Music from the Subcontinent

A few days ago when the line-up for the 2014 edition of South Asian Bands Festival was announced, a few names stood out. One of them called Chirkutt (pictured) aroused curiosity for its obvious Hindi meaning of being an imbecile. The six-member act from Bangladesh too gets the joke, fortunately. “Chirkutt in Bangla means a piece of paper through which we send messages. The word has a different meaning in India, and we hope you won’t judge our music by that,” says Sharmin Sultana Sumi, the vocalist of the band.

Chirkutt performs as part of the 8th edition of the annual South Asian Bands Music Festival on Friday at Purana Qila in the Capital. The band was formed in 2002 but it was only in 2010 when they released their debut album Chirkuttnama, which got them a grand fan following back home. “We call ourselves an ‘epic fusion’ band because we work with every possible genre, from rock, blues and jazz to folk and classical,” says Sumi. The band’s USP is their obsession with all things original, so even when they’re working on folk tunes, it’s their own compositions and tunes. “We believe in love, peace, spirituality, humanity and our roots. Our music reflects this,”says Sumi. Chirkutt is also one of the few bands in Bangladesh that dabbles in film music, a fairly new trend there.