Sahana Bajpaie to feature in collaborative album celebrating 50 years of Bangladesh

Noted singers Sahana Bajpaie, Samantak Sinha, and Sohini Alam will be the stars of a UK-India-Bangladesh collaborative album, "Doyel Pakhir Ganer Khata" (The Magpie-Robin's Songbook), featuring contemporary renditions of songs recorded during Bangladesh's Liberation War. 

Marking the Victory Day of Bangladesh, "O Buriganga Nadire", the first single of "Doyel Pakhir Ganer Khata", sung by Sohini with arrangement by Samantak, was released today. Sohini is a British-Bangladeshi vocalist whose musical repertoire includes folk, modern, and traditional Bengali songs with a specialisation in Nazrul Sangeet. She has branched out into multi-lingual music in bands, for dance, and for theatre. 

Sohini's soaring vocals take centre stage in the soulful track, "O Buriganga Nadire". 

With heart-breaking lyrics by Subimal Bhattacherjee, the song was originally sung by noted Indian singer Amar Pal and recorded by Hindustan Records, India's oldest record label, in 1971.

Sohini's rendition features Samantak on keyboard, along with Sutanu Sarkar on esraj. Her vocals were recorded by Andrew Glen at SOAS University of London. 

Sahana, who was honoured with The Bengal's Pride Award 2018 at the UK Parliament for her contribution to arts and culture, was brought up and trained in Rabindra Sangeet in Santiniketan. She had spent quite a few years in Dhaka, and is now based in London. Her rendition of the song, "Akash Kande" on "Doyel Pakhir Ganer Khata", is  arranged by Samantak with Subham Kanjilal on oud and dotara, Avirup Das Bunty on percussion, and Samantak, Subham, and Bunty on backing vocals. 

Having studied music production in London, Samantak is a prominent musician in West Bengal. He went to The Recording Workshop, a private institution in the UK, with the Charles Wallace Scholarship. He has collaborated as a music arranger with several noted singers. He sang and arranged a rendition of the song, "O Mor Bangla", on this album. The track features Prasun Bhattacharya on electric guitar, Sunny Bhattacharya on bass, and Avirup Das Bunty on percussion. 

"Doyel Pakhir Ganer Khata", featuring three tracks, is the dream project of two London-based academics, Somnath Batabyal and Georgie Pope, who both work at SOAS University of London, renowned for its research expertise on the Global South. Somnath has his roots in Dhaka's Gandaria, while Georgie, from the UK, is a musician and an ethnomusicologist, who has been researching the music of Bengal and Assam for the past decade. They are the executive producers of this collaborative album, for which all the tracks are recorded, mixed, and mastered by Alok Chowdhury.

"In the summer of 2018, I was sitting with Sahana on the balcony of her house in Santiniketan, where both of us were listening to bird songs. We started talking about what it means to be a Bengali in foreign lands, and what binds us together. Our collective response was, it is music and poetry, and the particular sounds of childhood we carry with us. It was at this moment that the idea for the album was born. The 50th anniversary of the birth of Bangladesh was approaching, and it seemed to be an opportune moment to rejoice in both the struggle and the promise of that time through music," says Somnath. 

"We are all children of 1971. We have grown up in the shadows and the possibilities of what Bangladesh promised. Collectively, we wanted to hand this treasure to a younger generation."

Through Sahana, the producers were introduced to Sovan Saha, Director, Inreco Entertainment. 

Hindustan Records is a part of Inreco Entertainment. Producing music since the 1930s, their first recording was the voice of Kobi Guru Rabindranath Tagore. Sovan Saha is the custodian of an extraordinary collection of recordings that he made during 1971 with artistes such as Amar Pal. 

"Artistes from both sides of the border collaborated with each other to sing songs for Hindustan Records during Bangladesh's Liberation War. Our album features reimaginings of three such songs from 1971," says Sahana. "We wanted to commemorate the fact that Bangladeshi and Indian singers came together fifty years ago, to sing for Bangladesh's independence. I hope to always be a part of Bangladesh." 

"When he heard of the venture, Sovan Saha was excited and generously opened up his archive for our use. It has been an incredible joy listening to the old recordings and seeing the brilliant creative ideas that Sahana, Samantak, and Sohini have brought to each song," mentions Georgie. 

"Somnath and I were thinking about a name for the album. We wanted something that would speak to migration and allow the imagination to transcend man-made cartography. Doyel Pakhi is the national bird of Bangladesh and we imagined the songs that the bird would have sung of those days. So, we came up with 'Doyel Pakhir Ganer Khatha' - and, even in translation - 'The Magpie-Robin's Songbook' - it carried the melody."

After "O Buriganga Nadire", "Akash Kande" will be released on December 25, 2021, and "O Mor Bangla Re" will be out on January 1, 2022.