Music flows across borders

The South Asian University organised a concert along with an interactive session with eminent singer and song writer Moushumi Bhowmik recently in the national Capital. "Musical flows across borders" and "exploring Arnold Bake's recording from the subcontinent" were the two subjects which were being discussed. It does not take much of an effort to figure out Moushumi's immense love for the folk culture of Bengal when she starts sharing anecdotes from her journey of recording and documenting the rich and varied tradition of folk music in West Bengal and Bangladesh. The main theme of her songs is 'home', as she says," I write a lot about home and the search for home." According to her, music is not just a song, but it is important to understand non-musical sound as music.

I used to live in London in 2002 and I met Oliver Weeks and then later we formed the band which became Parapar. First it was Oli and I, who used to work together. Then I came back to India. Oli visited me in 2004 and that's how "Parapar" was created. In 2005 the four of us were invited to Calcutta and Dhaka to perform by the British Council.

Dotara came later. When we met in 2005 we used to do workshop in the Calcutta School of Music. Among the people who joined us was Satyaki Banerjee , who since then became a very good friend.

Abhik Sen, the art critique wrote that fusion seems to suggest as a form, kind of peeking a surficial mix of things but in effect all good music are fused with many other things. So, of course music is fused with many other things and every music can be called fusion in that sense. Satyaki joined us and he was very good. So we asked "Do you want to play one song with us?".

And he played. I sing in Bengali and a few folk songs and my songs come out of this contemporary time. It comes out of the lineage of the early 20th century song makers of Bengal and at that lineage Rabindranath Tagore, Atul Prasad, D.L. Ray everybody was sort of blending and mixing and experimenting with certain forms of music. So, they were all fusing things to make their own craft. And we carry on with the tradition. But I don't change my songs in order to sing them with Oli, Ben and Ros. They are all classically trained and highly talented musicians.

Nothing inspired me. If a child can sing, she sings. But not just if you like, also if you can as well. There is no particular consciousness that is inspiring me. I was something of a natural singer.

London is a place which is so diverse. Different kind of people brings different kind of music. It depends on what you are doing. There are listeners for everything. People from India go and even perform Rabindra sangeet. And there are people who listen to Rabindra sangeet, modern songs, folk songs, bands and many more. But I don't do any of these. I keep myself away from all these. My fourth album came out after a long gap of 16 years.

There are so many that I can't pick something out in particular. May be they all are just mere memories that are very close to my heart.