Indian folk musician Arko Mukhaerjee: Metros have an elite way of looking at folk music

Arko Mukhaerjee, the acclaimed folk musician from West Bengal, possesses a unique ability to hear music in the sounds of everyday life. His fascination with various tunes, both Indian and international, has led him to explore and appreciate different genres of folk music. In an exclusive interview with Mid-day.com, Mukhaerjee discusses his musical journey, the diversity of folk music in India, and his upcoming projects.

It is a world tour that he enjoys and still gets fascinated by, even after all these years. It has also led him to not only listen but also sing and play different genres of folk music in his performances with more instruments and languages as time goes by, as he becomes more appreciative of discovering new music every single day.

This need for exploration started a little less than two decades ago, and continues to be what he strives to achieve every single day. He explains, "I was really tired as a person coming from an educated, lower middle-class family, mostly coming from multiple partition periods of Bengal, where you grew up with pressures of identity culture. You have to know who you are, so you kind of grow up in that way where you have to sit down with the harmonium and practice." Mukherjee's parents are classical singers.

His musical journey began with a desire to find a language far from the classical genre practiced by his family. However, he eventually realised that rock, pop, and rock and roll were also rebel forms in other parts of the world. This discovery led him back to Indian folk music, and he has been exploring it ever since.

Folk music in India
Mukhaerjee's performances showcase the diversity of Indian folk music, weaving together melodies in different languages that resonate with audiences. He cherishes the folk music he heard in his suburban Kolkata upbringing, such as Shyama sangeet (songs of Kali) and Azaan, which create a fascinating tapestry of sounds and emotions.

Mukhaerjee, who earlier this year performed at the inaugural Mahindra Roots Festival in Mumbai put on quite a show with music that induced everybody into a unique trance of music, that took them from music in languages they didn't know to more familiar tunes, that made them sing along, in one single tune but different languages. An aspect of music that the Bengali folk singer encapsulates in a chat with us which is like a live performance.

How he finds similarities between a Shama sangeet tune or kirtan to what he heard a particular tune to the time he heard the music of iconic American rock band Pink Floyd as a child, and then traces it to an Indian classical piece -- all of which he hums, and it is fascinating to say the least. In fact, he has also managed to incorporate this into his music.

Music without borders
Arko Mukhaerjee deeply admires folk music, a genre that transcends borders and has existed in various forms worldwide for ages. He believes that the word "culture" itself originates from 'cultus' caring for the land, like agriculture and that the rhythm of work influences the music of a community. Folk music, he explains, reflects collective unconsciousness and holds a significant place in every society's daily life.

Mukhaerjee says when one is in Batulechaur, which is a village outside of Pokhara, the community there has been practicing this music for many years because they believe it has been there since ancient times. If you are playing a Santhali tribal tune especially the ones who were taken as slaves to the tea gardens, while playing it on his dotara, he points out how it is actually similar to the music in 1920s America and the cotton fields, which is the counterpart of the tea plantations. "The whole idea of hegemony and cultural hegemony operates with similar mechanisms - of divisive politics, cohesive politics, politics of appropriation, and expression of trying to liberate oneself out of it, which you never are able to. It also has to be quite similar because at the end of the day, it's just two human beings," he adds.

The fact that this very music has existed in India for a long time is hard to deny. With a country as diverse as ours, the Bengali musician says there is a lot left to explore and he is on that very journey. He shares, "It is quite a miracle that India is a country. There are so many little countries, so many little lands, so many people, so many dialects, so many languages, so many dialects, and so many working conditions. Folk music is people's music, but the problem that lies in most metros or this metropolitan culture is that it is an elite way of either exotically looking at a certain form, or appropriating the form into a very polished festival format, pushing it towards a central identity."

However, there have often been people who have gone beyond these very polished versions to remind Indians of their roots and Mukhaerjee experienced that with a world-famous Indian composer. He shares, "When I listen to a composer like Vanraj Bhatia in 'Manthan', I realised how he has successfully reinstated the crude, which was actually driven out, and brought it back to us, that's the job of a responsible artist."

Over the years, Mukhaerjee has collaborated with many artists as he not only explores folk music in India but also from around the world, and in the process, he has come to a realisation. He explains, "I used to be stupid in many ways in terms of looking at things as okay this is an Indo-American collaboration or this particular kind of collaboration. Now, I feel really rather stupid because it's just another sound. They are unique to another land, but reflect some of it onto onto my society as well, because there are only these many possibilities with certain uniquenesses." So, he says, there are similarities and differences, which are both necessary to be celebrated as well.

Covid-19 pandemic and future work
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Arko Mukhaerjee remained active in supporting various initiatives through online fundraisers. He collaborated with diverse artists from around the world and continues to explore new musical possibilities. Currently, he is working with his wife on a project called 'Smells of Racism,' an interdisciplinary performance that addresses racism through the sense of smell.

"I was the busiest person during the Covid-19 pandemic because I played around 250 online fundraisers in the last three years. I basically worked with all independent little initiatives, which were not government initiatives. None of them were NGOs. They were basically with local pada people trying to help out in different situations, whether it was Covid or whether it was because we also have the Amphan super cyclone."

Taking off from these initiatives, he is currently working on helping the community around him in any way he can. "We (me and my friends) have built an independent labour camp in Howrah, which is one of the poorest working-class industrials district. It is mostly 70 per cent of working-class Muslim people, and 30 per cent lower caste families. We supported many canteens like in Begalchia, which is a tiny, semi-grungy three huge slums besides PM basti and Chaura basti, two of the hugest slums of Howrah, with some as big as Dharavi. We used to play concerts paid with the subsidies of this campaign. Now, we bought the place and are building it one step at a time." It was also on one of these many fundraisers that he happened to meet his wife, who used to sit in Munich, and help him out.

Mukhaerjee says he has given up on the idea of creating audio albums for the time being. He will do it only if he has a good recording device around. In the meantime, he is also busy working with his wife on an Indo-German performance.

He shares, "I am working with my wife on a project called 'Smells of Racism' and 'Sweat', which is basically a dance, music, theatre and interactive space with the audience. It is on multiple stories of layers of racism that happen through smell, how smell has divided the world, and how it has been used to arouse fear and disgust by the fascists across the world. How it is used as medium of appropriation within society, how the fishing communities, have to face this thing, of how a sweeper has to feel or how a person who burns dead bodies, or deals or works in a morgue deals with it." Similarly, he says it has been used in the West to depict how palo santo or things like Frankincense is cut down to basically sell it in the name of exotica and getting rid of evil spirits. So, if there is an evil, it is the evil spirit of racism, the evil spirit of classism, the evil spirit of fascism."

Mumbai's influence
Having lived in both Kolkata and Mumbai, Arko Mukhaerjee appreciates Mumbai's common ethics, honesty, and fast-paced lifestyle. As a Bengali person, he finds the city's speed a bit different from what he grew up with, but he continues to learn and draw inspiration from Mumbai's vibrant energy. "I have lived halfway between Calcutta and Mumbai for 10 years, because my parents were working there. I lived in Takshila outside of Mahakali caves in Andheri East."

Having spent many years in Mumbai, he respects the city for more than one thing. "Its common ethics and honesty are something that really fascinate me. It is missing in many other Metros of India. However, he also finds the city extremely fast. "Essentially, being a Bengali, I wasn't brought up in that kind of speed. There is a lot of pressure of academia, which at times slows you down. So, I'm still learning from Mumbai every day, and it is a superb city," he concludes.