Band-any

A
ny Bengali, especially calcutta kid, these days will identify with what Im talkin about . Its a part of our new sense of respectable identity. Im talking about Bangla bands. I mean, think about it..... these days if you don't listen or proffess to know anything about them or scorn them as wannabe acts and proffess your love only for sophisticated "classical" stuff such as Euro- pop, or only Rolling Stones/Ac/Dc club, you are bound to be called a "tansh goru" behind your back or a anglicised to the largest extent. But if your music repertoire consist of Mohin, fossils, lakkhichara, cactus(yuck!) , chandrabindu, bangla and what not to pepper you dignified taste of Led zepplin, Floyd, mettalica, judas priest etc... you will see that a blooming flame of respect that rises on the faces of our co-youths. This is the respectable identity sense i'm talkining about. Now, I realise that what i just said might raise a huge storm of finger pointers and correctors and you might say that there is nothing wrong in the opinion of bangla ands to be wannabe acts and such like. and i agree on that part. but what i mean to say is that the first situation sort off reeks of lack of appriciation for something that is very much calcutta born. a lover of all things calcutta can appriciate the good and the bad facets of the city. and bangla bands inspite of all their wannabe-ness, has now become an essential part of calcutta culture.
If one sees it from one point of view, Bangla Band music has sort of brought back the bengali youth to listen and pay attention to bengali music again. And that by itself has infused a new life and energy into bengali music and spurring it to go on. Bengali music is not only rabindrasangeet. Bands like Bhoomi, Krosswindz, Kaya, etc has infused new life into bhatiyali and sort of convined us that its not entirely bhat. and the tradition goes on.
The fact that Bangla Band means wannabe-ness power infinity is true to a large extent but we cannot say that we have a dearth of talent or originality. Some bands have very very strong song-writers.... say Rupam of Fossils, Chandril and Anindo of Chandrabindoo. And Wannabes they might be, but all these bands posess a huge amount of musical talent in their extremely good musicians, even though the material might not be very original.
The energy that these bands generate in their programmes are awesome. The fact that before a month or six back , most of the bands only got to promote themselves through the word of mouth, the radio to an extent and only by their music sales, is an amazing phenomenon, that most of kolkata know about these wannabe bengali rockstars and all. For example, In a Fossils concert, you will hardly find an variation in the song line up. Yet they pack crowds in, and are able to hold them in thrall and controll them a bit. It helps that theyare amazing performers too.
No one can deny that Bangla bands are now a really strong part of all things that makes Calcutta, Calcutta. They have emerged from a pseudo-underground movement to being a mainstream calcuttan cultural limb.