With the release of their new album, Indian Ocean is finally moving on after singer Asheem Chakravarthy’s death, says Darshan Manakkal. 16/330 Khajoor Road is singer and percussionist Asheem Chakravarthy’s coda. The new album by Indian Ocean is the last one featuring Chakravarty – he sat regnant at the band’s concerts for nearly two decades before his death seven months ago. Since then, it’s taken two men, vocalist Himanshu Joshi and tabla player Tuhin Chakraborty, to temporarily fill in the Chakravarthy-sized hole in the band, and they have clocked over 30 gigs, put out an album (five years after their last one, Black Friday) and are prepping for a US tour in August.
Though Indian Ocean has kept itself busy, Rahul Ram, the band’s bass guitarist, maintains that they have a lot of ground to recover. “Asheem was involved in every single song on this new album. Be it recording, composing or performing. So this is still Asheem,” Ram said over the phone from Delhi. “We haven’t moved on in that sense. We haven’t written a single song since he died.”
And there is the larger problem of finding a suitable replacement for Chakravarthy. Both Joshi and Chakraborty are only filling in for the time being, and Ram insisted the band was in no hurry to find a permanent replacement, if at all such a thing would be possible. “We have always taken our time over everything,” he said. “So we might as well take our time over this very important thing as well.”
Ram was very clear the band was not considering auditions as an option. “A formal audition will just tell you how somebody sings. It will not tell you what kind of person he is,” he explained. “It’s like trying to find a new wife. The looks are least important. I can say this now. I wouldn’t have said it when I was 20.” Going on to describe Indian Ocean as “a sexless marriage between four people,” he added that for the band the most crucial norm was that new members should get along with the rest of the musicians.
Indian Ocean will try and keep the bare bones of their sound intact, and that is why they are looking for both a tabla player and a vocalist to replace Chakravarthy and are not too keen on introducing new instruments. “For Himanshu and Tuhin to come in and play what has already been played and sung before is much easier,” Ram said. “But having said that we don’t just replicate our own songs each time we perform. And we expect the same from anybody who joins the band as well, because we don’t want clones.” Even the sound of Indian Ocean will eventually evolve and change, Ram pointed out. “When we sit and compose new material with other people there will be things that will sound and feel right with those people at that time,” he said. “We will go with what comes naturally rather than forcing anybody into a particular channel. All our compositions are done in a workshop format where we criticise or take up each other’s ideas and try out different things. Nobody comes up and says, ‘Here’s a song. Play it my way.’ That has never happened with us.”
On stage, Ram said he still occasionally turns to his left, half expecting to find Chakravarthy ready with another of his notorious one-liners. “Now when I look left I sometimes feel I’m playing somebody else’s music and that takes a lot of getting used to,” he said. “But the weird thing is, when we do play a concert, maybe just one or two people from the audience come up and say, ‘We miss Asheem.’ For the rest of them it was like he was never there. One part of me is glad that is happening because that means I can continue playing with Indian Ocean. We’re not like Queen without Freddie Mercury. It’s more like Deep Purple without Ritchie Blackmore.
”Indian Ocean’s latest album, 16/330 Khajoor Road will be up for free download at www.indianoceanmusic.com. Each month, starting July 25, one new track from the album will be released on the website.
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