Bengali bands for events. So by the early ’90s, bands like Cactus, Abhilasha, Paras Pathar, Hamlin’er Bnashiwala, Infusion and Chandrabindoo were performing sporadically across the city.
Gautam Chattopadhyay, a professional filmmaker then, was also inching back into music with a collective of young people who wanted to play alternative, original material. With funding commissioned for making music videos of Bangla songs, Chattopadhyay produced the seminal album Aabar Bochor Kuri Pore (After Twenty Years) in 1995 under the name Moheener Ghoraguli Sompadito Bangla Gaan — another turning point for the Bengali band movement.
Its crowning jewel was ‘Prithibi’, the iconic song carrying Chattopadhyay’s worded prophecy of human alienation due to technology, and the raw, rocking growl of Krosswindz’ first lineup.
The formula for success lay in the album’s variety. With Neil Mukherjee handling arrangements, a blueprint for numerous sonic possibilities was crafted at the intersection of the East and the West — from acoustic pop tunes, rock and folk fusion to simple singer-songwriter numbers with flamenco elements.
In the three albums that followed — Jhora Shomoyer Gaan (1996), Maya (1997) and Khyapar Gaan (1998) — philosophies on existential life were propagated along with the uncertainties of a post-colonial country. Sincere love songs, expressed indirectly, also found a place.
A primary songwriting force was Garer Math, comprising Subrata Ghosh and Joyjit Lahiri, besides the songs of pioneering singer-songwriter Arunendu Das were also granted a new lease of life. In fact, his song ‘Bhikkhetei Jabo’ was ingeniously treated with electric slide blues on the percussive folk sounds of dubki and khamok.
Alternatively, a Santhali (tribal) song was reinterpreted with a satirical outlook on global capitalism in ‘Bangali Korechhe Bhogobaan’. Chattopadhyay also painted a forlorn picture of war, migration and the refugee crisis on ‘Ei Muhurte’ — an issue that is relevant today, perhaps more than ever before. Anti-war sentiments would also reflect in the songs of Behala Chowrasta, formed by Moheen member Tapesh Bandopadhyay.
This melting pot of ideas that was the collective, bloomed under Chattopadhyay’s watchful eye while the other always gauged the horizon. “In the studio, we used to sit down together and sing like we used to do in Gautam da’s house. The essence is that those songs are easily reproducible and sound like they are being sung next door,” recalls Ghosh, adding that the sense of community made this music so accessible.
Though he passed away in 1999, Chattopadhyay’s vision of a movement lingers on. In a sense, the Sompadito albums created conditions conducive for the explosion of Bangla rock music at the turn of the century. The handful of bands of the ’80s had now transformed into a distinct scene of numerous bands and collectives who were exploring new and diverse musical genres.
The movement had finally begun.
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