Arka, Shamik and Raj in Darjeeling

Arka, Shamik and Raj talk about their feature film debut as composers for 'Bedroom' and how the three musketeers have turned songwriters for Strange Factory

It had started drizzling on Monday morning when Arka decided to take his friends, Rajkumar and Shamik, for a dekko of a palace in Darjeeling. The trio, which is all set to begin work on its first music composition work for a film after after having scored for the Left Front's audio project " Lal Nishan", was excited about this visit. Not because the place looked quaint and inviting but because it provided just the ideal set-up for jamming together.

Ambling down the unkempt lawns, soon the group chances upon a staircase overlooking a tranquil lake. Guitars came out and soon, the three settled on the stairs, completely oblivious to the drizzle and started strumming some of their favourite numbers. The folk songs that Arka (he is the one who sang the title track of "Dadagiri") sung caught the caretaker's attention. A kid, on his way to school, stopped by when he overheard the Nepali folk songs being belted out by strangers in the palace.

In between the music session, Arka spoke about how the three of them have come up with a songwriting project called Strange Factory. "The name comes from the phrase " Mojar karkhana". It is a Bangla contemporary songwriting based project. The sound will be primarily very clean with acoustic centric music. While Rajkumar's major influences are Latin and Jazz, for me, it's folk and blues. For Shamik, it's a lot to do with funk and rock. Nondonda (Nondon Bagchi) is the drummer of our project," Arka said, while inviting the group to take a peek at the interiors of the dilapidated palace.

"Be careful, the floor might cave in," said the caretaker, adding, "You must only step on the piece of glass while taking a walk to the staircase that leads to the first floor." Carefully, the trio walked up the stairs that didn't have railings. It was a completely different world upstairs, somewhat familiar to ones described in Emily Brontë's novels. Broken window panes that made a squeaky sound if you tried to push them open, dainty grassflowers almost carpeting the whole floor and a fireplace that has not been in use after 1947. The caretaker insisted that the palace is haunted. "We had tried to stay up here for three nights. My friend and I had downed a few pegs and come at night. At around midnight, we heard ghosts enter the premises. Dressed in Army fatigues, they thumped their boots and spoke to us in their own language. We spoke to them in our own language and they stuck to their tongue. After three nights, we couldn't take it any further. Since then, nobody lives in this part of the palace at night."

Once the believe-it-or-not ghost story telling session got over, Rajkumar took over to describe how the trio had been maintaining a balance between their individual careers and their attempts at scoring music together for films. "Arka has sung "Ichhe gulo" for "Cross Connection, the album version of "Tania" and "Maula" in "Madly Bangalee", "Allah maula" in "Prem By Chance" and "Nodi bhora dheu" in "Jiyo Kaka!!". He has a world folk experimental project called Filder's Green. I play with Anjanda and have arranged songs for Anupam Roy's forthcoming album. Shamik runs a designhouse that has done the posters for "Dui Prithibi" and "Autograph". But, it's a collective decision to compose together for movies. Mainak has offered us to compose for " Bedroom". While one would have us revisiting Tagore, the other would be a Bengali song. Rupam is composing the other songs of "Bedroom"," Rajkumar said.

Egos, however, have no space when it comes to working together, said Shamik. "We do fight a lot but are back being friends the day after we've had heated arguments. I also have an experience of working with a team. We can't have a chip on our shoulder while working," Shamik informed. So, how would they deal with the "problem" of being tempted to use Arka as the singer for all their film compositions? "That's no problem at all. It's understood that he can't sing for all that we compose," said the three. While walking out of the palace in the wilderness, Arka said: "This place reminds me of a Strange Factory song. It goes like: "Keno bojhano gelo na tomae koto kenor uttor cheyechhi ami, ageo cheyechhi, chai na ar, amar jonnyo akash achhe tomae amar ki dorkar?"
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