[Reader-list] Composers All India Prashant Pandey

[Prashant Pandey]

Soumen Chatteerjee aka Babua is a Calcutta based 24 year old composer.
I interviewed him at his ancestral house located in Salkia, Calcutta.
I had gone to Calcutta to see the Indian Idol auditions and Babua came
highly recommended by a friend. So after having interviewed two young
and upcoming music directors- Shekhu from Chanakyapuri New Delhi &
Manish Tipu from Andheri (West) Bombay I thought I should talk to this
one from Calcutta, giving my research that rare  all-India quality.

Fine… but I had only half an hour to meet him and had train back to
Bombay from Howrah. So it was all a fast chat punctuated by sweets and
samples of Babuas' tune-bank. This interview was to publish much
before but it became one of those Shoaib Akhtars' never ending
run-ups. This not a very sketched conversation. 10 odd emails to Babua
for a second round of questions and cross questions have not helped.
Infact this interview is mix of the real and the www.  Still you can
read it for kicks. But before the interview here is a part on Babua
from my blog entry on Indian Idol on Calcutta.

pukhraj.blogspot.com

26 th Oct 2005 6 pm.

My train is at 10 pm and I have to meet a Calcutta based budding music
director Soumen Chatterjee aka Babua who is Marks' cousin. (Mark
Campbell, a Scottish guy who suggested that I meet Babua.)

My train is from Howrah and Soumen aka Babua lives in Stal Kart lane in Salkia.
I keep forgetting places in Calcutta. I landed in a big soup when I
confused Taratalla with Dharamtalla.

"Stal kart" sounds like a mix of Stalin and Wall Mart but my rickshaw
wallahs knows the house very well.

It's a huge house and my eyes are fixed on a black wooden bed that's
150 year old. I have never seen such a beautiful bed in my life.
Images from Charulata…Chokher Bali and Devdas flash in quick
succession.

I don't have much time so after greetings and gobbling up sweets I am
sampling Soumens' tune-bank from his Yamaha keyboard.
Bespectacled Soumen is wearing a shirt and a necker and looks far from
a music director.
When he begins to play its quite something. He has a very good
knowledge of Hollywood films and Indian as well as western music. The
good thing is that he has done "types" of songs in typical Bombay
style.

So there is a Mohabbatein type of a Jatin-Lalit song…. then a Govinda
kind of a tapori song.

I really like the tapori composition that Soumen has done. I tell him
that he must come to Bombay and try his luck. I am happy that he has
some 550 tunes.
I tell him that in a film there are 5-6 songs so by this rate he can
do around 100 films. As I say this the rapport between us touches
great heights. Jokes apart. Take my word…he can any day give any
Bambaiya composer a run for his money.

Soumen has another talent. He is a story/ scriptwriter. He tells me
about some of his ideas with the "customary caution".
He says, " Godown me maal bahut hai abhi showroom me lagaya nahi hai"

(I have lot of stuff in the godown….its yet to make it to the showroom.)

Now here is the conversation -

Do you remember what it was like when you composed your first

... a ha . composed my first song when I was 9 .That time I don't have
any instruments. I composed all the tunes with whistle.

What is your style of composing?

I compose every kind of music that means …..Every kind .

Do you think you would make it?

Definitely I am very confident about my composition.

Do people understand your music?

I can't understand about which people you are talking about. If you
are talking about the listeners of India or worldwide … then I have to
say there are so many compositions of mine…. They all are different …
from techno to ballad … from ghazal to jhumri talaiah ….everything.
May be u forgot…. I played some of them for you just now.

Is your work appreciated in the very environment you live in... i.e
your family ?

All of the members of my family are very open minded …may b they don't
know anything about the grammatical nuts & bolts of music ….but they
never discourage me .

Tell me about your family.

I lost my father in 4th march 2004 …he was a doctor .Only my mother &
one sister are now living with me.

Here in all the music shops people like to hum even the PCO guy at
Salt Lake where I am staying sings but what is the Calcutta commercial
composing scenario. Where do you fit in?

The music industry of Kolkata(Bangla Music) is basically  devided into
two part …i.e. Filmi & Non filmi (i.e. Album) since 1940 .This trend
appears in Mumbai after 80's . The BAND culture is now very popular in
Kolkata's commercial music industry . There are so many BAND group
like Bhumi , Chandrabindu, Cactus, Kaya , Miles ,Paras Pathar
etc.There are also some good singers like Nachiketa, Shilajeet
,Shrikanto Acharya ,Indranil Sen ,Rupankar etc. The condition of filmi
music is really horrible now. Though the commercial statistics of
Bangla films are very good.Every film at least  earns 3 times much
than any hindi films. But the condition of filmy music decreased after
the death of Kishore Kumar,Rahul Dev Burman & the great lyricisit
Pulak Bandopadhyay .There are only few composers …like… Babul Bose ,
Jeet Ganguly(One of Jeet –Pritam),Ashok Bhadra,Debojyothi Mishra
………..That's all .Can you Imagine !!!!!!!! Just like the destruction of
Caribbean Cricket.

Do u want to  do Bengali films or would come to Bombay straight ?

May be I can prefer Bangla film Industry before going to Mumbai...But
there is not much here. Mumbai .is the place.

You know what every ten years a musical genius from Calcutta comes to
Bombay and leaves his imprint. 40's Manohari Da came with his
saxophone, Hemant Mukherjee with his tunes,50s Bablu da,70s sexy
sirens Runa Laila and Usha Uthup, 80s kumar Sanu and in 90s Pritam. 
NOW why you have not come to bombay despite a strong tune bank of
around 500 songs

The fields are quite tough for a newcomer….bangla is my homeground
….may b I like to go Mumbai With a good average like Brian Lara ….ha
ha ha !!

Your musical inspirations?

a)Hemanta Mukherjee(as a composer) , b)Sudhin Das Gupta , c)Sachin Dev
Burman ,d) Rahul Dev Burman , e) Bapi Lahiri ,f) Viju Shah & g) Jatin
Lalit. Himesh Reshammiya is recently added in that list.


Your comments on remixes?

 Some remixes are good (Like DJ Aqeel & Dj Suketu)others are
hopeless..they really can do more better like the western djs.

Would you fit in in this digital music making scenario?

I hope so.

After all this goody goody talk tell me your game plan?

Nothing write now …only composing some songs with one of my friend …he
is a amateur singer …but his voice is very husky & so different voice
…just like Himesh sang in Aashiq Banaya Apne .

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