Indi music finds its voice

At a particularly depressing time in the last decade, popular Indian music bands would exhort their 'loyal listeners' to buy their albums containing mostly covers and a couple of originals because they were too broke to pay for publicity. This year, a little gambit seems to have put paid to the drought: bands have begun tempering their music with the spice of regional languages.
Audiences are thrilled and can't wait for more bands to junk English and begin rocking in desi bhashas."Bands in Norway and Thailand, which have a good measure of global success, have most of their originals in their languages," says Indian rock aficionado Ashwin Sharma. "So what's the big deal about having a Marathi rock band or a Punjabi metal act?"
English rock came to India in the late 1970s; it was followed in the next decade by an Indianisation, with bands in Hindi and Bengali attracting a huge following. However, these were limited to their geographical areas and couldn't dream of cutting discs in a market where rock was strictly angrezi.
In the past couple of months, bands like Da Saz, Avial, Raghu Dixit and Papon have achieved what their forerunners couldn't: they have released rock music discs which have no trace of English. "And why not?" asks Subir Malik of Parikrama. "In a country of 1.1 billion people, the percentage of people who converse in and understand English is negligible. So if a band wants to make it big commercially but stick to the genre it loves (rock), the only way to do it is to go desi."
Avial, a popular Malayalam rock band, started after all four members had worked in different English bands and found they were going nowhere. Tony John, the band's vocalist, declares in heavily accented Malayalam that they will now stick to Malayalam songs. "Singing in English is a waste of time. So we fused old Malayam folk songs with rock and have performed in many places around the world," he says. The band got a tremendous response at their shows "except in the Gulf where the Malayalis didn't know what was happening to them".
It isn't only Avial. Assamese singer Papon is releasing an album later this year after Jonaki Raati (Moonlit Night) and has sung in Hindi, Urdu, Assamese and Bengali. "Because of internet and globalisation, everything has become world music now. So the best way to articulate your dreams is by singing in your own language. I don't even want to call my music rock although all songs have guitar arrangements," he says.
Lionel Dentan, a Swiss who plays electro for Da Saz says, "Ultimately you have to be proud of your own language. India has an awesome legacy of poetry from Meerabai to Ghalib to Kabir. Urdu is so much more expressive than English, and artists like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan were respected in the West so why not here? This new trend of regional rock is just a revival of Hindustani language and culture. You can't play a qawwali in English, can you?" he asks, rather amused. Da Saz released a disc two weeks ago named Jet Lag that has songs in Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu and Farsi.
Record labels are also jumping aboard the bandwagon and promoting new sounds. Anand Surapur, director of Phat Phish records who introduced Rabbi and released Da Saz and Avial, says, "There is a lot of music available outside Bollywood, and record labels know they can support these new ventures because of new avenues of monetisation such as mobiles and live shows. So this trend is here to stay. Our aim now is to make this niche market part of popular culture."
Luke Kenny, head honcho of Channel V until recently, says that bands have now come into their own. "Today's generation suffers from ADD-Attention Deficit Disorder, so everything new pleases them. These bands have cleverly manipulated internet and mobiles rather than record labels to work for them. The resurgence of regional rock is most welcome," he says. He also puts down ADD as the reason for not showing videos of regional rock bands on TV, saying the current generation is too impatient to watch anything in this era of channel-surfing. But Surapur is openly contemptuous of TV. "TV is run a bunch of idiots who have no idea of music. It's just a business for them so only big stars are given coverage." The fact that this alternative genre of music has done well without much success from television qualifies both views.
However, this new effort will have to stand the test of time, survive the Bollywood explosion and show respectable sales figures to sustain itself in the market, not an easy thing to do. "This resurgence is not a passing fad but is not likely to snowball either, otherwise Avial would've generated a whole slew of Mallu or Tamil bands. Sporadic efforts by similar bands will continue," Kenny asserts.
The bands have already changed their outlook along with niche listeners. "I find it funny when I hear Indian bands singing in English now," Tony, completely unapologetic and with a hint of sarcasm, concludes.
priyanko.sarkar@timesgroup.com