Jul 27, 2015
In the first of its series, #TheCannedProject aims to articulate artform that has been rejected in the space of popular culture. It could be a poem, a story, a film, a song, a video, an ad - any idea that can be documented in a tangible form. The thought is to situate an alternate ecosystem to an array of concepts and cultural expressions that may not meet the traditional conventions of being identified as art in that particular context. It was an arid evening as we walked into Indian Ocean's practise pad. Dogs welcome us into the farmhouse. A cow shimmied her way into their lawn. Nikhil Rao(lead guitarist) is busy shoo-ing her away! The landlord walks into the farmhouse. Amit Kilam(percussion and vocals) engages in a small talk with the landlord on his new business idea- a tiffin dabba service. The ordinary lives of extraordinary people. We get down to talk about the core essence behind the #TheCannedProject. In retort, the band says that they hardly make music that gets ‘rejected’! An entire evening went by scanning through folders and sub-folders of music. We journeyed 20 musical years in 5 hours! A film of dust was sweeped off from CD’s that had been incubating on the wooden rack for years now. We scurried through an entire discography of work. From ad jingles to songs to films to independent album music. After going round in circles, we zeroed in on the ‘rejects’ from Masaan. Masaan, is a 2015 indie Indian drama film that bagged a FIPRESCI (International Federation Of Film Critics) award and a Prix de l'Avenir (a special jury prize for promising debut films) at the prestigious 68th Cannes International Film Festival. Masaan follows the intersection of four characters along the ghats of Benaras and explores the poignant portrayal of moral dilemmas of small-town India. Amit Kilam says, "Indian Ocean was supposed to create three tracks for Masaan. We made six out of which each song got rejected once! Banjaranama was one such song. We were briefed on the song by Neeraj Ghaywan(the director) in the pre-production stage of the film. The song was supposed to set the backdrop for the journey of one of the characters. When they went onto shooting Masaan, the song didn’t fit in the grain of the film and had to be shelved.” Hear the scratch version of the song below: Banjaranama was written by an 18th century poet named Nazeer Akbarabadi. It was essentially a protest song against the dominance of traders. Atleast, that was the context in the film. All verses in the poem end on the same refrain: Sab thaath para reh javega, Jab laad chalega banjara (All your splendor will be rendered useless, when the nomad packs up and leaves). Varun Grover, the writer of the film says, “This song is about the whole pointlessness of grief. It talks about celebrating death. This poem portrays death as a matter-of-fact happening in life while calling all of us humans, travellers on this planet. Our film's philosophy goes well with the core essence of this poem.” The song begins with a long melodic interlude and has a haunting undertone. It sounds more like the chant of an anthem. The lyrics have a prosaic depth and the firepower of an acute observation of everyday life. The main riff was composed by Amit Kilam while toying around with a new equipment. Rahul Ram(bassist) continued with the tune. Only the melody line of the tune has been locked. They would develop the song further, beef up the instrumental section, add more vocal parts and make decisions on the arrangement before the song makes it way to Indian Ocean’s next album.