Rahul Ram (English)

Where dreams come from, is a podcast featuring successful people from around the world who have pursued their dreams to arrive at a station in life. I'm your host, Sanjeev Chatterjee. I'm a professor of cinema and journalism. And in my creative life, I make documentary frogs. I started this podcast to explore what it takes for people to follow their dreams, even while being true to who they are, at least, who they believe they're almost four decades ago, while still in college in India, I played bass in a rock band. My guest today Raul ROM, was a bassist in a rival band. Then we lost touch until one day in the early 2000s, the song Monday by the banned Indian Ocean for the Bollywood film, Black Friday, came bursting into the seed. Round Round was ostensibly the band's frontman. In our conversation, he outlines his various interests and how they got channeled and define his music and life. Route spoke to me from his home in Naga in Madhya Pradesh. route around Welcome to wear Greenstone. Thank you, Mr. Chatterjee. Where did you grow up? What are your earliest memories, who I grew up in Delhi, I am a very broad and broad growing. I've lived in and around the North Campus of Delhi University all my life, except for a few years here in new study. I remember Delhi weather I remember for I remember the heat of summer I remember being asked to not go out and play at three o'clock only let out at five summers. So many things. Yeah, I remember the nimbala is the fruits of the name Craig dropping, and as kids squishing them with our feet, that slightly sweet, slightly bitter taste of those nim bullies. And we were squishing feet in the mud when it rained. What seems to be early influences do you think? Or definitely parents, and the whole, you know, I grew up with the couple of academics and spirits. In those days, like 6869 70 of other student revolutions that were shaking the world also happened in Delhi University. And so I remember coming back from school, the bus medicals of a kilometer away instead of opposite the house and seen a pitched battle between the police and the students with tear gas shells being tuned back and forth. Interestingly enough, I grew up in a household which was my mother was from big oil. My father was from Karnataka. So they were a mixed region and mixed caste marriage in an era when these things were rare. So many things when I mean, it's just it's a whole flood of memories. The other thing is about your academic environment. The beautiful thing about my parents is that they were not the kind of people who would force you to sit down and study. It came naturally. I never regretted studying I liked reading we were encouraged to read the house was full of books all the time. No TV in India at the time, no cell phones, no nothing. So you played with your friends and then you read and then I all through school was an okay is to neither great nor bad. Reasonable in studies, and my parents were okay with that. There was an Yeah, okay. The boys, okay, weather challenges early on in life that you had to overcome. Well, I lost my left eye in an accident. When I was 11 year old kids play with bows and arrows and mothers tell kids don't play with bows and arrows, you can hurt somebody. Well, I went living example and arrow went into my eye. And so I lost an eye. And then you know, as young kids are, I was like, I want to be an Air Force pilot. So all those dreams, of course, went out of the window. And then I was getting operations and the in hospital and going to dynasty car and stuff like that at the young age of 11. And then going to try and get my AI to work properly, which I never did. I didn't see things as challenges. I saw things as fun more than challenges. Really, you know, I worked quite hard at learning how to play the guitar. And then I started playing bass in class nine and I worked pretty hard at it. But it wasn't a challenge. It was fun. I was doing it because I was enjoying it. Do you see that as groundwork for who you are today. Everything is groundwork. I think you're influenced by every single thing that's happened to you. It has its place in your memory and it has its place in your formation of who you become an actor you never become you keep changing all the time even now with this. So we've talked about throwing out the dreams of becoming an Air Force pilot, because of an accident, then how did your vision if there was one for the future shape up, so I had no vision. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do when I was in school. I like our chemistry teacher, and I, he taught me I got interested in chemistry, though both my parents were bought in his life sciences. But I went into chemistry. And I again had joined one of the best colleges for chemistry in Delhi. And in the meanwhile, when I was in school, I started getting interested in environmental stuff. So I learned a lot about environmental stuff, I did a little study on my own word pesticides, because Delhi in the 70s, suddenly, there was a study which said we had more DDT in our bodies, people in Delhi than anywhere else in the world. So environmentalism was something I started doing really early. Sometimes we think that the things that we do are normal for the entire rest of the world, I think, as we age, we realize that our own experiences may be a little more unique than we give credit to. I agree, I agree. I, I realize my privilege A long time ago, because I think my mother was a communist at heart. And I realized that I was privileged to be born in a middle class family in India at a time where the middle class comprised 5% of the population. I was born into an educated family, I was educated, I was brought up largely devoid of caste issues. My parents tried very hard, I was brought up largely devoid of religious issues, you know, and there was none of this, all Muslims and Christians are like that. None of that was there in my house. I was not rich. I was poor. In fact, I was so stupid that when I started earning money playing guitar in college, I used to come back over and give my mother the money. In semi he owes the money and she was like, don't you want so so yeah, give me 20 rupees. It's okay. So I will apologia a good boy. Your interest and engagement with the environment was it? Raul Ron, the artist around on the scientist, it was around around the kid interested in all kinds of things. And it seemed fascinating. I don't think the music at that time had become that important to my life. So I was more of an environmental guy before I became more of a music guy. And in college, they were both getting equal weightage to I had to give way more time to music. You know, practicing with the band is something that takes a lot of here's my day. On a normal day in college, I would get up at 730 be in college by 830 stream college till 320 cast three very special travel 25 kilometres across town to Tahlequah practice with a band till 730 at night, catch the bus back, reach back home around 930. Walk the kilometer back home, eat some dinner study a little bit go to sleep. Repeat. So I am assuming that you're talking about your early band. White Fang, tell us something? Yes. Yes. Okay. So it's quite interesting. I was in first year college. When suddenly one day this guy lands nearby class room and says, Hi, my name is Dan shoe. And, you know, we have a band, we'd like you to join. So when I was in school, I started playing bass for a college group. They were allowed one person from outside. So I was the one person from architecture. It was quite interesting as a kid in the 11th and 12th, playing with the college musicians to three years senior to you. And I think that's where I'm at, I'm sure heard me. And then he tracked me down. And so I went and I joined the band and I had no idea. The vocalist, man called Gotham coach, you do know, had suggested the name white fan based on that chapter and book which I had not read. I had no idea about the book at all. And so I joined here, a young White Fang in the year 1981. While I was in college, I played with four different bands actually. So I played with White Fang in my first year in college while doing a musical called opera. It was like a rendition of A minor. So it was a three year opera. And then in my second year they started playing in a band, which was trying to do slightly jazzy stuff with doc ob, who was a jazz guitar player. No, but see, but senior it was. I learned a lot of stuff there. He introduced me to Cole Porter and the whole Broadway musical and the amazingly complex. Oh man melodies and harmonies that these guys Cole Porter used to use. So I got introduced to that. One of my friends in school, it introduced me to return to forever and alchemilla and stuff like that. So you know, you start listening to all this music and it blows you away, you start listening to it, what is that Frank Zappa, and all kinds of stuff. And I remember as, as a college and school kid, we used to be a little contemptuous of, if you would have it like that, so we would like have our heart. Right. And we never played, man. I mean, that soul not happening at Boney M. And we were like, No, man, that's not happening today. I love listening to them. Just like, you know, there is no stranger without the weight. That's the India phase. As I see it, I think you went to the United States. Can you talk about that? Yeah, I will. Don't talk about going to IIT Kanpur, where suddenly, I had the toughest academic period of my life. It's a really hard, tough, rigorous place to study. I was in control, suddenly, in a hospital for the first time in my life eating the West reading for I lost 12 kilos in the first semester of Dino. And the music there was, you know, after playing with two to three bands for three years in Delhi, no challenge because I was the best. And so I played with the quote unquote, Hindi music band, and I played with the English music band. And that's where I started playing in the film songs. and learned a lot from that, because that's a different skill. I also work very, very hard academically. I used to keep running back to Delhi, because my girlfriend was in Delhi. And everybody used to apply abroad in those days. So I joined the Horde, except I didn't want to do chemistry anymore. I want to do two environmental sciences. I had a GPA of 9.96 out of 10 in it, who I had one B plus out of 21 courses. And my god scores were spectacular. It was 2380 out of 2400. And my chemistry God was 99th percentile 930 out of 1000. And so I applied to eight universities, I got scholarships, and six. I chose one I chose Cornell. A because I liked the department, it was a Department of Environmental toxicology, because that would combine my chemistry knowledge with my environmental interests. And also because both my parents had gone to Cornell as postdocs. So tell me about about the musical influences from Africa, from Latin America. I mean, you hear I am framed, routed as alternate, and I was like, What is Sansa? And so that all sounds are milling it is, and I've never heard any of this. And then Oh, filati you know, Baba, man. What amazing musicians what a different sound. And I will chat if you've ever tried to play bass with these West African guys, but it's very counterintuitive to the way rock bass was played. Did you realize at that time that you were occupying a multidisciplinary space? Yes. I did. I realized, though the words were not there, this this, this nomenclature was not there. But I realized that I was living several different lives at the same time, I was having several different cultural experiences. And I'm, I've never been a very introspective kind of guy. I will tell you this honestly. So I didn't do much introspection, but it all I let experiences wash over me and they leave behind the silk of memory. I'm just going to fast forward a little bit to going back after finishing my PhD to join the Narmada bachao andolan. In India, which is what I did immediately after going back be able to explain that for the audience where it was alright. Alright, so this is how it happened. My wife who's a sociologist, chose to do her PhD on a people's movement against a large dam being built in central India, that was going to submerge the lands and displace about 40,000 families. So there was a large movement against the displacement. I finished my PhD, she went off to India to do fieldwork. So I just packed bag and baggage and came back with her. And within a month, some of the Delhi supporters of this woman asked me whether I would like to help. So I said, Yeah, why not? So I just jumped in. And it was, again, transformative. And when I joined the marathon, I learned what it means to be on the receiving end of the acts of development. I saw firsthand what was happening to people, I saw what happens to you, when you try and speak up against the state. I saw how narratives can be changed in the public domain. What Why did he go to jail? Oh, apparently had attempted to murder somebody. And this is what the state does. When you're trying to find the state, the state will turn around and put cases on you. And try and tie you up and scare you and put you down. And I remember I was paraded in handcuffs throughout the town before I was transferred from one lockup to the other so that we would be ashamed. And it was quite an experience. And I'm telling you today at one point during that parade through town, we went through the town and suddenly we were in this very lonely place. There was a narrow lane fields on both sides and trees, and there was a truck. And there were four men with guns and I was handed off to this guy. If at that moment, those guys had shot us and said they were trying to escape. So they died trying to escape. There was nothing I could have done about it. That was a moment of pure terror. How did it the second chapter after returning to India and music takeoff? And what we I mean, you could have gone and had a, you know, academic job or even a corporate job if you really wanted, but how did you return to music? Oh, I didn't want an academic job. I didn't want a corporate job. I knew that in the US with a PhD from Cornell, I could get a job as a consultant in video, there are so many environmental consulting firms where I would have been somebody who wore a suit and lied for my client, also, my client has done nothing wrong. You know. So what was the trajectory of Indian Ocean after that? I mean, I hadn't played bass for for for four years, got back into the groove. And then I met Schmidt, who was one of the two founding members of Indian Ocean who came and met me and said, Listen, I've started a band. And I'm like, really? And then he said, yeah, we just come home. And listen, we've recorded a scratch or demo. So I went to his house, and I heard it and I was blown away. I was like, Wow, man, this was great. And he said, video players did, I sure will play. And so I joined in the notion in 1991, February, and at that time, Indian Ocean made no money whatsoever. We probably spent more money going to and for from practice then we got from shores. I mean, I did one show in 1991. I did zero shows in 1992. So that's what it illusion was like so but I was having so much fun. It actually got an album contract in 1990. And we went to Calcutta and recorded in the famous HMV studios in dum dum which was famous also because Rabindranath Tagore had recorded with the saints today, but that's about it. Otherwise, the equipment was pretty bad. And the Sunday video used to start drinking at 11am. So we recorded our first time, it took me a whole year to bring that album out, and when they brought it out, they brought it out almost apologetically. The no marketing, no nothing. Nothing. So we begged because it's the time it was cassettes, we begged 25 cassettes from them and Got a friend of ours who was a journalist to write up a kind of press release, and went and distributed it to all the music journalists in Delhi and started getting great reviews. So tell us about your role and whether all the things that you had collected over your lifetime in terms of politics in terms of science, in terms of activism, and does environment? Did those things play a role in how you define yourself within the band? Oh, yeah, of course. Particularly when I joined in illusion, it was it an instrumental back. There were no lyrics. There were no vocals. And I heard the tabla player or him singing, and I was like, Man, you are such a fantastic singer. Why aren't we singing in this band. And I want to sing, we should see. So that's how vocals and the lyrics entered into an ocean. And in fact, I started bringing in songs I had heard in the Nevada Valley, not just from the nominal value, but from other people's movements across the country, started bringing in a kind of environmental ethic and sort of social justice if you want it sort of ethic into not just what we used to perform the songs. But what we used to say in between songs. I love what we were doing musically. I love playing. I love being on stage. I was still poor. It's okay. It didn't seem to matter. I was living. I was living the dream man. So we did music for a non Bollywood film feature film in 1996. But our first real serious film Bollywood film happened in in the year 2002, this director who's now a fairly well known return on rock on rock nation, came up to us and said he wanted us to do music for a film that he was making 2003 I think he came up to us. And thus, we got to do music for Black Friday. And it was our first time in a big Hollywood production. fantastic experience. Amazing director, amazing producer, that is the EP the producer, both one of the songs from Black Friday actually is possibly one of the biggest hits of Indian Ocean to the state. When I learned that 15 years of playing outside Bollywood gave me less publicity than that one song. You know, because when you do a song for a Bollywood film, and they use that song in the promos, it gets played all over the country on every on so many channels repeatedly, Time after time after time. But that didn't mean that a demotion survey said Oh, he was totally friends. No, this was a one off. But we loved it. And you know, direct consequence is a whole bunch of more shows. And getting paid more per shot that's doing meaningful Bollywood helps you get paid a lot more, not for the film, but in the shows you get, because of the film, song being a hit. So in Bollywood, somebody else tells you the situation of the film. Now the song in the film, you are asked to make a short song, three to four minutes. You are you don't make the ligases delivery system speak for you, the lyrics are picked for you. And then people will have the power to say yes or no over you. When we do music at the Indian Ocean, we have only us tell us whether we like it or not. But I'm still would like to continue to do music for films where they come to Indian Ocean for the kind of music Indian Ocean can provide and not as a musician who can do everything. I don't want to be the visual into every single state and not a problem. Thank you so much for spending this time with me about your journey. The point I take away from this conversation with Raul RAM is about the fun in life as it evolves. Perhaps the ability to accept the richness of experiences and their contribution to who we become while giving our all to whatever we choose to engage with is the secret behind living our dreams. Today's episode was edited by Scott album for media to change. I'm Sanjeev Chatterjee.