Prithweesh Bhattacharjee

Good resource for listening to the music of Mohiner Ghoraguli April 17, 2008

This page in You Tube has a great collection of songs and videos of Mohiner Ghoraguli. Check them out.

If you have not heard about this group before given below is a brief introduction I found in Wikipedia.

Moheener Ghoraguli or Mohiner Ghoraguli (Bengali:translation: Moheen’s Horses) was a Bengali music group from Kolkata. It is difficult to classify them into a musical genre, as their music was a mixture of a wide variety of influences, including the Baul and folk traditions of Bangla and rock.

Established in the 1970s during a period of stagnation in Bangla music, when commercial film songs were the dominant market force, the lyrics (and to some extent the compositions) of leader Gautam Chattopadhyay were radically new. They were of a very personal or social nature, similar to the urban folk movement lead by Bob Dylan in the 60s. Though they were almost unknown in their time, in recent years they have undergone a critical re-evaluation much like the Velvet Underground. This can not be understood without a little background on the Jibonmukhi movement.

They are sometimes also credited as the pioneers of the flourishing of Bangla bands in the new millenium. However this is debatable as their songwriting was strongly rooted in Bangla folk and also American urban folk, while modern Bangla bands like Fossils are mostly influenced by the angst of grunge.

Their signature song is Prithibita Naki, a reflection on how television creates urban alienation. It has been covered by many artists.

Style

Moheener Ghoraguli (or Mohiner Ghoraguli) was formed by a group of Kolkata musicians led by Gautam Chattopadhyay towards the end of 1974. Initially, they called themselves ‘Saptarshi’, and after dilly-dallying with various names including ‘Teerandaz’, ‘Nogor Shongkeerton’ finally settled on the name ‘Moheener Ghoraguli’ proposed by Ranjon Ghoshal. The name was borrowed from a poem ‘Ghora’ by Jibanananda Das. Around the same time, other Bengali bands such as Souls and Feedback were forming across the border in Bangladesh.

The 1970s were not a propitious time for an experimental group like Moheener Ghoraguli. It was the heyday of classic Bengali singers such as Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, 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. Indeed, composers like Salil Chowdhury maintained a bank of their compositions, to use when they were requested to score a film. These were usually typical romantic songs, fluffy and unmemorable in their lyrical content. The situation has been compared to the mellow, commercial Tin Pan Alley music in USA that led to the rebellious rock’n’roll movement.

In such a conservative climate, Moheener 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. Gautam 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, Gautam may have been involved in the Naxalite movement as well.^{[citation needed]}) This political outlook was reflected in the musical output of the band.

The type of music that Moheener Ghoraguli pioneered, though debatably, had the seeds of now very popular Jibonmukhi gaan or ‘Songs of ordinary life’. Two decades after Moheen, singers like Kabir Suman, 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 Moheener 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 Moheener 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 Moheen have adopted similar innovations, among them Feedback, Dolchhut and Bangla.

The group played together till 1981 and was then dissolved. Its music too was largely forgotten. Then in the mid-1990s, a decade and a half after its dissolution, Gautam Chattopadhyay decided to revive Moheener Ghoraguli. The original members all had professional commitments now, so Gautam decided to put together a new lineup, composed mainly of young musicians.

The first album issued by the new-look Moheener Ghoraguli was a compilation called Abar Bochhor Kuri Porey (“Again, After Twenty Years”, a qutation from Jibonanondo Das), 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. Gautam Chattopadhyay finally saw his music gain the popularity and critical recognition that had eluded his band in the 1970s. Several other successful compilations have followed since the first one. Both in their native West Bengal and in Bangladesh, Moheener Ghoraguli is now a much-admired band.

Gautam’s death in 1999 was sudden. After returning from a location shooting of his last film Rong Bin, which was never completed, the next day he went to the Indropuri studio to meet his longtime cinematographer friend and colleague, Vivek Banerjee and there he collapsed and died of a heart attack. An entire generation of budding musicians who had been popularized by Gautam in Kolkata mourned his untimely death and a tribute album “Moni chara shunno laage” (We feel empty without Moni) was released; it should be noted here that Moni was Gautam’s nickname.

Band members

Original lineup:

• Gautam Chattopadhyay (Manik a.k.a. Moni-da to his younger siblings) – voice, lead guitar, saxophone, lyrics
• Abraham Mazumdar – piano, violin
• Pradip “Bula” Chattopadhyay – bass guitar, flute
• Ranjon Ghoshal – lyrics, emcee, visuals, media relations
• Biswanath “Bishu” Chattopadhyay – drums, bass violin
• Tapas “Bapi” Das – voice, guitar
• Tapesh “Bhanu” Bandopadhyay – voice, guitar (till 1978)

Later Members:

• Raja Banerjee – Guitar (1978 onwards)

After Tapesh Bandopadhyay left the band in 1978, he was replaced by Raja Banerjee. Raja went on to record the third Moheen album Drishyomaan Moheener Ghoraguli with the band and performed in numerous concerts till the band was disbanded.