An open-air film festival was being held there. People were milling about under the evening sun in between screenings
(From left) Nikhil Rao, Tuhin Chakravorty, Rahul Ram, Amit Kilam (sitting) and Himanshu Joshi, the current members of Indian Ocean
It might have been way back in 2003, but we remember the first time that we ever heard an Indian Ocean song as if it's yesterday. We were on a beach in Puri, in Odisha. An open-air film festival was being held there. People were milling about under the evening sun in between screenings. There was an air of genuine relaxation when, suddenly, a massive speaker started blaring a song that had a sound which, up until then, was completely alien to us. The track, Kandisa, was decidedly folksy. Yet, it also had a tinge of spirituality that lent a sense of magicality to the surroundings, such that the moment will be trapped in our memory for years to come. We were, in short, sold.
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Since then, we have had the good fortune of listening to Indian Ocean live on a few occasions (including one memorable concert in Kolkata's Jadavpur University where a packed crowd went absolutely berserk with their fandom). And now, Mumbaikars can avail of that same fortune, since the band has a gig at a Lower Parel mall.
Drummer Amit Kilam tells us about Kandisa, "We were trying out different material in the late '90s, and there was this particular tune that we were working on. We played around with it for a month and a half when one day, [bassist] Rahul [Ram] told us about this Syrian-Christian hymn he had heard from a friend. And he suggested that we merge the hymn with the tune we were toying with; that's how Kandisa came about."
He adds that the band will play the track at their gig in the city, apart from some new, unreleased material. So, head down to the venue that might well be at the other end of the country's eastern coastline, and yet promises to have the same air of magicality as that evening had in Puri all those years ago.
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