The music of Anjan Dutt

Anjan Dutt falls in the category of musicians who were born in the late 50s and early 60s. He was never there in the Rollicking 50s, so he never learnt to croon like Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin. Jazz maestros like Louis Armstrong or Harry Belafonte too never got to influence him. His teenage life missed the Swinging 60s by a whisker. Consequently hip-hop rock was also out of the way. Instead his formative years witnessed the most dramatic decade of music history. The 70s were not only a decade of the Vietnam War (as far as the world was concerned)...

“Modern music is a complete letdown.” We have been hearing statements like this for quite sometime now, because the elders really love to hate anything that is ‘modern’. Of course they then justify this oft-repeated phrase of theirs by placing today’s music in perspective with those of the ‘golden days’ gone by.

However, in spite of such accusations lamenting the mythical ‘death of music’ I would still say Anjan Dutt (on whom this piece is all about) is an ‘artist’, and not just an ‘artiste’.

Death of Hemanta Mukhopadhyay (better known as Hemant Kumar in the rest of India), and the demise of Manna Dey as a popular performer, created an enormous void in the Bengali music world, in the same way as Satyajit Ray’s passing away resulted in declining Bengali film audience. However this was more of an emotional void than of a factual one. After all, death of a stalwart does not necessarily mean absolute disappearance of talent and ability. Doesn’t the Show always go on?

On the other hand, however hard and unwarranted might this seem, death (not just in body) of the above mentioned exponents in fact laid ground for the sudden influx of talents to the popular forefront. This insurgency so to say, was led by a few mercenaries- as they were called.

Anjan Dutt, along with people like Suman Chattopadhyay (aka Kabir Suman), Rituparno Ghosh et al, was a part of this neo-modern intellectual brigade. He arrived not just as another performer; he was as an iconoclast because he refused to comply by the norms of an archetypal singer.

Listening to Anjan Dutt’s songs is not just a habit for me, it’s a way to coming to terms with life. He is a mouthpiece for the urban proletariat, their dreams and their anguish. The incoherent array of thoughts that glide past our brains, have been legibly expressed by his songs. He has the ability to make the listeners feel his music, because he doesn’t just sing from his heart, he does so from his brain as well.

His songs are not just about rhythm or melody, as most people are accustomed to. Rather, his songs are more about lyrics – words and thoughts. He doesn’t feed words to music, rather he gives music to words. Consequently this earns the wrath of the ‘elders’, because his words reflect the thoughts of a different era altogether.

Anjan Dutt falls in the category of musicians who were born in the late 50s and early 60s. He was never there in the Rollicking 50s, so he never learnt to croon like Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin. Jazz maestros like Louis Armstrong or Harry Belafonte too never got to influence him. His teenage life missed the Swinging 60s by a whisker. Consequently hip-hop rock was also out of the way. Instead his formative years witnessed the most dramatic decade of music history. The 70s were not only a decade of the Vietnam War (as far as the world was concerned) and the Naxalite Movement (as far as Bengal was concerned), it was also a time when sensationally ‘wordy’ and ‘unsentimental’ ballads became the order of the day. And then of course the 80s were a period when he was being swept by the tide into the musical arena; when rock, and not rock-and-roll, was the ‘in’ thing.

He is a self-proclaimed protégé of Bob Dylan and John Lennon, two people who radically changed the very face of music. He has also at various stages of his life expressed his gratitude, (the latest being on Christmas Day last year at Some Place Else in Calcutta, which I happened to attend) to various solo artists and groups like John Coltrane, Pete Seager, Simon and Garfunkel, Joan Baez, John Denver, Dire Straits, Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley. Bruce ‘the Boss’ Springsteen could easily be called his greatest contemporary.

All his albums corroborate the fact that he has indeed been true to his music and his mentors. And quite a few of his songs I dare say, are in the same league as those of his gurus, and hence have by default earned the right to be called classics. And so in spite of all the influences he has carved a very singular niche for himself and his works.

His songs portray in various capacities the three basic emotions of love, anger and hurt (the closest translation of ‘Obhimaan’). He has painted a tableau of good times and bad. His songs have not only spoken of broken dreams, unrequited love, cold hallucinations, betrayals and urban cynicisms, but also of moments of joy and satisfaction, however trivial. Be it the story of the ‘Mizo Boy’ who leaves his guitar and takes to gun, or that of ‘Haripada’ who has failed to get out of his same old monotonous life- Anjan Dutt’s songs are a celebration of life.

‘Kolkata 16’ is not only a song of unrequited love but is also a tribute to Park Street (an inseparable part of every Calcuttan’s life, Anjan Dutt being no exception). ‘Rong-Pencil’ (Colour Pencil) and ‘Neel’ (Blue) beautifully elucidate how the significance of imagery and colour respectively, change as one grows up. ‘Ashomoy’ (Inopportune Moment) reveals man’s habit to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Conversely, ‘Fire Ashbo’ (I’ll Come Back) is man’s eternal promise to return (to home, sweetheart, country), come what may. In ‘Amar Shohor’ (My City) and ‘Khyapa Shohor’ (Mad City), he might be speaking of the dirt, decadence, politics and bureaucracy that lingers in the nooks and corners of Calcutta, but in hugely contrasting tones he ends up expressing his sublime love for the ‘City of Joy’. In his passionate voice we learn what we always knew, in his song ‘8-letter word’, “Calcutta is all filth and dirt, but love is an eight letter word” All one needs to understand the statement is to count the number of letters Calcutta comprises of!

Songs of love, or rather lack of it, (because most of his popular love songs do not have a happy ending) like ‘2441139’, ‘Mala’, ‘Chyapta Golap’ (Flattened Rose), ‘Sheetkaler Chithi’ (Winter Letter) (where he associates himself in a monologue with his wife, via a letter written on a paper napkin at a bar in Manhattan), etc, as well songs on Darjeeling (where he spent his early years), abound in his albums.

Two songs that I keep returning to are ‘Purono Guitar’ (Old Guitar) and ‘Mr. Hall’. While the former deals with the role of guitar (and consequently Dylan, Lennon and even Suman) in his life, the latter deals with that of his first music teacher. Both are extremely personal songs, nostalgic of the times gone by, but with an appeal that is universal.

Satyajit Ray had famously wrote, “Cinema has never been saved by writers”. The saying holds true for every form of art, including music. Thus people like me will continue to like songwriter-singers like Anjan Dutt. Similarly the elders will continue to dislike him and scoff at him...

...but, in the immortal words of Rhett Buttler(in ‘Gone With the Wind’), “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

P.S : Anjan Dutt isn’t just a singer-songwriter; he is also an award-winning actor and a film maker of fast-growing repute. But let’s leave that for some other day.