Mohiner Ghoraguli
Mohiner Ghoraguli or Moheener Ghoraguli is a Bengali indie-rock group from Kolkata. Established in the 1970s, it was one of the pioneers of rock music in the Bengali language, and although it failed to make much of an impact at the time, its music has since gained a wide following in modern-day West Bengal and Bangladesh.
Covers
Mohiner's Ghoraguli's music has been covered by a number of Bengali artistes through the last decade. They were most recently memorably covered at a South Asian cultural show ("Ghungroo 2006") at Harvard College in March 2006 by a trio of undergraduates calling themselves the Calcutta Boys. They sang "Dhandar Thekeo Jotil Tumi" and songs by Anjan Dutta.
Context and origins
Mohiner Ghoraguli (or Moheener Ghoraguli) was formed by a Kolkata musician named Goutam Chattopadhyay in 1976. It is thus considered by many to be the first Bengali rock band in West Bengal. Around the same time, other Bengali bands such as Souls and Feedback were forming across the border in Bangladesh.
Goutam Chattopadhyay had strong political beliefs; in common with many intelligent and idealistic young men of his generation, he was involved in socialist/communist politics during the 1960s and 1970s. (According to former bandmate Abraham Mazumdar, Goutam may have been involved in the Naxalite movement as well.) This political outlook was reflected in the musical output of the band.
The 1970s were not a propitious time for an experimental group like Mohiner Ghoraguli. It was the heyday of classic Bengali singers such as Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, Bhupen Hazarika, Sandhya Mukhopadhyay, Shyamal Mitra, etc - soloists who were responsible for creating the canon of adhunik gaan or 'modern Bengali songs'. These were songs that updated the tradition of Tagore and Nazrul. They were traditional in their instruments and arrangements, and traditional in their themes and lyrics. They often appeared for the first time in the soundtrack of Bengali movies before getting wider release. (Today, these songs have become an integral part of mainstream Bengali culture, and enjoy huge popularity among Bengalis of all ages and backgrounds; they are often referred to as harano diner gaan or 'songs from days past'.)
Versatile output
In such a conservative climate, Mohiner Ghoraguli, with its unorthodox musical compositions and strange choice of song themes, failed to gain much of a fan base. Its songs dealt with everyday topics - politics, poverty, injustice, revolution, love, loneliness, even begging and prostitution. (One song, though recorded almost twenty years later, Bangali Korechho Bhogoban-rey ('Lord you made us Bengali') was a comparative examination of the traits of various nations - American, British, French, German and Bengali!)
The type of music that Mohiner Ghoraguli pioneered, though debatably, is now known as Jibonmukhi gaan or 'Songs of ordinary life'. Two decades after Mohin, singers like Suman Chatterjee, Nochiketa and Anjan Dutta took Jibonmukhi gaan to a new level of popularity, but the origins of the genre can be found in the songs of Mohiner Ghoraguli.
The band recorded with Western instruments and also experimented in a variety of musical styles, some of which must have jarred with the sensibilities of its audience. Today, these compositions sound quite contemporary, leading many to conclude that Mohiner Ghoraguli was indeed ahead of its time. The band freely borrowed elements from baul shongeet, the folk music of rural Bengal . It can therefore lay claim to be the original Bengali folk-rock band. Many bands since Mohin have adopted similar innovations, among them Feedback, Dolchhut and Bangla.
Later years
The group played together till 1980 and was then dissolved. Its music too was largely forgotten. Then in the mid-1990s, a decade and a half after its dissolution, Goutam Chattopadhyay decided to revive Mohiner Ghoraguli. The original members all had professional commitments now, so Goutam put together a new lineup, composed mainly of young musicians.
The first album issued by the new-look Mohiner Ghoraguli was a compilation called Abar Bochhor Kuri Porey ("Again, After Twenty Years"), released at the Kolkata Book Fair. It included a number of original classics from the 1970s, as well as songs recorded by the new lineup. Although listeners were initially slow to catch on, the album proved to be a hit, and it introduced the band to a new generation of music-lovers. Goutam Chattopadhyay finally saw his music gain the popularity and critical recognition that had eluded his band in the 1970s. He died in 1999.
Several other successful compilations have followed since the first one. Both in their native West Bengal and in Bangladesh, Mohiner Ghoraguli is now a much-admired band.
Meaning of the band's name
The name of the band itself is a strange one. The literal meaning of Mohin'er Ghora-guli is "Mohin's horses". While this obscure phrase puzzles many of the band's fans, it is actually taken from a poem Ghora ('Horses') by the great modernist Bengali poet Jibanananda Das. The second line of the poem is:
- Mohiner ghoragulo ghash khae Kartik'er jyotsna'r prantorey
loosely translated as:
- "Mohin's horses graze on the horizon, in the Autumn moonlight"
One of the band's most popular songs, Bhalobashi jyotsnae, is a tribute to the natural beauty of the Bengali countryside; the influence of Jibanananda's pastoral poetry is evident throughout the song. There are other parallels: Jibanananda broke with the literary tradition of his time and introduced modernist themes and diction to Bengali poetry. To some extent, Mohiner Ghoraguli attempted to do the same for Bengali popular music.
Band members
Original lineup:
- Goutam Chattopadhyay (Goutam is also written as Gautam, and Chattopadhyay is often anglicized to Chatterjee)
- Abraham Mazumdar - piano, violin
- Pradip "Bula" Chattopadhyay (younger brother of Goutam) - bass guitar, flute
- Ranjon Ghoshal
- Bishu Chatterjee
- Tapas Das
- Tapesh Banerjee
Note: these lists are incomplete
Gaurab Chattopadhyay, son of Goutam, is leader of the Kolkata band Lokkhichhara.
Discography
- Sambigno Paakhikool O Kolkata Bishayak (Ruffled Feathers and On Calcutta) (1977)
- Aabaar Bachhar Kuri Pare (Again, After Twenty Odd Years) (1995)
- Jhara Samayer Gaan (Songs of Times Past) (1996)
- Maya (Illusion) (1997)
- Khyapar Gaan (Songs of the Loony) (1999)
N.B. The corresponding English names are literal translations, and not names under which the albums were released.