Upal’s solo tryst with folk

Was he leaving Chandrabindoo? Was he going solo? Upal Sengupta stoked the suspense as he opened his solo event, Upalakkhya Folk, with Tagore’s Ekla cholo re last Friday. No doubt it was a part of his script. “I am not going anywhere. Though everybody knows me for Chandrabindoo songs, I grew up with these folk numbers. From Gostho Gopal to Ansuman Roy, Swapan Basu and others — folk singers shaped my musical life.And that’s why I am here, singing their songs,” he said.

His Wild Wild West musical treatment of Bhupen Hazarika’s Dola he dola was one of the stunners of the evening. “Surajit (Mukherjee) and Rudraneel (Chowdhury) did a great job arranging the songs,” he told us. Upal’s music blended perfectly with the conversation that he and Chaiti Mitra, the moderator, had on stage. “Somuda (Soumitra Ray of Bhoomi) will find many faults in my style, I am sure,” joked Upal, to which Soumitra gave a cheery applause. Later, Soumitra and Upal together performed Majhi amare loiya jao with another guest performer, Prabuddha Banerjee, on the ukulele. Sona, who sang with Chandrabindoo on several occasions, presented a Scottish folk song with Prabuddha playing the guitar.

Almost all members of Chandrabindoo were spotted at the do. Anindya Chattopadhyay was seen having a whale of a time with son Juju and wife Madhuja. Introducing the musicians on stage, Upal said, “The tall, weird-looking instrument that Arindam (Chatterjee of Kaya) is playing is an upright bass. Ever since he started playing, our Arup (Poddar, Chandrabindoo’s bassist) has been feeling quite insecure! Every morning I get a crank call from someone who keeps sobbing. I believe that the caller is Arup”, leaving the audience in splits.

Talking about how tense Upal was about the event, Chandril Bhattacharya joked, “That’s his signature. You can’t imagine Upal not taking stress before any show.”

Arindam mesmerised the audience with his unusual instrument — an upright bass — which he has bought from the US. Sougata Chatterjee — a US resident and the sound engineer of the evening — ferried it for him. ‘You don’t get it here. There are not many people who can play this instrument,’ Arindam told us