Asif Khan Inc.

leaving home – the life and music of indian ocean

something on the lines of ‘indian ocean has mostly used four instruments through their career. we urge you not to add yours’ flashes on screen. a message which elicits a smile and a quick glance to do a double check on my phone to see if its set on vibrate. its a small gathering at the cozy theater. maybe it’s the relatively early hour (6.30pm is early for a weekday) or it was purposely not publicized as much (as good humoredly admitted by the organizers - in a bid to make more people watch it by buying tickets in cinema halls). but then there aren’t as many people as you’d have expected, yet the theater is pleasantly filled up in a non-intrusive manner. and so it begins.

i don’t really need to say much about indian ocean, and their impact on the independent music scene in india. suffice to say, by far, their brand of music has been the most accessible kind to have been made in our country. steeped in modern western music grooves, yet rooted in rustic sounds from the deepest recesses of india’s soul. going down with equal ease with both an iphone toting, laptop carrying teen in delhi and a charming belle tucked away in benaras. an aging soul walking around hiranandani reminiscing his heyday and a long haired dude in adyar who has just picked his first guitar. a bearded skullcap in a hurry to attend to the call of prayer and a vermillioned forehead rising early to catch the first glimpse of morning. they have simply cut across everything, and made themselves, like i said earlier, the most accessible.

which makes it a reason good enough for someone to engage in an endeavor to put together the snippets of the band’s journey over the years. and that courageous someone is jaideep varma, who through a meticulous method of interviewing the band and all people associated with it over the years, has crafted together a non-fiction film titled ‘leaving home’, which provides quite a good insight into facets unknown to most fans. the film begins with sights and sounds which would be familiar to any living soul of delhi, and gradually reaches the courtyard of a house nestled in the lanes of karol bagh. a house which has been home to indian ocean over the past many years. the walls of which would contain within them echoes of the sounds created by the band for generations to come. chronicling the band’s coming of age, each band member shares their thoughts at various junctures in their timelines as they struggled for survival and then later, grappled with stardom. aiding the four protagonists (asheem chakravarty, rahul ram, susmit sen, amit kilam) are various family members, ex-band mates and numerous associates (anurag kashyap, sudhir mishra, rabbi shergill, shubha mudgal), each of whom help to provide a perspective which adds an unsurpassable element of honesty to the film. a liberal interspersion of live footage of some of their best known songs – both in concert, as well as during their jam sessions – provides that ubiquitous element which the band stands for.

mind you, this is not a feature film. nor is it a documentary. it’s a non-fiction film which documents the travails of the band. so don’t expect any fussy frills to excite you through your viewing. considering the fact that it would be a low budget independent film, the film has been made very well. the concept, though not exactly novel, has been executed in a very justifiable manner. though the editing could have been slightly slicker; post production could have smoothed out some of the rough edges. the sound, however, makes up for everything, picking up each subtleties of each nuance music and pronoucing it – something extremely essential to a film of this nature. despite all this, any indian ocean fan would relish the entire experience of reliving the band’s story. but then this is it. the film, in a certain way, may not really strike a major chord with people uninitiated into the blend of the band. a novice may not necessarily end up becoming a convert and try to delve deeper into exploration, if the movie is his maiden experience with the band. i may be wrong (and honestly, i’d love to be proven wrong), but i guess this is something that would be best left to time after the movie has seen a major release.

but above all, owing to the soft spot i have for the band and indian independent music as a whole, i feel that irrespective of anything else, the thought, feeling and effort which went into making this is definitely commendable. it makes me feel proud. and it makes me want to grab every lover of indian ocean and ask him to watch it.