Review: Leaving Home –The Life and Music of Indian Ocean review

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Rhythm abound, Leaving Home, foremost, is a film about time. It’s an attempt to crunch nearly three decades of lived history of Indian Ocean in two hours. Watching the final cut – a worthy precipitate of the 195 hours of shot footage - I realised why editing is the most painful part of filmmaking.  Every moment shot is worthwhile, why would you have captured it otherwise? What goes in, what doesn’t. Changing, rearranging. Cutting, and then cutting some more. These are all very difficult decisions to make. Solely from that perspective, Leaving Home comes across as an interesting and rigorously edited film where stories and arguments, presumably, emerged and sutured on the editing table. Afterthought, at least, in film craft is not such a bad thing! Leaving Home doesn’t confuse chronology with linearity. Shuttling back and forth in time, and jumping across story threads, it makes for a good watch. While you get a fair sense of the long and grueling ride of Indian Ocean as a band, you also get acquainted with the personal histories of its members. And if feature length non-fiction films aren’t really your scene then all that great music – definitely worth more than your ticket’s price – should suffice to keep you glued to it. 

For those who’ve not been exposed to the Delhi-based band or its music, here’s a quick introduction: India Ocean has variously been labeled as the pioneer of fusion music in India, band with a conscience and Rustic Rasiyaas! Indian Ocean is all that a much more. Its genre splicing music can simply be called the sound of contemporary India. Originally original, myriad influences ranging from protest and Sufi poetry “meet the improvisational depth of the Indian classical music and cathartic intensity of rock” and implode in the music of Indian Ocean. Hundreds of live acts across the country and abroad and five albums later Indian Ocean is arguably the longest running, most popular and most definitive Indian band.

Something here must be said about the timing of the release of Leaving Home. Completely ready in December 2008 it took the powers that be more than a year to afford it a commercial release. Not a long time, going by the ways of the film industry, you’d say. A hell lot of a time, if you were to ask me, since Asheem Chakravarty (vocals/percussion), one of the members of the band, passed away in December last year.

Apart from tracing the crest and troughs of the musical wave of Indian Ocean, Leaving Home very skillfully chronicles the individual journeys of Susmit Sen (guitar), Rahul Ram (vocals/bass), Amit Kilam (vocals/ drums/flute/gubgubi) and of course Asheem Chakravarty. None easier than the other, all the narratives deliver, though marked with a sense of loss and pain of struggle without exception, a very healthy dose of optimism. In short, it’s a fable, an unlikely one at that, about how the collective and unwavering resolve of a motley group consisting of a soil analyst, a marketing executive, an environment toxicologist-turned-social activist and a college kid created a unique sound, and an even unique band.

We meet their parents here who were initially worried about where their children were going in life but later decided to walk along. Susmit’s dad gave the band its name and Rahul’s parents, their support. Amit’s parents - exiled from their homeland - a humane and compassionate outlook, and Asheem’s family, a nod to his decision to explore his passion.

Old band mates show up too and awkward situations unfold. Looking back in time most of them would have wanted to stick with the band. Indrajit Dutta (bass) who quit the band to work as an architect with PWD, in one of the most evocative sequences of the film, comes to the old bungalow where the band now rehearses and plays along with Susmit and Asheem for quite sometime. Dutta, sadly, also passed away recently. 

Songs from the band’s various live performances, including the ones performed exclusively for the film, form the core of this biograph. The chemistry between the four is palpable. A nod here a smile there, cues are exchanged effortlessly. This band thrives on live performances. One of my friends, who has seen them perform many a times, confessed to have sensed homoerotic tension between the four! The film flows well exploring the similarities of style and divergence of views amongst the four members. It’s heartening to discover that they do disagree with each other. 

It’s a surreal experience to see Asheem talking, singing and playing in the film. It’s difficult to believe that he’s no longer around. Not mincing his words, shooting from the hip, delivering quips and quotable quotes, Asheem seems to live on. Seeing him singing SD Burman’s ‘Wahaan kaun hai tera musafir jaayega kahaan’ towards the end of the film is enough to give anyone goosebumps.  

One also gets behind-the-scene look at the organic process of band’s music-making in the film. The ‘workshop approach’ wherein they jam intuitively and gradually ‘ripen’ the melody is perhaps far removed from the mechanical approach followed in commercial circles. That’s reflective of Indian Ocean philosophy of privileging their music before anything else. This is one just layer of critique, amongst many, that the film mounts against arrogant recording company executives (interestingly, also those who still carry the white man’s burden and can’t seem to come to terms with the idea of an Indian band making music with largely western instruments), absconding producers and haughty newsmen.      

Delhi emerges as an important catalyst in journey of Indian Ocean. Toast of the college festival circuit, Indian Ocean has had quite a run here. Noted writer Rana Dasgupta writes about Delhi, in Time Out: “It’s true to say that Delhi is uncouth – but it’s also the only city in India where philosophers and ethical theorists are treated like rock stars”. Indian Ocean seems to live this contradiction. It’s not refined and polished. And it reluctantly wears a corona around its head.  

Talking about corona, leading lights of the city, like Prannoy Roy, Nandita Das, Vinod Dua, Shubha Mudgal, Rabbi Shergill, Palash Sen and Mumbai film fraternity, like Sudhir Mishra, Anurag Kashyap, Piyush Mishra, Shantanu Moitra and Kailash Kher, also make appearances in the film to pay homage to the band. But somehow it seems like a boring cultural event in Delhi; full of familiar faces.                                                                                   

The only thing that may obstruct you from enjoying this film is the way it’s been shot. The shaky camera work and, let’s just say, unconventional framing doesn’t seem to follow a consistent design. It’ll bother you initially, but if you give it time you’ll get used to it. The jump cuts between the interviews, though, are executed with much conviction. It’s good not to see cutaways of hands and flower vases and paintings and dogs in between, for a change. I’m also happy to note that the film doesn’t use that lazy narrative device – voice-over – to take the story forward. It’s driven entirely by the four protagonists. Jaideep Verma, the director, however annotates the film with text, which works well.     

The film is going to get a limited release. If you’re an Indian Ocean fan I’m sure you’ll make it a point to catch it wherever it’s playing. If you’re not a fan and haven’t heard them until now, this is your chance to see and hear all four of them playing together.

If you saw 3 Idiots and enjoyed it, you’ll like this one also. The two films are quite similar. Heroes, giving up their regular lives, embrace the extraordinary here too; except, you get better music and a bonus idiot in this film.