What Rupam means to Bengal now? Just a Rockstar, a singer?
I would have said yes, if it was before 2005-06. Rupam is now a voice. A voice which has the power to pull every album down on charts no matter how good they are in quality, a voice to keep every counter voice mum and moot no matter how logical and truthful that mouth was. From an umbrella term, Rupam is now more into the mode of ONIDA TV advertisement. Yes he is neighbour’s envy, owner’s pride. If you trust on Rupam and on his compositions you don’t have to be in the catch 22 of a win-win situation. The victories will be kissing your toes, and smiles will be as wide as if lips gonna touch ears. For last five years I am out of West Bengal and now out of India. But whenever I go back to Kolkata I see young guys wearing black shirts, Tees and heavy duty accessories. They keep their hair long; they wear heavy duty accessories on wrists. I wonder whether this is the after effect of Rupam’s onstage antics or not. Might be.
Now the question arises, how Rupam managed it over the last 12 years? Once upon a time, Fossils used to market on a phrase ‘Rock Majority’ to keep the spirit high of the minority audience. Why did the minority spread like a disease and turned into euphoria. How easy it was to teach them a lesson of Rock music, when the mind was pre-occupied with Bollywood and Kumar Sanu- Kishore Kumar seemed like Kurt Cobain of down-and-out times.
Rupam did it in an alternate way. rather than reaching them via guitar riffs and bass slaps, Rupam used his craft of lyrical expertise. As if a larger portion of young Bengali generation who hardly read Shakti Chattopadhyay, hardly aware of Bengali literary strength was introduced to a language or a dogma which was very different from what they read in text books. A ‘Prosno’ could be matched with ‘I don’t know’ in Rupam’s poetry. A similar sounding answer to an obvious question triggered the liking of many. Rupam has this uncanny ability to spill out truth which we always wanted to say in life, but could never do. ‘Boli show cause ta ditey Joma’ , ‘Bondhuder bhireo ekla ekla ami khuje feeri lokkho amar’ and many more lines which we all knew within ourselves, but never said, was crooned by Rupam.
When I look back in the history of Bengali songs where female character names have been used, I see ‘Nilanjana’ , ‘Sudeshna’ ,’Jhinti’ and few more. But they all seem to be characters of dreams, unreal. Though being in the same genre of character songs and that too using the name of a living lady Hashnuahana has become a song synonymous to love, where ‘Mou’ supposed to take the back seat and the simile ‘Hashnuhana’ won the heart by long margins. These days, in live concerts Hashnuhana is no more a song of Rupam’s voice. The audience not only shares the duty, they snatch it from Rupams voice like dacoits of Chambal.
Rupam has changed over the years in more than one way. Not only voice, not only in literal way, but metaphorically too. Since 2007 the change has been drastic. I dont know whether the change was required, but one is thing is assured. Without those changes Rupam would not have been the Rupam, what he is now for larger audience. These days Rupam does music for movies, belts out solo album parallel to Fossils' acts. There’s a conscious approach to eat up the market during Pujas too. There are updates about every activity of Rupam and Rupam’s child on Twitter, Facebook, where the comments are exact opposite of what Rupam wants to say.
Though I hardly met Rupam, I still feel very close to him. I am sure many more like me feels the same. In spite of having a huge collection of many Rock and Metal acts from all over the globe I still listen to Fossils. I still remember those days when I used to get beaten by my parents, as no one would allow me to go to concerts and I escaped each and every time. It’s been a relation of 12 long years, where I have missed a joe sat show though having pass, written 5 English versions of Rupam’s song, received umpteen slaps from my family. I have seen Rupam grow his hair and as a performer, I have seen my English versioned Fossils songs on "about me's" of other ORKUT profiles(with a text 'written by Rupam Islam' beneath'). I have tried whole heartedly as a solo to understand the inner meaning of his songs. I have received abuses and slangs for doing so too. But still I could not get over Rupam’s hallucination.
On this 25th January, I again wish happy birthday to Rupam. Wish him all the success for future.
