ISSN 2277-9426 Journal of Bengali Studiesdocshare04.docshare.tips/files/26438/264383653.pdf · ISSN...

ISSN 2277-9426

Journal of Bengali StudiesVol. 4, No. 1

Bengali Music: Bengalis and Music

Buddhapurnima, 20 Boishakh 1422 Summer Issue, 4 May 2015

Journal of Bengali Studies (ISSN 2277-9426) Vol.4, No.1

Published on the occasion of Buddhapurnima, 20 Boishakh 1422, 4 May 2015

The theme of this issue is Bengali Music: Bengalis and Music

ISSN: 2277-9426

Journal of Bengali StudiesVol. 4, No. 1

4 May 2015

Buddhapurnima, 20 Boishakh 1422

Summer Issue

Bengali Music: Bengalis and Music

Editor: Tamal Dasgupta

The commentary, article, review and workshop copyrightsindividual contributors, while the

Journal of Bengali Studies holds the publishing right for re-publishing the contents of the journal

in future in any format, as per our terms and conditions and submission guidelines.

EditorialTamal Dasgupta. Cover designTamal Dasgupta. Further, Journal of Bengali Studies

is an open access, free for all e-journal and we promise to go by an Open Access Policy for

readers, students, researchers and organizations as long as it remains for non-commercial

purpose. However, any act of reproduction or redistribution (in any format) of this journal, or

any part thereof, for commercial purpose and/or paid subscription must accompany prior

written permission from the Editor, Journal of Bengali Studies. For any queries, please contact:

[email protected] and [email protected]

For details about our Editorial Team, general policies and publication details, please see our

website http://bengalistudies.blogspot.com and www.bengalistudies.com

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Contents

Editorial 7

Article

From Songs of Innocence to Songs of Experience: The Trajectory of Bengali Popular Music from

1980s to the Present

Tamal Dasgupta 10

Indic Philosophy in Bengali Religious Songs

Somnath Sarkar 42

Hindu Reformism and the Comic Songs of Dwijendralal Roy in Colonial Bengal

Ayon Halder 52

Searching for Moner Manush (Man of Heart): Bauls of Bengal and Fakir Lalon Shah

Anirban Mondal 58

Music, Devotion and Religion: A Case Study of Charyapad

Dhananjay Garai 66

Kirtan of Bengal: An Enriched Tradition

Sayantan Thakur 73

4|Journal of Bengali Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1

Sarala Debi Chaudhurani, the Singer and Composer: An Unexploited Potential

Shrubabati Chakrabarty 87

Review

Father and Son: The Bengali Dynasty in Bombay

Mousumi Biswas Dasgupta 100

Workshop

Our Lost Friend: A Story

Amit Shankar Saha 104

Commentary

Bishnupur Gharana: The Bengali School of Classical Music

Nachiketa Bandyopadhyay 110

Footfalls of Yesteryears: A Brief Overview of Modern Bengali Songs

Gautam Sengupta 119

Disclaimer:

The contents, views and opinions occurring in the contributions are solely the responsibilities of

the respective contributors and the editorial board of Journal of Bengali Studies does not have

any responsibility in this regard.

The image/s appearing in the Journal are parts of a critical project, not for any commercial use.

Image/s are either provided by the authors/designers from their personal collections and /or are

copyright free to the best of knowledge & belief of the editorial board.

Journal of Bengali Studies is a double blind peer-reviewed online journal published since 2012.

For the previous issues please visit http://bengalistudies.blogspot.com and

www.bengalistudies.com

We have previously published six issues on the following themes, and all of them are available

online:

Ognijug (Vol.1, No.1)

Bengali Cinema: Bengalis and Cinema (Vol.1, No.2)

Bengali Theatre: Bengalis and Theatre (Vol.2, No.1)

Science and Technology in History: Modern Bengali Perspectives (Vol.2, No.2)

Literature and Movements: Bengali Crossroads (Vol.3, No.1)

Kolkata (Vol.3, No.2)

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Editorial

Narrating a saga of Bengalis and music will not be limited to Bengal alone. Bengalis have dominated

Bollywood in more than one field, and music is one crucial area which bears a signature of Bengali

dominance. Classical Sanskrit aesthetics (Bharata's Natyashastra for example) corroborate the

existence of distinct eastern/Goudiya styles and schools of music and dance. In Caryapada (chorjapod),

there is a famous mention of a performance of Buddha play (Buddha nataka) with the

accompaniment of songs and dance. The following informations are provided by Nirharranjan Ray in

his Bangalir Itihash Adiporbo (637 -643).

The Chorjas were supposed to be sung as each of them was assigned a specific raag. We

find Goudiya and Bongaal raag among others in the the list of the raags.

Gitgobindo of Joydeb was sung with eleven different raags and five taals.

Lochon Pandit's Raagtarangini is an ancient treatise on music from Bengal. Lochon was a

contemporary of King Bollal Sen. Lochon mentions a still earlier (but lost) treatise on

Bengali music called Tumburu nataka from which he quotes at length; it seems that the

Shakto performative tradition which later flourished as Agomoni songs had its origin in

the specific form of song and dance called Tumburu.

Further, We find twenty eight raags and seven taals in Bodu Chondidas's

Shrikrishnokirton.

During the middle ages, the rise of Gouriyo Boishnob movement made exhaustive use of music in

order to propagate the message of Gour and Nitai. Choitonyo himself is reputed to have authored

Jagannatha Ashtakam, a beautiful song in Sanskrit in praise of Lord Jagannath.

Coming to this issue of JBS, we hope that we have been able to do justice to the breathtaking

scope of Bengali music. My article looks at contemporary scenario of Bengali songs from 1980s

onwards, and tries to map a trajectory of the evolution of our songs during this period. Somnath

Sarkar's article discusses about the role of various indigenous religious philosophies in Bengali songs,

and his observations on Ramprasad Sen's devotional songs display an excellent research, which he

explores while investigating many other types of religious music, from Caryapada to Tagore's Brahmo


songs. Ayon Halder in his article has offered a fresh approach to the comic songs of D L Roy. Anirban

Mondal's article delves deep into the esoteric, secret philosophy of Baul, derived from Vajrayana

Buddhism, and elaborates Lalon's project of religious synthesis in that context. Lalon's songs are

iconic, they have a rich philosophy, and they bear testimony to the rich tradition of Baul music of

Bengal. Dhananjay Garai explores the relation between musical and devotional features of Caryapada,

and Sayantan Thakur's article explores the nuances of Kirtan, Bengal's own form of music which is

now internationally acclaimed. Shrubabati Chakrabarty's article provides us with a musical biography

of Sarala Debi Chaudhurani.

Mousumi Biswas Dasgupta's review of two biographies of S.D. Burman and R.D. Burman adds

an interesting dimension to our issue, since Bengali domination of Bollywood is an important chapter

in the history of Bengali music, as we noted in the beginning.

A story of Amit Shankar Saha has adorned this issue. It speaks of an eccentric Bengali who

loved music in his own way. Indeed, when it comes to Bengalis and music, we all have our own stories

of such eccentric people who kept the flame burning, and who constitute a faceless, forgotten

multitude. No study of Bengali music can be complete without a reference to such obscure music

lovers. The editor remembers having seen in his student days an eccentric fellow who used to sing

Tagore songs at the Nandan-RabindraSadan complex. He was a peripatetic singer, and he did not show

any fatigue even after hours of full-throated singing. I did not know (very few perhaps knew) his full

name, his surname was probably Mukherjee. He was nothing short of an urban legend.

Nachiketa Bandyopadhyay has offered a commentary on Bishnupur Gharana of music, which is

Bengal's own traditional school of classical music. Goutam Sengupta's commentary brings up the

important question of a lack of established musicography in Bengal, which leaves us at the mercy of

memory, and Sengupta's commentary is a journey down the memory lane, where he speaks of Bangla

adhunik gaan from 1930s onwards.

Journal of Bengali Studies has remained committed to the project of developing an

interdisciplinary Bengali nationalist discourse in academia since we started publishing in 2012, and

this seventh issue of JBS, which we believe like our previous issues will be a collector's item, once

more renews that pledge.


The editorial board (and the contributors) can be reached at [email protected] and

[email protected]. Readers of JBS can find updates and call for papers for the forthcoming

issues, and post comments and responses at http://bengalistudies.blogspot.in/. Also, JBS can be

accessed at at www.bengalistudies.com .

I would like to acknowledge my debt to Mousumi for helping in the editorial work. Thanks are

also due to Raina and Raibatak for having helped in editorial work. This issue on the theme of Bengalis

and Music could not be completed in time without the cooperation from my seven month old baby boy

Tonmatro, who always liked to watch me working on my laptop, typing on the keyboard. He allowed

me to work uninterruptedly as he watched on with a curious smile and also sometimes patted me

encouragingly.

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From Songs of Innocence to Songs of Experience: The

Trajectory of Bengali Popular Music from 1980s to the Present

Tamal Dasgupta

Abstract: This article maps the journey of Bengali music from the 1980s, and divides our songs from this period

into three main categories, and they are named (somewhat playfully) songs of innocence, songs of transition, and

songs of experience. The first phase is identified with 1980s, the second with 1990s and the third phase is

identified with 2000s and 2010s.

Keywords: Bengali Modern Songs, Bengali Film Music, Music Industry, Evolution of Bengali Music,

Moheener Ghoraguli, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey, Pulak Bandyopadhyay, Bappi Lahiri, R D Burman, Amit

Kumar, Kumar Sanu, Suman Chattopadhyay, Kabir Suman, Nachiketa Chakraborty, Jibonmukhi Bangla Gaan,

Anjan Dutt, Shilajit, Chandrabindoo, Fossils, Chandril Bhattacharya, Anindya Chattopadhyay, Upal Sengupta,

Rupam Islam, Anupam Roy.

Written language cannot ever do sufficient justice to a performative art like music, a fact that

ominously hovers over this academic exercise in the very beginning. Diptiprakash Majumdar in the

preface to his Hajar Bochhorer Bangla Gaan, an eclectic collection of Bengali songs with notations

from chorjapod to Bankim's Vande Mataram, observes that the (330 pages long) book is a product of

32 years of live performances by a number of musicians, singers, researchers. That overwhelms us with

the mammoth scope of music, and makes us aware of the painful insufficiency of our available format

of academic analysis to live up to this art form, which thrives on performance, and not theory.

However, that insufficiency notwithstanding, we need to undertake this musicological journey in order

to produce a brief outline of Bengali songs from the 1980s to the present.

The main proposition of this article is this: we can categorise Bengali popular music from 1980s

till date into three broad parts. First category would be what we (playfully) call the songs of innocence.

They are not products of an 'innocent' music industry, in fact the truth is far from that. But their lyrics


have a pretence of innocence. They are mostly the romantic songs, penned by the likes of Pulak

Bandyopadhyay, and melodiously sung by singers like Kishore Kumar (Manna Dey, who falls within

this category, was relatively inactive during 1980s, and only re-emerged during 1990s, in a re-forged

partnership with Pulak Bandyopadhyay). Film and non-film songs of Kumar Sanu and Amit Kumar

would also feature in this segment. R D Burman and Bappi Lahiri were two great music composers of

this phase, both were based in Bombay. Further, these songs had a format of collaboration, and the

lyricist, composer, singer (three separate figures) came together under the aegis of the film producer in

this process. They were mainly film songs, and even when a singer did an album of non-film songs, the

combination and ambience (including the lyric and composition) that produced film music got

replicated. One last point about them is that they bore testimony to a domination of Bollywood over

Bengali music industry. These singers we have just named, though they were Bengali, were all based in

the Hindi film industry. Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, who was based in Kolkata (albeit his stint in

Bollywood as Hemant Kumar during 1950s and 1960s) was largely a spent force throughout the 1980s,

before he breathed his last in 1989.

Then, the songs of transition. They still attempt to carry that romantic project (not so much in its

innocence as in its rebellion), are now infused with an angst, and a modernist (somewhat frustrated)

hope for transformation, betraying often a political zeal. They came in the immediate aftermath of the

fall of socialism in eastern Europe and fall of the Soviet, when the left-leaning bhadralok was

desperately searching for anchorage. Such songs also become increasingly self-conscious as music, as

they emerge in a period when film music suffered a terminal decline in Bengal. They nonetheless try to

form a community with other art forms, a fact that distinguishes them from that sense of super-

specialisation and commercial reification of music which characterised the songs of the previous phase.

Songs of Suman, Nachiketa, Anjan Dutt fall into this category of transition. Anjan, however, was least

politically zealous among this trio, he could be said to be the first to welcome the rise of Bangla Bands.

Both Suman and Nachiketa have been close to different political formations at different points

of time, but Anjan's separation from them is a significant factor, and he can be said to have formed a

metatransitional phase within the songs of transition. He is in fact least convinced of political projects

of change, and that betrays a postmodern non-commitment. Another important feature of these songs is

that they are close to colloquial speech, unlike the songs of innocence, which very often used a flowery

language. Indeed, the language of the songs of Shilajit, which comes into this category of transition


have been close to colloquial speech with a vengeance. His Ghum Peyeche Bari Ja was a number that

expressed anger at the diminishing prospect of a red morning (which means revolution), and asked the

communist rulers (without directly taking their name) to go home as they are sleepy (Ghum Peyeche

Bari Ja). This was a vulgar and robust colloquialism, and this song became immensely popular.

Suman has collaborated with Anjan and Nachiketa at different points of his career. Left: an album made of live recording of

Suman and Nachiketa together. Centre: an album of Suman (now Kabir) and Anjan together. Right: Suman and Anjan

together in a live performance

Finally, what we (playfully again) call the songs of experience: they come with a postmodern

(non)sensibility, with a project of decentring. Though they sometimes show a romantic nostalgia, and

though they very often display an angst that emanates from a trapped existence, they do not hope for a

redemption, or a possibility of turnaround and recovery. Songs of experience are sung by Bangla Bands

like Fossils and Chandrabindoo. Singer-lyricist-composer Anupam Roy's works also come within this

category. In fact, just the way Romantics were followed by Decadents in continental Europe in

nineteenth century, in Bengali music, the long held dominion of a romantic sensibility (largely Tagore's

creation, it did not exist in Kobigaan for example) finally gave way to a fractured, blas

(non)subjectivity depicted in these songs of experience.

Numerous other figures, singing sensations, popular musical formations and Bangla Bands have

existed during this period, but this article will not deal with all of them, mostly because either their

main characteristics are covered in our discussion, or because they often do not appear at the precise


Left: first album of Moheener Ghoraguli, 1977. Right: Comeback of Moheener Ghoraguli in 1995

junctions in the route of the trajectory we are mapping. Take for example the Bangla band Moheener

Ghoraguli. Speaking of their time, they came much before the rise of Bangla Bands, much before even

the emergence of Suman, and physically belonged to the late 1970s, only to re-emerge in mid-1990s.

But a close investigation of Moheener Ghoraguli's lyrics will show that they belonged more to the

category of songs of transition, their lyrics brimmed with some hopes for transformation or

remembered those times too well when such transformations were possible, and unlike Chandrabindoo

and Fossils did not have any project of decentring the subject of their songs. Another such time wrap

would be Bhoomi. This Bangla band often betrays traits which are romantic, and their oeuvres can be

categorised into songs of innocence. The resurgent film industry of Bengal in the new millennium has

produced lyrics which are either superficially (or substantially) aligned with what we call the songs of

experience, or are throwbacks of the previous phases.

Lastly, there is an obvious temptation to note that there is a broad decade-wise partition which

corresponds with these three categories of Bengali music, as one phase is followed by the next: the first

phase belonged to the 1980s, the second phase to the 1990s and the third phase to the 2000s and 2010s.

This is just a broad correspondence. Songs of innocence continued to be produced throughout 1990s

and 2000s (Manna Dey, Kumar Sanu, Amit Kumar continued to sing, for example) though the prime

time was over by all means before the 1990s dawned in. Bangla Bands started emerging in the late

1990s, but they really happened big time after 2000. Suman-Nachiketa-Anjan continued to make songs

well into 2000s, but their prime time was already over by 2000.


The unfortunate absence of any discussion on women (who have made it to popular Bengali

music) in this article is apologised, and is attributable to the general male bias of the music industry.

How many women composers or lyricists have been there, if we ask, we shall realise the lopsidedness

of the situation, which in turn accounts for the lopsidedness of this article.

Manna Dey and Pulak Bandyopadhyay

Throughout the 1980s, until his demise in 1987, Kishore Kumar continued to deliver a number

of popular songs, and was the strongest pillar of support to the Bengali music industry, film and non-

film alike. Pulak Bandyopadhyay recollects many episodes from this period in his memoir, where

Kishore recorded numerous hit film songs (159-168). Pulak Bandyopadhyay speaks of these songs, the

tunes for most of which were composed by Ajay Das:

Pulak Bandyopadhyay with Kishore Kumar


Kishore Kumar in a live performance with Amit Kumar (left image) and Bappi Lahiri (image on right)

1. Hoyto Aamaake Karo Mone Nei

2. Aaj Milon Tithir Purnima Chaand

3. Ei To Eshechi Aami, Tomar Dadamoni

4. Onek Jomaano Byatha Bedona, Ki Kore Gaan Holo Jani Na

5. Aami Je Ke Tomar

6. Opaare Thaakbo Aami, Tumi Roibe Epaare

7. Aamaar E Kontho Bhore, Baaje Go Je Shur Baahaar

8. Mukhete Bolle Tumi Je Kotha

9. Chirodini Tumi Je Aamaar

10. Dujonaate Lekha Gaan, Bhenge Gaelo Bhul Shure

11. Bhalobasha Chara Aar Aache Ki

12. Notobor Nagor Tumi

13. Aamay Phuler Baagaan Diye Niye Jeo Na

14. Aamaroto Shaadh Chilo, Aasha Chhilo Mone

15. Bohu Dur Theke E Kotha

16. Tomaar Baarir Shaamne Diye Aamaar Moronjatra Jedin Jaabe

Pulak Bandyopadhyay speaks of each of these songs as an embedded memory, as an event, its

recording and subsequent popular reception, but without mentioning their year of release, and without

ordering them according to their time of release. Some of these songs belong to late 1970s, but most of

them hail from the 1980s.


Arguably the most popular Bengali singer India ever witnessed till now is Kishore Kumar. We

can agree that his voice and his style had a spontaneity (that's the main proposition of Derek Bose's

study); Kishore's genius (for the absence of any other term) was unrestrained by grammar and training.

Cinema finds it easier to subject its music to the expediency of script, commerce and, star system when

it can have an impressive arsenal like Kishore. Just like capitalist modernity wants its human subjects

to be autonomous, self-fashioning individuals who are uprooted from tradition and able to cope up with

the challenges of the modern times, cinema has wanted the same from its music.

But for the same reason, music in modern age largely ceases to exist as a separate sphere

independent of the socio-economic circumstances, subject to the iron rules of gharana, tradition and

classical norms alone, which related to an aristocratic world order, and which thrived on patronage. As

classical music gave way to popular music, as music commerce thrived, as new entertainment

innovations like gramophone and talkies arrived, Bengalis increasingly started dominating the scenario

in Bollywood as well as in Kolkata.

Classical music has always been submissive to the elites. Interestingly, the modern period is no

different. Ajoy Chakraborty's book Shrutinandan (he runs an eponymous music school) is a testimony

to his closeness to Jyoti Basu (whose letter of praise, following his visit to Chakraborty's music school

is proudly reproduced in the book), and to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Basu's main lieutenant and later

Bengal's Chief Minister (whose numerous gestures of patronage are gratefully acknowledged).

Chakraborty, after the regime change is heard to have formed closeness with the new party in power, a

proof of which is that the artist has been generously awarded by Mamata Banerjee in recent years. This

is by no means a commentary on any supposed expediency on the part of the said artist, or for that

matter the ubiquitously politicised ambiance in which Bengalis have to breathe, but should be viewed

as the genetic inability of classical music to exist without patronage. Not meant for popular

consumption, classical music has to rely on elites. Derek Bose's study of Kishore Kumar on the other

hand mentions an episode where Kishore flatly refused Sanjay Gandhi's request to sing at a function

organised by the latter. This is where capitalism wins over feudalism, and popular music gains an upper

score over classical music.

Ravishankar spoke very highly of two Bengali composers who dominated early film music in

India during 1930s (we need to remember that film music did not arrive until the talkies), Raichad

Boral and Pankaj Mullick, in his autobiography Raag Onuraag (172, 175-6). One major reason why


they succeeded, as the present writer would suggest, was that they had an unorthodox (as opposed to

classicist) approach to music, a strong tendency to experiment, and an attitude of openness to the

varieties of music from different parts of India and the world, and these are precisely what this new art

form of cinema required. Tagore's compositions in this respect probably acted as a precedent, which

allowed Bengali composers of film music to be malleable and multi-faceted, versatile and variegated,

experimental and engaging. Bengalis dominated popular music industry from Kolkata to Mumbai, and

the reason lies in Bengal's musical adaptability. Perhaps, one can go back beyond Tagore and trace in

the genre of Kobigaan these particular traits which have allowed Bengalis to be successful in the field

of film music.

However, the new art form of film music did not just require openness, it required rigour and

demanded discipline too. Pulak Bandyopadhyay informs us about the the rpm (revolutions per minute)

economy which commanded the physical shape of popular music. Bandyopadhyay in the very

beginning of his memoir Kothay Kothay Raat Hoye Jaay mentions that during the days of gramophone

records, a disc record had the duration of three minutes and ten seconds, which had to be the length of a

song (and the lyricist and composer and singer had to act accordingly) (7). Undoubtedly, film music, as

it too had to be released on disc records, had to work within that restraint. Economy of long playing

records (generally two songs on each side) later gave way to audio cassettes (six songs on each side),

which meant that the production line had to enlarge itself. Bengalis who have dominated music

industry responded with a prolific output.

It should be mentioned that Bengali composers did not just dominate Bollywood, but also had a

sizeable international clout, Ravishankar himself being an example of that. Udayshankar's close aide,

Timirbaran Bhattacharya, who was an internationally acclaimed Sarod player is another example of

Bengali composers making it big abroad. He became a famous music director in the Pakistani film

industry centred in Karachi.

As we get to see that Bengali dominance continued in Bollywood well into the 1940s, 1950s,

1960s, we need to remember that the likes of Raichand Boral and Pankaj Mullick worked in an

atmosphere quite different from the one in which K C Dey and S D Burman and Salil Chowdhury

dominated Bombay industry, as the second group was constituted by migrants/refugees from a stagnant

Bengali industry. Therefore, the Bengali dominance in the film music of Bombay industry also signifies

a Brain drain, as it comes to signify a cultural imperialism to which Kolkata's music industry was


subjected to. But that was perhaps still qualitatively better than the ghastly sway of southern dominance

over Bengali industry of today

This should also be noted that cinema as an industry not just subjects music to the vagaries of

market, to the whims of consumer preference and to the unscrupulous money that oils this giant wheel,

but makes music a truly public, collaborative art form. However, precedents always existed in the

forms of popular performances of Kirton, Kobigaan, Jatra, from which the musical unconscious of

Indian and Bengali cinema continued to draw its paradigms. But it rarely so happened that the famous

trinity of lyricist, composer and singer came to be fused into a unitary godhead, when it came to film

music. Still, such a unitary trend exists from Tagore to Kabir Suman, representing an underlying

current of romantic individualism which also impregnates the idea of autonomous self-fashioning.

Some albums of Suman Chattopadhyay


It's not like film music as a form of collaboration deliberately stayed away from that

individualistic subjective pattern, but no doubt film music encourages popular, public stereotypes as

opposed to subjective extremities. The decline of Bengali film music towards the end of 1980s created

the scope for the emergence of unitary music, which fused the lyricist, composer and singer into one

figure again, as Suman Chatterjee burst into the scenario. For someone who was growing up during the

1980s and 1990s, which is the case of the present writer, there was a paradigm shift when singers like

Suman and Nachiketa arrived.

Again, it was not exactly that Bengali music completely crashed and came to a standstill before

their arrival, which is how popular perception frequently puts it. The truth is in fact far from that. But

there is no denying that a new development was taking place in the early 1990s.

Actually, Bengali music became closer to contemporary sensibility in the 1990s with the advent

of Suman Chattopadhyay. In his autobiography Suman speaks of the separation of Bengali songs from

the colloquial, contemporary, modern language of Bengali poetry (177), and speaks of his resolve to

write such lyrics which will not be susceptible to such admixture of shadhu and cholit (a grammatical

vice called guruchondali, which has long been banned in prose, but curiously continued to appear in

popular song lyrics). It should be noted here that the songs of experience, as we are calling them, have

been painstakingly aware of the question of modernisation and standardisation of Bengali words, and

Rupam Islam devotes a number of pages to this question in Rupam on the Rocks and informs us that his

concern with modernisation of spelling goes back to his little magazine days (93-97).

Rupam Islam's first book (Rock journal to be precise), Rupam on the Rocks, which was also the name of a popular fm radio

programme that Rupam Islam did


When it comes to the Bangla Band Chandrabindoo, it is interesting to note that their three

figureheads, even after the band has virtually stopped to bring out its own albums, continue to work as

journalists. Chandril and Anindya have long stints as journalists. Anindya at present edits the Sunday

magazine Robbar from the house of Protidin, and Chandril, having worked in the ABP group, which

was followed by a period of separation during which he worked in Robbar is now again associated

with ABP group. Upal, in his capacity as a cartoonist is also associated with ABP group.

Chandrabindoo. Upal in the centre, Chandril on extreme right, Anindya on extreme left.

Chandril has two books of poems to his credit till date, and he was a student of SRFTI, the only

film school of Kolkata could boast of for a long time. The present writer had the opportunity to watch

Chandril's diploma film, Y2K- Sex Krome Aashitechhe. Throughout his writings, be it lyric, poem, or

prose, Chandril strategically uses sexuality to frequently undercut romantic notions of love. More

importantly Chandril's non-fictional prose has been a trendsetter in Bengali language, and his writing

style has been numerously replicated from big media houses to little magazines. Frequent puns,

neologism, parody, pastiche of history and culture, defamiliarising perspectives on current affairs, a

(non)belief in the ubiquity of human drudgery, dreadfulness, and death, a decentred and decadent

(non)subjectivity mark the content of his prose, while the form is likewise fractured, punctured and

sentences often run into several lines without full stop, with a heavy use of comma. They form a

community with the lyrics of Chandrabindoo, which very often have a deliberately anarchic quality,

and resist all stable, assured grand narratives.


Some of the albums of Chandrabindoo


No wonder that Chandrabindoo turned the slogan of Nabarun Bhattacharya's fyatarus into

music (fyat fyat shai shai), which was also used in the eponymous play of Suman Mukhopadhyay. The

blurb of Rosh Kosh Shingara Bulbuli Mostok (collection of Chandril's writings published in ABP)

introduces Chandril as a non-doer of a series of non-deeds, like he did not refuse a million dollar prize,

did not inhabit an asylum after a melancholic breakdown, and that includes this description: he did not

read Baudrillard. Such a negative mention of this renowned postmodern thinker is in agreement with

the style of postmodern literature.

Anindya began his career as a trainee journalist in the newly revived news daily Jugantar in

1993, which very soon closed down again. His regular column in Robbar titled Niruddesh Shomporke

Ghoshona (Declaration about the Missing), later published as an eponymous book, had one entry on

this episode of his life (36-41). The same book of Anindya curiously also has an article on Suman

Chattopadhyay. Given that this book deals only with the missing (The book opens with an article on

Dodo birds, ends with one on Neandarthals, and also has an entry on Soviet Union), this topic is

interesting. At an obvious level, following his conversion, Suman Chattopadhyay really ceased to exist,

and was replaced by Kabir Suman. But at another level, when Anindya was writing this column, Suman

ceased to exist as a musical phenomenon, and became rather known for his politics. Still, it is

imperative on us to note how Anindya describes the rise of Suman:

In the beginning of the 1990s, there was not anything special in Bengal's bazaar. Neither any

political movement, nor any great socio-event, even the excitement of Mohunbagan and East

Bengal did not at all stir us then. People used to silently watch One Day Cricket matches on

colour television and noisily watch theatre at Academy. Politics and sexuality both were

so very drab that (a rally at) Brigade or (Raaga) Bidhushri no longer appealed to the Bengali

mind. Even the biggest chicken did not ever think that the Marxist Communist Party's

government would lay an egg of people's democratic revolution one day. Barring some

vegetarian stains of piss, nothing was written on discoloured walls.

In that middle-classiness Suman comes. As the embodiment of Grim Reaper (Kalbhoirob). As

the dream, hope and wish fulfilment of a whole generation. (18-19)

It can surely be said that Suman's advent brought Bengali song closer to Bengali poetry that has been

written in an urban, smart, contemporary language (as I observed in my article on Ishwarchandra Gupta


in JBS 3.2, this is not merely a twentieth century phenomenon, and can be said to be largely a legacy of

Ishwar Gupta). More importantly, Suman's oeuvre brought Bengali music into a community with

Bengali literature. Songs again regained that literary respectability which was lost after Tagore, to the

point that lines from Suman's song Shurjo Bollo Ish from his second album Boshe Aanko appeared in

the Bengali question paper of the Test Examination of Madhyamik at Hindu School, Kolkata in 1995,

as the present writer remembers having seen it in the proverbial and iconic Test Papers published by

ABTA (All Bengal Teachers' Association) in 1996 (it came in the Bhaab Shomprosharon or expand-the-

theme segment).

Suman's writing career (that was journalistic in nature, where he used the pen name Manab

Mitra) in fact preceded his emergence as a popular singer during 1990s, a fact which is put forward in

his autobiography. Quite interestingly, Nachiketa too is a writer, and has a collection of his writings

published from Patra Bharati Kolkata. Apart from contributing occasional columns to newspapers, he

has authored stories and novels. Many of them harbour an angst that emerges from the failure of the

communist project of revolution in Bengal (Nachiketa's songs Anirban and Anirban 2 immediately

coming to mind, which speak of a Naxalite revolutionary named Anirban). Some of them display the

contemporary quagmire of deceit, political ploys, helplessness of people, corruption, an overall social

inertia, and in the midst of this murky atmosphere, rise of a hero who is unmistakeably an image of

Nachiketa himself. The details of the fictions are not so much important. What is more to the point here

is that Nachiketa's fiction writing forms a community with his music; his fictions connect his songs to

others cultural forms.

Nachiketa's first three albums, in that order


Anjan Dutt was primarily into cinema before he came to be a lyricist-composer-singer. He got

best actor award for his role in the film Chaalchitra in the Venice Film Festival in 1981, which was

more than a decade before his first music album was released. His experience of his first movie as a

director, Badadin (1998) got reflected in his song Raja Ray from mid-1990s. That song also spoke

about the despondent situation of contemporary Bengali film industry. Dutt directed his next movie

Bow Barracks Forever in 2004, and since then has done very few music albums, and been into film

direction (occasional acting too) mostly.

Throughout the 1990s what (again by popular perception) was called Jibonmukhi songs (the

epithet Jibonmukhi, first used by Nachiketa in his first album the cover of the first album prominently

declared itself as Jibonmukhi Bangla Gan, like Suman's albums used to have the heading Sumoner

gaan in the beginning) dominated music industry, and as a result, what existed prior to that became

obscure, and rapidly went on to become passe, at least among the youth.

Kishore's death led to the rise of Kumar Sanu, a shadow singer who used to imitate Kishore. Indeed the very first album of

Sanu, Amar Shilpi, was a tribute to Kishore Kumar after his death. The lasting popularity of these albums, originally

released in cassette format during late 1980s, ensured that they were later released in CD format as well, during the 1990s


However, no one can forget the tremendous popularity of Kumar Sanu (lampooned as Kumar

Panu in one of the popular numbers composed and sung by Nachiketa, titled Ulto Rajar Deshe)

music towards the end of 1980s and early 1990s. He gave three phenomenal hits in rapid succession:

Omor Shilpi, Shurer Rojonigondha and Priyotoma Mone Rekho. Kumar Sanu, originally named Kedar

Bhattacharya, was a known shadow singer who sang the songs of Kishore Kumar, and Sanu's rise itself

was made possible by the demise of Kishore Kumar. To the credit of Kumar Sanu, we must admit that

the songs had melodious tunes, had tolerably good lyrics, and Sanu's vocal rendition had a quality

which could appeal to the masses.

These albums mostly used to be released before DurgaPujo. Being non-film music, their release

was strategically done at this point, as Bengalis purchased Pujor Gaan since music industry emerged in

Bengal, and that goes back to the days of Gramophone. When DurgaPujo came, such songs, played on

loudspeakers at different Pujo Mondops (Makeshift Canopies which act as temple of Goddess Durga

for the period of DurgaPujo) used to generate a festive ambience.

When Kumar Sanu was singing amar shohor Kolkata (Kolkata my city), a popular number

from his repertory from late 1980s, there was a distinctly leftist-sounding chorus playing in the

background. Of course that does not mean such oposhongshkriti (literally meaning bad culture, a

bhadralok concept used to distinguish approved, sombre and respectable forms of culture from non-

approved, non-sombre, non-respectable forms of culture) as Kumar Sanu had no easy acceptance in the

respectable and conservative plethora of certified bhadralok culture. Further, songs of movies like

Beder Meye Jyotsna (a Bangladesh-inspired film, songs of which were sung by Kumar Sanu) enjoyed a

certain immunity from the left, as they were too embarrassing even to discuss.

Anjan Dutt in one of his early songs addressed to Suman comes up with this line Robindro Ki

Gonoshongeet konotai thik dicchilo na buker bhetor phNushe othar rosh (Neither Tagore songs, nor

people's songs provided the angst that one needs in the bosom to speak out), which neatly sums up the

musical preference of the bhadraloks prior to the songs of transition. People's songs (gonoshongeet)

was the standard name applied to leftist songs, alluding to a sustained cultural phenomenon that began

with Gononatyo Songho (IPTA). Significantly, Anjan always acknowledged Suman as the fountainhead

of the kind of songs he himself believed in doing. Indeed, Suman spearheaded this kind of ideological

constellation within which Anjan's songs moved, which was progressive, liberal, humanist, universalist

and hopeful of change. The title song of one of Anjan's albums says: Cholo Bodlai (Let's Change).


Dutt's first album, Shunte Ki Chao and second album, Purono Guitar

Remake of popular film (and non-film) songs from the black and white era shot to prominence,

albeit briefly, during 1990s. Srikanto Acharjee is generally considered to be the most popular singer

associated with this phenomenon of remake, though he later on himself gave up remaking, and instead

concentrated on his own basic songs. A testimony to barren times, when left platitudes replaced

experiment and innovation in popular culture, this remake phenomenon also touches upon the

commerce of live shows which form the bread and butter of singers, and which generally have a steady

demand for the popular songs of yesteryears. Remake thus connected music commerce directly with

the culture of soirees and performances. Remake was also a crucial expression of the widespread

cultural phenomenon of shadow singing. As the songs of transition were not best known for melody,

the phenomenon of remake also filled a certain vacuum, a demand for melody that was not catered to

by Suman, Nachiketa and Anjan.

The rapid rise and fall of CDs have been followed by a return of film music in Bengal.

Commerce dictates that music finds it easier to survive in live concerts and in the promotional

campaigns of film music, in this age of internet piracy. Anupam Roy's arrival marks this significant


new turn in the trajectory of Bengali popular music. Chandrabindoo started their foray into Bengali

film music in 2009, and till 2012, they worked as lyricist, music composer and vocalist in a number of

movies. For the movie Antaheen, they won national award for best lyrics in 2010 (the movie was

released in 2009). However, after 2012, they have no significant movie to their credit, and this probably

alludes to a waning of Chandrabindoo's influence after the arrival of Anupam Roy (both have the same

target audience, hence a competition cannot be ruled out). Between 2009 and 2012, members of

Chandrabindoo have lent their music, lyric and voice to these movies: Box No 1313, Cross Connection,

Brake Fail, Antaheen (all 2009 movies), Jodi Ekdin, Ekti Tarar Khonje, 033, Natobar Not Out (all 2010

movies), Icche, Rang Milanti, Gosainbaganer Bhoot (all 2011 movies), Aparajita Tumi (2012).

Chandrabindoo won national award for best lyrics for the movie Antaheen

During this phase, Kabir Suman himself increasingly started acting in films, and working as

composer-lyricist-singer in film music. He has acted in all the movies of director Suman

Mukhopadhyay till now. He also bagged national award for music direction in 2014 for Srijit

Mukherjee's Jatismar.


A Poster of the movie Jatismar

Back in 1990s, Nachiketa gave music to a soap opera, titled Kuasha Jokhon and the music

became hugely popular following which the songs of that daily soap (in Tollygunge lingo, megaserial)

were commercially released in an eponymous album.

Nachiketa's album Kuasha Jokhon


Rupam Islam received national award for playback singing in Mahanagar@Kolkata in 2010.

Rupam directed the music of this movie as well.

A Poster of Mahanagar@Kolkata

Anupam Roy's first solo album (2012) comes two years after his successful stint in film music.

His songs in Autograph in 2010 catapulted him to tremendous fame, and in 2015, he has made his

debut in Bollywood with the film Piku.


Between 2010 and 2015, Anupam Roy has been associated with these movies as

vocalist/lyricist/composer:

2010: Autograph

2011: Cholo Paltai, Rong Milanti, Baishe Srabon

2012: One Liner, Teen Yaari Kotha, Hemlock Society, Laptop, Chorabali

2013: Shunyo Onko

2014: Chhaya Manush, Window Connection, Highway, Chotushkone

2015: Bela Sheshe, Piku (Hindi), Kath Mundu, Saheb Bibi Golam

Three Albums of Anupam Roy: Bakyobageesh, Durbine Chokh Rakhbo Na, Dwitiyo Purush


Besides, Roy has worked in 22 Bengali movies in the capacity of a vocalist for other lyricists

and composers so far. He has been associated with little magazines, has published two books of poems.

He got his first novel published in 2014, and in 2015 made his foray into Bengali graphic novel. In

autograph, his song Aamake Aamar Moto Thakte Dao has a line: amar jonno aalo jelo na keu

(nobody put up a light for me). Such a renegade line was not possible in the earlier two phases.

Here, let us reassert that in the journey from the songs of innocence to those of transition,

subjectification undergoes certain shifts towards an urban, bhadralok, left-liberal paradigm; but those

changes notwithstanding, there is no fundamental transformation of the mode of subjectivity. The same

individualism, the same naivety, same positivism, the same high Romantic-Victorian sensibility (that

witnesses its Bengali apogee in Tagore) are frequently seen. Until the songs of experience arrive on the

scenario, the feminine subject (the love interest) is what the author makes her to be, in the vein of

Amaro Porano Jaha Chay, Tumi Tai Go.

Suman reflects this pattern of subjectivity when he says in Tomake Chai, that he wants to

behold his beloved bringing festive spirit to a rally of tired people. However, in the song Office Time

(from the album Ar Jani Na, later on remade as the album Ebhabeo Phire Aasha Jaay) of

Chandrabindoo, the lyric says that there is no chance that she would be found in a rally (Michhile

Tomake Dekhte Pawar Kono Scene-ee Nei). From the subject of modernity, to the non-subject of

postmodernity, if we trace this development in Bengali popular music, the first thing that strikes us is

that Ar Jani Na was released in 1997, while Tomake Chai came in 1991. It can be said that within a

period of six years, Bengali music moved from modernism to postmodernism, from live-giving

illusions to disillusionment.

There are reasons to classify Band music as postmodern. It is less self-assured, more decentred.

It does not speak of revolutionary resistance in the vein of a Suman or Nachiketa, but instead reveals a

blas knowledgeability about the present condition. The non-subject, with all the angst and entrapment

of existence becomes a recurrent trope in Rupam Islam's music. Again it is significant that Rupam

started his musical career after his foray into little magazines (Ei To Aami 126-7). Rupam in fact in his

high school days founded an organisation called Avant Garde Parishad (Parishad is Bengali for

Council), and as the name suggests, they discussed the latest intellectual trends from the west. The little

magazine edited by Rupam was the mouthpiece of this organisation.


Cover of Ei To Ami Cover of Rockstar

Rupam in spite of having a predominant image as a solitary singer indeed he has solo albums

to his credit has always stuck to the band format for public performances. His music can be said to

exist in a community. His mention of his closeness to late poet Sunil Ganguly (Rockstar 7), among

other things, alludes to the fact that his lyrics exist in a cultural continuum with Bengali poetry.

Further, he looks at the band music as partnership, as a collaborative project; however, he sees lyric

writing as an essentially solitary endeavour (speaks of the necessity of creative loneliness), which must

be shaded from the glare of the collective (Rockstar 26-27).

Some of the solo albums of Rupam Islam

Bangla Bands' music is known for its peppy, popular, fast rhythmic tunes, but fast tunes

earmarked our folk songs for a very long time. Kobiwalas used to have a repertory of both slow melody

and fast rhythm. While the first appealed to the elites, the latter was a favourite of toiling masses, and

for further details, one can refer to my article in the previous issue of Journal of Bengali Studies Vol.3,


No.2. Shiva's songs can be taken for an example: be it the high Sanskrit Shiva tandava stotram, or

colloquial Shiber gajon, they always display a festive pace, a rapid flow of rhythm.

Going back to Suman's songs, we can say that if that music lacked a popular vigour and fast

rhythm, that lacking was probably attributable to the left-liberal bhadralok tastes which dominated the

social reception of art. Suman's autobiography is a case in point.

A Sharodiya Pujoshonkha is a complete configuration of space and time. In a periodical, the

political infrastructure of a period's culture is laid bare as if in a Brechtian theatre. The Pujoshonkha of

Aajkaal in the Bengali year 1400 (1993 CE) exemplarily illustrates this aspect. Suman Chattopadhyay

authored his memoir Hoye Otha Gaan (Song Being Made) in this pujoshonkha. The editorial of this

issue expresses remorse over the demise of Utpal Dutt, and this pujoshonkha pays homage to him by

posthumously publishing his play Ognishojja (Bed of Fire) which is a tirade against Hindu

fundamentalism in the backdrop of Raja Rammohan Roy's movement against Sati immolation. The

play begins with a snide attack against Ayurveda (identified with quackery) with which the western

system of medicine is then favourably compared. Hinduism is depicted in a completely negative light,

collaboration with the west is promoted in the guise of bishshomanobota. The same pujoshonkha

carried a novel by Debesh Roy on the demolition of Babri Mosque.

Suman in an interview, back in 1990s

This was the political climate prevailing in the early 1990s which saw the advent of Suman

Chatterjee's music. Suman, in the title song of his third album, Icche Holo, observes that he wants to

see collective farming all over the world before he breathes his last (Morbo Dekhe Bishshojure


Jouthokhamar). That aspiration, and that potential hope (the album was released in 1993) constituted

the core leftist ethos which permeated this milieu from which Suman's songs emerged. Contrary to that,

Rupam Islam's song Ei To Ami in Mahanagar@Kolkata says Ei To Amar/Jouthokhamar/Katchhi

Katbo/Shesh Phoshol/Boshundhora/Ghater Mora/Chitar Kathe/Shoinyodol (This is my collective

farm, I reap and shall reap the last harvest, this earth is moribund, and the soldiers are on the burning

pyre of woods). Collective farming, which stood for a promise of life in death, in fact, nothing short of

resurrection in Suman's lyric, comes to signify a lone reaper of the last harvest from an earth that is

morbid, and there is an imagery of death in fire with no possibility of resurrection (because the pagan

pyre, unlike the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tomb, does not speak of resurrection, immortality of the soul

notwithstanding).

Suman's songs were markedly different in one respect from the kind of music which previously

dominated our popular sensibility, as we already pointed out: his songs lacked melody. They also had a

discernible western influence, which was also true (to a greater degree) about Anjan Dutt who soon

followed Suman. It is interesting that there is at least one western song which had been rendered

separately by Suman and Anjan into Bengali. Anjan's Ekta Bondhu Hobe Ki Bolo Tumi Amar and

Suman's Chaichi Tomar Bondhuta both are direct Bengali renderings of a song of Bob Dylan; the

tunes are different, and the adapted lyrics are at slight variance too, but the Dylan stamp is

unmistakeable. Suman's Bengali songs have been variously derived from the west, Dylan's Blowin' in

the Wind has become Kotota Poth Perole for example. He has been called Bengal's Bob Dylan, a tag

which came probably because he sang with a guitar on the stage, and was as such the first known

Bengali singer to have done so, and it was a tag that he refused. Nevertheless, Suman's autobiography

Hoye Otha Gaan is a testimony to the thorough western influence on his music, his childhood training

in Indian classical notwithstanding (though he was exposed to a variety of western music from his

childhood because of his musician parents).

Death of the author used to imply the death of the romantic dream of the individualist-solitary

author. However, in our academia, this concept was used to peddle an ahistorical view of the text: death

of the author meant death of history, and everyone was free to interpret a text as an autonomous, self-

fashioning unit following I A Richards and F R Leavis. This was actually a backdoor return of the

individual author, only the author got rechristened as a close text, without any context whatsoever. As

we look at the concept of auteur in cinema studies, we find that usual high romantic emphasis on the


singularity, solitariness of a self-fashioning individual work. Now, Bengali songs since the lyrical

revolution staged by Tagore, entered this ahistorical phase. As opposed to that, Kobigaan was deeply

immersed in history. Vaishnav songs operated within a hermeneutics of myth and history. Songs were

part of a larger network.

It is a folk Indian tradition that gives birth to our film music (deriving from our age old cultural

repertory of jatra; in north India it went by the name of nautanki; all of them go back to the high

position assigned to music in dramatic performances in Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit), and therefore songs

and dance in our cinema have a historical context.

When Suman appears on the musical scene, he represents a curious admixture of this culture

industry. On one hand, he is a lone auteur, a self-fashioning bhadralok, representing the high

individualist dream of a Tagoeran sensibility, on the other hand, he made songs which clearly

acknowledged a social and political matrix within which the verbal machinery operated. But ironically,

rise of Suman also registers the fatal break-up of bhadralok and popular culture. Pulak Bandyopadhyay

sometime in the 1990s complained in an interview (no citation can be given, as it was an interview in

an obsolete film magazine from the Aajkaal group, titled Television that later stopped circulation; the

present writer refers to it from memory, as no copy of the magazine could be procured) that producers

insisted that Bengali movies are seen by rickshaw pullers, and songs should be meant for them, lyric

should be what they could understand. This tension did not exist earlier. As Bengali music veered

towards the Songs of experience, the single screen theatres gave way to multiplexes, which simply

resolved this problem by making niche movies, targeted at urban middle classes.

When Trinomool Congress was formed in 1998, the first visible political spectacle was the so-

called Cut-out culture imported from the south of India. Large cut out images of Trinomool supremo

flooded the roads of Kolkata. Interestingly, it was the same period when Bengali film industry was

beginning to get influenced by South, which could of course be a mere case of coincidence, but

probably Bengal badly needed some blood transfusion, no matter whatever was the quality of the

blood. The influence was discernible in the case of Film music. O Bondhu Tumi Shunte Ki Pao, Ei

Gaan Aaamaar (Hey Friend, Can You Hear This Song of Mine), a chartbuster form the first

commercially successful movie of Superstar Jeet (Shaathi), was a case in point. The tune of typically

south, vocal rendition was characteristically southern, the first part of the opening was sung in a doleful

melody (O Bondhu Tumi Shunte Ki Pao) followed by a peppy rhythm (Ei Gaan Aamaar). It was a


turnaround of sorts for an industry which many observers viewed as sick; after almost a decade a

Bengali film song was doing the rounds in DurgaPujo loudspeakers everywhere.

This is not to say that Bengali film music since the talkies used to exist in a pristine state prior

to the recent southern turn. It was always influenced by external factors. Western influences have

always been there. Then, with the great slump followed by the closing down of New Theatres and the

mass exodus of Bengali film artists to Bombay, in a classic case of Derridean supplementarity, credit

titles in the beginning of a movie began showing the suffix Bombay within a bracket after the name of

an an artist; this is, for example, how Manna Dey sang his first Bengali film song. It carried weight,

commanded awe, guaranteed commercial appeal, and ensured that the Bengali film industry is forever

enthralled to the glamorous dominance of Bollywood. And this is how Bengali popular music was

surviving throughout the 1980s.

In this scenario, Suman's advent was like arrival of fresh rain in the midst of an excruciating

Indian summer. The later phenomenon of Bangla Bands and the arrival of Anupam Roy cannot ever be

sufficiently grateful to Suman, for this single reason, that in Suman Chattopadhyay, Bengal attained

musical sovereignty after a long time, as it stopped being subjected to the ignominy of being a satellite

of Bollywood and other non-Bengali power centres. However, this sovereignty eversince is repeatedly

corroded as we lack a consolidated Bengali capitalist class who can promote and produce cinema and

other allied public arts like the music industry. In a classic illustration of Marxian base-superstructure

model, the crisis of Bengali music emanates from the crisis of Bengali economy.

In spite of that crisis, there is much in the achievement of Bengali music in the recent decades

which can be celebrated. The richness and variety of its development can be a treasure island for

cultural studies. Its trajectory has interesting turns. The songs of innocence had a belief that love was

possible, the songs of transition had a belief that revolution was possible, but the songs of experience

have this (non)belief that love and revolution are perennially deferred and remain illusively out of

reach. The first category was mostly sentimental, conformist and commercial, the second was mostly

sassy, candid and conscientious, the third continues to be savvy, non-credulous, non-committed and

nonchalant. For a cultural historian, these three phases of Bengali music can map the social, political

and and cultural evolution of the Bengali people throughout the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.


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Select Discography

Chakraborty, Nachiketa. Ei Besh Bhalo Aachhi. 1993.

---. Ke Jaay. 1994.

---. Ki Hobe. 1995.

---. Chol Jabo Toke Niye. 1996.

---. Kuasha Jokhon. 1997.

---. Aami-e Pari. 1998.

---. Dolchhut. 1999.

---. Daybhar. 2000.

(Up till 2000 was the prime of his musical career)

---. Ekla Cholte Hoy. 2002

---. Mukhomukhi. 2003.

---. Ei Aagune Haat Rakho. 2004.

---. Aamar Kotha Aamar Gaan. 2005.

---. Tirjak. 2007.

---. Ebar Nilanjan. 2008.

---. Hawa Bodol. 2011.

---. Sob Kotha Bolte Nei. 2012.

---. Drishtikon. 2014.

Chandrabindoo. Aar Jani Na (Don't Know Any More). 1997.

---. Gadha (Donkey). 1998.

---. Twaker Jatna Nin (Take Care Of Your Skin). 1999.

---. Chaw (Chaw is the first letter in the word Chandrabindoo,it also colloquially means let's go). 2001.

---. Daknam (Nickname). 2002.


---. Juju (The Bugbear). 2003.

---. Hulabila (Hullabaloo). 2005.

---. Ebhabeo Phire Asha Jae (Even that's a Comeback). 2005.

---. U/A (U/A). 2008.

---. Noy (Nine). 2012.

Chattopadhyay Suman.

Nagorik Onyo Kotha Onyo Gaan (collaboration). 1986.

---. Nicaraguar Jonyo (collaboration).1986.

---. Tomake Chai. 1992.

---. Boshe Aanko. 1993.

---. Ichchhe Holo. 1993.

---. Gaanola. 1994.

---. Ghumou Baundule. 1995.

---. Chaichhi Tomar Bondhuta. 1996.

---. Jatismar. 1997.

---. Nishiddho Istehar. 1998.

---. Pagla Shanai. 1999.

---. Jaabo Ochenay. 2001. (After this point, he was known as Kabir Suman)

Dutt, Anjan. Shunte Ki Chao. 1994.

---. Purono Guitar. 1995.

---. Bhalobashi Tomay. 1996.

---. Keu Gaan Gaye. 1997.

---. Ma. 1998.

---. Chalo Bodlai. 1998.

---. Priyo Bandhu. 1998.


---. Hello Bangladesh. 1999.

---. Kolkata16. 1999.

---. Bandra Blues. 2000.

---. Asamoy. 2000.

---. Rawng Pencil. 2001.

---. Onek Din Por (with Kabir Suman). 2004.

---. Ichchhe Korei Eksathe. 2005.

---. Abar Pothe Dekha. 2007.

---. Ami ar Godot. 2007.

---. Unoshaat. 2014.

Islam, Rupam. Tor Bhorshatey (1998 / HMV) Re-released as Neel Rong Chilo Bhishon Priyo (2003 /

HMV).

---. Fossils (2002 / Asha Audio).

---. Fossils 2 (2004 / Asha Audio).

---. Mission F (2006 / Asha Audio).

---. Rupam n Bumpy (2007 / UD Series).

---. Aupodartho (2007 / Asha Audio).

---. Fossils 3 (2009 / Asha Audio).

---. Mahanagar @ Kolkata (2010 / HMV SaReGaMa).

---. Na-Hanyate (2010 / HMV SaReGaMa)

---. Nishkromon (2011 / HMV SaReGaMa)

---. FOSSILS 4 (2013/ Inreco)

---. Prerona (2014)


Moheener Ghoraguli. Shongbigno Pakhikul O Kolkata Bishoyok. 1977.

---. Aabar Bochhor Kuri Por. 1995.

Roy, Anupam. Durbine Chokh Rakhbo Na. 2012.

---. Dwitiyo Purush. 2013.

---. Bakyobageesh. 2014.

Tamal Dasgupta holds a PhD from the Dept of English, University of Calcutta. He is the founder editor

of Journal of Bengali Studies and is Assistant Professor of English Literature at Bhim Rao Ambedkar

College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India.

Indic Philosophy in Bengali Religious Songs

Somnath Sarkar

In this article I intend to discuss the influence of Indic Philosophy in Bengali religious songs. When

one speaks on the philosophy of the Vednta in Bengal one deals with the learned community in Bengal

writing on the Vednta. But when one deals with Bengali songs having a Vedantic base, then one deals

with the large masses of the Bengali people who sing or hear such songs. And if one can establish that

these songs have a philosophical foundation and that foundation is Vedantic, one realizes that the

Vednta has entered the bloodstream of a whole people, that it is in widest commonalty spread.

But how can a song be philosophical? Or to speak in general terms, how can poetry be

philosophical ? This is a basic question of poetics and I do not have the space, perhaps, far less the

competence, to deal with the subject. As an Indian reader of poetry I know that our ancient book of

verse, the Rigveda, is not only a religious book, it is largely a philosophical work. It anticipates the

later Upanishadic or Vedantic idea of the One. The Rigvedic verse in the first maala. Skta 164 and

k 46, says: Ekam sadvipr bahudh vadanti (The real is one, the learned call it by different names).

And parts of the Upaniads are great poetry. Let us take the opening verse of the Kena Upaniad :

keneitam patati preitam mana kena pra prathama praiti yukta ('By whom willed and directed

does the mind light on its objects/By whom commanded does life the first, move?' tr. S.

Radhakrishnan). It is a profound question put in memorably poetical words.

Then we come to our medieval poetry written in our vernaculars and they are all songs, from the

Tamil Alwars of the sixth and seventh centuries to the Shakta songs of the eighteenth century Bengali

poet Rmaprasda. These vast literatures of songs are not only religious but profoundly philosophical.

Guru Nanak (1469-1533) is known for his Japji which is a Upaniad in one of our vernaculars. Kabir

(d. 1518) is a highly philosophical poet. In his Kabir and His Followers (1931) F. E. Key goes deep

into the Vedantic basis of Kabir's philosophy. He says:

Ahmad Shah is most emphatic in stating that Kabir's teaching is monistic. There are

indeed many passages that seem to bear this out. On the other hand, there are passages

which seem to agree with the Visistadvaita doctrine, or modified Monism, which regards


the universe as the body or manifestation of God. and not as the creation of Maya, and

allows some kind of individuality to the soul after its absorption into the Supreme, (p. 71)

I think when our poets are philosophical and Vedantic, they are at once Dvaitavdin and Advaitavdin.

I do not have the time to go into the details of Kabir's philosophy. If a reader is especially interested in

this theme s/he may read the French scholar Charlotte Vaudeville's works on Kabir available in French,

English and Hindi. Speaking of Vedantic ideas in Bengali religious songs I must first mention the Tamil

Alwars who are not only Vedantic but who inspired a great Vedantic philosopher of the South,

Rmnuja of the twelfth century. Rmnuja preached his Visidvaitavda, that is qualified monism

which is the synthesis of Advaitavda and Dvaitavda, through his great commentary on Vdaryaa's

Vedntastra known as rbhya. In this discussion of Vednta in Bengal I cannot go into the details

of the influence of the Tamil Alwars on this great Tamil philosopher. I can only quote the words of the

Oxford scholar, J. S. M. Hooper, who says in his Introduction to the Hymns of the Alwars (1929) : The

Alwars provided the soil out of which Rmnujas teachings naturally sprang, and in which later it

could bear fruit. He is not really the morning star of the bhakti movement; that is a name far more fitly

given to the Alwars. (p. 6) Dr S. N. Dasgupta agrees with this view in the third volume of his A

History of Indian Philosophy (1940) where he says : . the works of the Alvar which were

collected together by the disciples of Ramanuja at his special request, and from which Ramanuja

himself drew much inspiration and food for his system of thought. (p. 80) In the first volume of his

Indian Philosophy (1923) Dr Radhakrishnan speaks of the influence of the Alwars on Rmnujas

bhakti or theistic Vednta. Later in his introduction to his edition of the Vedntastra (1960) he is more

emphatic on this point when he says : Ramanujas interpretation of the Brahma-sutra is influenced by

the Bhagavata doctrine and the bhakti cult of the Alwars. Radhakrishnan adds that We find in

Ramanuja's system a synthesis of the prabandha literature of the Alwars and the theistic current of the

Upanishads.' (p. 47)

While dealing with Vedantism in Bengali song I should begin with Carypada : Buddhist Mystic

songs discovered by Haraprasad Shastri (1853-1931) and published by the Vangiya Sahitya Parishad as

Hjr Bachharer Pura Vgl Bhshy Bauddhagn O Doh in 1916. Although these songs were

composed by Buddhist monks, they have a Vedantic base. While reflecting on the Vedantic element in

the Carypada I thought of an important statement of Radhakrishnan in the first volume of his Indian

Philosophy: 'Early Buddhism is only a restatement of the thought of the Upanishad' (p. 361). Rhys


Davids says the same thing about the affinity between Buddhist and Vedantic thought in his work

Buddhism: Its History and Literature (1926, pp. 83-84).

Sashibhushan Dasgupta makes a very significant statement about the philosophical foundation of

the Bengali Buddhist songs called Carypada in his Obscure Religious Cults (1946, 2nd ed., 1962) :

'The dominating philosophical note of the Charya-songs is of an immense idealistic vein. . . . And this

idealism is common to the Madhyamika and Vijnanavad Buddhism as well as the Vedanta.' (p. 37)

Later in this work Dr Dasgupta says: 'In the highest stress laid by the Sahajiyas on Sahaja-realization

or self-realization as the summum bonum of the religious life we may trace the old Upanishadic spirit

under the Buddhistic garb. (p. 77) I am quoting a verse from Carypada in song no. 7: niyaddi bohi

dr a ma jahi (enlightenment is near, stray not a far).1 It is very close to the Vedantic doctrine tat tvam

asi (That art thou) (Chndogya Upaniad, vi. 15.3). Actually the word advay (non-duality) occurs in

this verse in its old Bengali form adaa.

Where do we find Vedantic ideas in our Vaishnava songs? We must first realize that theistic

vaishnavism is not necessarily un-Vedantic. Theistic Vednta is bhakti Vednta. It is Rmnuja Vednta

which contemplates a loving God worshipped by His devotees. Let us remember that the

Bhgavatapura, which is obviously a bhakti kvya, is looked upon as a verse commentary on the

Vedntastra, and the spirit of Vaishnava songs from Jayadeva to Bengali Vaiavapadval is the spirit

of the Bhgavatapura. Bengali vednta as it is present in the Bengali religious songs, vaiava,

kta, bul or the songs of the Brahma psalter (Brahma-sagta) is bhakti vednta. The problem of

scholars who speak of bhakti vednta is that it is not to be found in the Upaniad or in the Brahma-

stra which may be taken as a dvaitavdi text, but which does not say anything about the divine love in

vaiava songs. But the Bhagavadgt, which is a constituent of the Prasthnatraya, is certainly a

bhakti text. The vaiava lyrics are a vivid and picturesque presentation of the love of God which is the

essence of the teachings of Lord Krishna in the Bhagavadgt.

The kta songs of the eighteenth century Bengali kta poet Rmaprasda have a Vedantic

foundation. Rmaprasda seems to reject dvaita-vednta when he says: cini haoy bhlo nay man cini

khete bhlobsi ('It is not good to be sugar when I love to taste it'). But Rmaprasda's songs have also

an advaitic strain: m m kare dkisne r / myer dekh pbin / thkle ese dekh dita, ashravan se

beche ni. ('Do not cry for mother: if she at all existed she would have responded to your cry. She is


not alive.') Then the kta poet says'm gechhe nm Brahma chhe' ('Ma is gone, but Brahma

exists'). Actually Bengali religious songs are at once dvaitavdi and advaitavdi. If the kta cult is

rooted in tantra it is necessarily Vedantic in its essence. Sir John Woodroffe says in his Sakti and

Sakta 'The sakta faith of today is a particular presentation of the general Vedantic teaching.

Rmaprasda is acquainted with vedantic ideas, the idea of sagua and the idea of nirgua, the

idea of skra and nirkra the idea of bhakti and mukti. But he has no problem with apparently

conflicting ideas. He can see Brahma in his mother. A song of Rmaprasda which seems to be difficult

to understand :

Kena miche m nm kara, Myer dekh pbe nai/

Thkle ese dekh dita sarvan bche ni//

when the poet is distressed by an unhearing Mother he resorts to Brahma who is none other than

Mother. He has even no sense of conflict between bhakti and mukti. The Bengali vaiava spurns mukti

and exalts bhakti ; but Rmaprasda does not distinguish between the two.

prasd bale bhakti ubhayere mthe dharechi / ebr ymr nm Brahma jene dharma karma sab

cherechi/)

Baul songs are philosophically Vedantic, but they are studied as a synthesis of several cults,

Buddhist Sahajiya, Vaishnava Sahajiya, bhakti cult and sufism. I am not going into the details of these

cults in their bearing on Bengali Baul poetry since my business is to show their philosophical base in

the Vedanta. But I must, however, say a few words on sufism in Baul songs. It is often said that sufi

monism, which presents the goal of sadhana as the merger of the individual in God is an Islamic

philosophy. The Muslim mystic Hallaj declared that he was the Truth and for this blasphemy {anal

haq) he was executed. The idea is indeed very close to the monistic philosophy of Shankara's Advaita

Vednta. None of us can deny what Annada Sankar Ray has very succinctly stated in his An Outline of

Indian Culture (1978). Annada Sankar says :

Bauls come from both Hindu and Muslim communities. Their beliefs and practices are

drawn from the Sahajiya cult of Buddhism, partly from the Vaishnava doctrine of love

and partly from the mystic teachings of the sufis. (P. 62)


Brahmasagta, the psalter or hymn-book of the Brahmo Samaj, has 2013 songs in its latest

unabridged edition by Satish Chandra Chakraborti published by the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj in 1931.

In this 110-page edition of the anthology there are many other songs mentioned as Nagar Sak rtana,

Sanskrit songs, Hindi songs and Urdu songs. It is a very precious volume in Bengali song-literature

which gives us an idea of the variety of religious experience even when that experience has a common

Vedantic foundation.

Rabindranath Tagore was a philosopher, poet, dramatist, teacher, essayist, singer and painter of

outstanding repute. His philosophy of life was based on the ideals of dedication, patriotism and

naturalism. Although he was an ideal philosopher, but the thoughts of naturalism, pragmatism and

individualism are also reflected in his philosophy. Tagores philosophy reveals that he was a vedantist

in true sence of terms. He had faith in one Supreme Being that is Brahman. He finds unity in diversities

in the world and a spiritual unity between man and man, man and nature. The relationship between God

and man must be like the relationship between love and joy. He believes both the presence of God in all

manifestation of matter and spirit. Therefore he says It will not to reject the impersonal aspect of truth

altogether. He believes in the concept that presence of Brahman in all being. True salvation takes

place when individual realizes presence of Brahman within him. Tagore was an ardent follower of

nandayoga, Thus he sings

nandalake magalloke

virja satyasundara /

Rabindranath Tagore supports the monism of Indian philosophy. During the Mghotsava, Kaviguru

wrote so many Brahma-sagta. As we read through the Brahma songs we realize that they are

invocations of Brahma in a definitely theistic note even they speak of One advaita reality. Those songs

are

tumi ki go pit mder, eki e sundara obh, mahsihsane basi unicha, he vivapita,

Koth cha, prabhu, esechi dnahna etc.

Another song of the Brahma-sagta is an expression of the discovery of the One in the Many :

Ki gbo mi, ki unbo, ji e nanda dhme / puravs jane enechhi eke tomr am ta

nme.


Influence of the Upaniad in Tagores life is highly remarkable. He read the doctrines of major

Upaniads properly and utilized the verses in his writings. Examples are given below :

Taittiryopaniad (2.14) says

yato vco nivartante aprpya manas saha/

nanda brahmao vidvn na bibheti kadcana//

Influenced by this verse kaviguru wrote the famous song

ke dke re picchan hate/ ke kare re mn /

bhayer kath ke bale j / bhoy cche sab jn/

On the other hand, vetvetaropaniad says about the liberation and transmigration of soul

vedhameta purua mahnta

ditya vara tamasa parastt/

tameva viditvti mtyumeti

nnya panth vidyate yanya//

Rabindranath in this true sense said by his famous song

nce janma, nce mtyu pche pche

tt thai thai, tt thai thai tt thai/

k nanda, k nanda, k nanda,

divrtri nce mukti, nce bandha//

Same meaningful verses are available in Bhadrayakopaniad also esya param gatire sya

param sapadeo sya paramo loka eo sya parama-nanda.

Modern poetry saysTruth is beauty, beauty is truth. Our goddess of knowledgedev Sarasvat

is not only truth but also beauty. Upaniad also say in this connectionnandarpamamta yad

bibhti.


And Tagore says

satya magala premamaya tumi,

dhruvajyoti tumi andhakre/

The most famous upaniad Bhadrayakopaniad says about the immortality in the conversation

between Yog Yjavalkya and Maitrey at 4th chapter-

yenha nmtasy kimaha tena kury/

Katopaniad also says like that in the conversation between Yama and Naciket. Here Naciket also

said to Yama that he does not want any wealth, he wants only iternal bliss self consciousness.

Rabindranath also emphasizes the upaniadic lines in his own that

Ti die yadi tomre pi

kena t dite prin ?

mr jagater sab tomre deba,

die tomy neba vsan/

The most popular mantra of opaniad

Hiramayena ptrea satyasypihita mukham /

tattva pannapvu satyadharmya daye //

This verse is a prayer to God by the worshipper. He who realizes Brahman, the Absolute, becomes

Brahman. Rabidranath says is the light of above verse

tomy mora karva varaa/

mukher hk karva haraa//

On the other hand he also wrote

panre die racili re ki e

panri varaa!


khule dekh dvra, antare tr

nandaniketan.

The famous poetry Dui pkhi of Sonr tar kvya emphasizes the correlation between Jvtman and

paramtman in the light of the mantra of Muakopaniad . The Upaniadic mantra is

dv supar sayuj sakhy

samana vka pariasvajte

tayoranya pipala sydvattya-

nanannanya abhickati

Every human beings performs the ll of Jvtman and paramtman, Tagore, in this content, wrote the

famous song

ti tomr nanda mr par

tumi ti esecho nce

my naile, tribhuvanevar,

tomr prem hata ye miche//

In the opaniad, there are certain mantras which apparently admit of interpretation from the point of

view of jnakarma-samuccaya. Vidy and avidy are opposed to each other and said to have different

results. Vidy means upsan the worshipful meditation of the various divinities. In that very true

sense, a vedantist pursuing the logic of advaita may not seize the essence of Rabindranaths truly

Upaniadic mind. It is a mind yearning for Reality as the truth of life and to understand the nature of

this yearning we have to see the variety of its feeling and expression. There is a tenderness of feeling in

his religious poetry which may not suit the metaphysical strait jacket of any school of the Vednta.

He wroteTomy natun kare pba bole hri kae kanI lose you every moment if only to

have the pleasure of finding you anew. In the same song we have the idea of nya but it is not meant

to be the void which is the annihilation of everything. The poet says God wears the void as a raiment


only to establish his endlessness. If God is endless, he has given man an endlessness. mre tumi

aea karecha emani ll tava. And there is an advaya where the endlessness of man is in union with

the endlessness of God.

Lastly, I conclude the essay by the great poetry of Rabindranath Tagore

Sabr-paraepavitra kar trthanre/

ji bhrater mahmnaver Sgartre//

Bibliography

Anirvan. Vedamms (Vol.1). Calcutta (Now Kolkata); Sanskrit college, 1991 (3rd ed.)

(1st ed. 1961).

Apte, Vaman shivaraman. : The Practical Sanskrit English Dictionary. Delhi ; MLBD,

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Banerji, Suresh Chandra : A companion to Sanskrit Literature. Delhi; MLBD (2nd ed.

1989) (1st ed. 1971)

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51|Journal of Bengali Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1Dasgupta, Sashibhusan. Obscure Religious Cults. Calcutta; 1962(2nd ed.) (1st ed. 1946)

Deussen, Paul. The systems of the Vednta. New Delhi ; Akay Book Corporation, 1987.

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1894).

Rabindra-rachanavali, Visva-Bharati, Achalita Sangraha, 1962, p. 44

ibid., p.136

ibid. vol. 2 1962, p.13.

ibid., 185.

ibid., 209.

ibid., vol. xiv, 651

ibid., p. 654

ibid., p. 660

ibid., p. 681

Radhakrishnan, Sarvapalli. Indian Philosophy. vols.1and2, London;1941(rpt.) ( 1st ed.

London, george & Allen Ltd. 1927).

Sinha, Debabrata. Metaphysics of experience in Advaita Vednta. Delhi ; MLBD, 1995.

Sen, Prasanna Kumar. Vividha Dharmasangit. Kolkata ; Basumati Sahitya Mandir, 1907.

Sen, Sukumar. Old Bengali Texts (

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