Stories in song

A new band of mainstream Bollywood musicians is charting an unfamiliar territoryu00a0-- that of telling stories through songs in a North Indian tradition. The result is Rewind: Nine Lost Memories, an album with tracks about eating mangoes in summer and waiting for a postman to deliver love letters


(From left) Neelesh Mishra, Shilpa Rao and Amartya Rahut share with us a rendition of one of the songs from their album Rewind: Nine Lost Memories. Pic/Nimesh Dave

NEELESH Mishra's apartment on the fifth floor of an under-repair Andheri building is a far cry from the chaos and dust of the Metro construction at Seven Bungalows. A cool breeze blows in through the large window flanked by bookcases, forming a fitting accompaniment to the man's sonorous voice that precedes Yaadon Ke Idiot Box Mein, the first song from Rewind playing on his home stereo, as singer Shilpa Rao and I hum along.
Rao (playback singer of Yeh Pal in No One Killed Jessica), Mishra (writer of Tum Jo Aaye Jindagi from Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai) and Amartya Rahut (ad film music composer) are part of Band Called Nine, which released the album after receiving a tremendous response at the 2010 Kala Ghoda Festival, FICCI Frames, and IFFI at Goa. Rahut is the album's composer.

"We wanted to bring back the tradition of Qissa Goi, the art of story-telling, that was perfected for centuries in many parts of North India," offers Mishra, as an explanation for the story that precedes each of the album's nine tracks and threads them together into a love story "set against the theme of nostalgia." Smiling, Mishra confesses with honesty, "I chose story-telling because as a writer in Bollywood, there's only so much you do before merging into the background. Here, I wanted to be part of the entire process, and take the story forward."

What emerges is a tale of small-town nostalgia about a time when 4.30 pm meant waiting for the postman to receive a love letter, strung together by the trio's own experiences of growing up away from the bustle of Mumbai. "It's something we can all relate to," says Rao. "I'm from Jamshedpur, Amartya is from Kolkata, and Neelesh is from Nainital, and we've all lived a simple life. The stories too, therefore, are more visualu00a0-- we won't just say it's a hot day, we'll describe it," she explains, as Mishra nods.

The response, they claim, has been great. "We're a country with a great oral story-telling tradition that is dying. But if there's anything our performances for this album have taught us, it's that it's not dead. We're just not telling them anymore. When we do, like with our album, people love it," says Mishra.
We hop over to Rubber Soul at Yaari Road to chat with Rahut, who is in the middle of sound editing. After an impromptu jam session followed by nimbu pani, Rahut puts the guitar back and settles down to talk about the music.

"The brief was to keep it simple, since the theme is nostalgia. Melody is paramount, so we've kept it contemporary." Rao adds, "There's a lot of funk, ghazals and a classic rock-meets-pop kind of feel." That means classic instruments like the tabla, veena, guitar and sarangi find pride of place in all the tracks, with the occasional trumpet.

"We're talking about memories, and those can't be scattered," Rahut says.
Mishra excuses himself to head out. As we prepare to pack up and leave, Rahut, settling in for a chat with Rao and some other friends over tea, has the last word: "It was great composing for our own band. I wasn't writing to a set brief. And the theme of small-town nostalgia meant that the music didn't need to have the Western influences that most Hindi music does these days. It's spontaneous and easy."