They have been rocking the stage with their unique blend of folk, classical, rock music and so much more, for over 2 decades and wowing audiences all over the world. Their song “Bande” in the thought provoking film Black Friday has become a house hold name for music lovers.
On 19th September Indian Ocean returned to Atlanta to rock the stage before a packed house at the gorgeous Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center. The concert was a fundraiser for completing Mahima, the unique meditation hall at the Isha Institute of Inner Sciences, USA
They call themselves “the sound of contemporary India getting to know itself….expressing the very soul of their milieu, urban and rural. Aware of its history and alive to its future. Passionate, honest, unapologetic, untainted by the exotic. At home, in the world.” That night they had the world at their feet as they performed song after song from a repertoire not only well recognized by the audience; but going by the non stop screams as the evening progressed-very loved songs as well.
It was the early 1980s that brought Susmit Sen and Asheem Chakravarty together. The duo jammed off and on together for 3 years, and then in 1990 Susmit sold his guitar to finance a demo tape of their band, by now christened Indian Ocean. HMV offered them an album deal on the spot. Indian Ocean has not looked back since then. Today Susmit, Asheem, Rahul Ram and Amit Kilan are household names, loved and admired by an absolutely euphoric global audience.
The evening began with a song from their 2nd album desert rain, called “From the ruins”. Interestingly if you read up on the album, the quote that you get from the Band is that it was the first ever live album released by an Indian band. “A concert played at the annual SAHMAT show at Mandi House on Jan 1, 1997, and recorded completely by accident!! No major record label was willing to take the risk of releasing a live album, and so a record company was created to release Desert Rain,” The lyrics said bass guitarist and vocalist Rahul Ram, were inspired from Vedic literature that went back thousands of years, reiterating among other things, the guru shishya tradition. The song in Sanskrit moved slowly and thoughtfully through many chords and drum beats, the crowd swayed to the music, as if slowly savoring each word, each note.
Rahul Ram appreciated the fact that while they were an informal band and were quite okay with everyone having a boisterous time, they were getting an opportunity to play some of their slower numbers in the first few minutes of the concert because of such an open minded audience.
The second song was inspired by the Kargil war between India and Pakistan in 1999. “ We were sitting in Delhi and wondering why people would want to kill each other at 15000 feet,” said Ram, “and there is a phrase in Hindi which is- Kya Maloom? Who knows?- and then we thought that so Lord Shiva, the Blue guy who smokes pot, must also be dancing his tandav(a dance that depicts Lord Shiva’s role as the destroyer)-not because he wanted to, but because it was his job description! But at minus 35 degrees, even he was cold. So here is an anti war song about a freezing Shiv ji dancing a reluctant tandav.” The audience roared with laughter but was soon transported to a world where the melody took on the frenzy of war and an angry Shiva danced his tandav; words and melody recreated what had happened almost a decade ago on the strife stricken mountains through the song Kya Maloom?
Going back to their roots, the band then played one of their earliest compositions “ Melancholic ecstasy”, a superb melodic piece followed by another hit “Jhini Jhini” which was their own interpretation of the famous Kabir bhajan Chadriya Jhini re Jhini.
Rahul recalled that while taking stock the band realized that they were in their 19th year together as a band (“ And we are very young still!)and had come up with only 30 songs in 18 years! “ That’s horrible! So we were wondering why and we realized that we are really very lazy and also we take very long time to cook the songs. It’s like making carrot halwa(dessert)- you keep at it for the longest time.” However now things have suddenly changed since the past year with many demands from Bollywood and they have picked up the pace. The band then performed a beautiful number based on folk music Bondhu in Bengali, from a film called Bhoomi. Rahul Ram jokingly said, “Bollywood people are liars. They tell you something, then they tell you something else.”
The song will be sung in a different language in Bhoomi, and though at that moment it was tentatively titled Bondhu- “ but that may change!” From the nectar sweetness of the vocals to the lilting notes of folk melody the song was a perfect blend and concluded the first half of the concert, but not before Rahul Ram asked the audience to look at a video that spoke of the many initiatives of the Isha Foundation.
The band espouses humanitarian causes and this concert brought to Atlanta by the Isha Foundation, a non religious, non –profit organization headed by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, focuses on well being and inner transformation in its meditators and does tremendous humanitarian work through its social and environmental projects. This has garnered ISHA a special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations.
Some of their key initiatives today are – Action for Rural Rejuvenation (www.ruralrejuvenation.org), a rural revitalization program offering medical care, community rehabilitation, and human upliftment to more than 2,500 destitute villages in rural southern India; Project Green Hands ( www.projectgreenhands.org), a massive public reforestation effort aiming to plant 114 million trees in the next ten years, restoring 33% green cover in Tamil Nadu, India; and Isha Vidhya ( www.ishavidhya.org), a pioneering English medium, computer-based education initiative to be established in over 200 new village schools in rural southern India by 2014.
After enthralling the audience in the first half, the band picked up the pace in the second half and the audience matched the artists as their cheers, catcalls and whistles got louder. Soon many people were dancing in the aisles as Indian Ocean belted out Hille Le, the block buster Bande, the absolutely beautiful Bhor, and Kandisa that has acquired cult status and become their anthem wherever they play.
The band also played the song that made Isha founder Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev stand up and dance. “ It was about 3years ago and we went to the beautiful Isha headquarters nestled in the Coimbatore Hills and played before 10-15 thousand people, “ said Rahul Ram “And when we played this song, at one point Sadhguru got up and started dancing. You should have seen the audience go wild. So if the spirit moves you too..move” and move they did, in hundreds to the rocking number “Boll Weevil.”
The awesome foursome ended the concert with Kaun dedicating it to a close friend in Atlanta.
Before they arrived in Atlanta the band had said ““Playing at Isha Foundation Headquarters in India was a soul stirring experience, and we are very glad and proud to be associated with the Atlanta Chapter. We hope the fans come in large numbers with an open heart and wallet to help this worthy cause.” They weren’t disappointed, nor did they disappoint the adoring fans in return.
Many have tried to pigeon hole this band into specific genre of music, but with Indian Ocean, spontaneity and improvisation is what makes them unique. There on stage, anything can and did happen. The fact that this one of a kind concert was for a noble cause made the night even more special.