In 1974, a group of men got together in Kolkata to mix the sounds of the earth with the strum of the electric guitar. They jammed – proclaiming themselves to be a “baul jazz band.” The mostly nomadic baul singers of Bengal have had a long history, stringing songs on their Ektara even during the freedom movement.
The band emerged at a time when legendary singers such as Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, Sandhya Mukhopadhyay and Shyamal Mitra, people who were a part of the golden era of the Bengali music industry, were in their heyday. Pop music was also gaining popularity across the border in East Bengal.
The original members of the band included Gautam Chattopadhyaya, alias Manik alias Moni-da to his younger siblings. As the Naxalbari movement gained prominence during the Emergency, thousands of Bengali youth and peasants joined it. The slogan of “Amar bari, tumar bari, Naxalbari, Naxalbari” (My home, your home, Naxalbari, Naxalbari!) reverberated through the state.
One of the many, subsumed within the movement, was Chattopadhyay, a talented young man who played the saxophone and lead guitar at Presidency College, Kolkata. He did a brief stint in jail because of his Naxal connections and later worked as a medical representative, while also continuing to compose music. While in jail, he was tortured. His college friend, Dipak Bhattacharyya, the Supreme Court lawyer later reminisced:
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