Homecoming with music

Bipul Chettri felt right at home at a concert last week in Pokhara (pictured), the lakeside crowd sang along as he strummed his guitar to his most recent ballad, Salala.

Fans knew the lyrics by heart, and followed Chettri’s languid Darjeeling voice. For Bipul Chettri, this was homecoming — returning to the land of his ancestors to sing of love, longing and loss.

Chettri’s grandfather was a poet, his grandmother played the sitar, and his father Birendra Mohan Chettri was a singer-songwriter in Kalimpong. The young Bipul picked on guitars, wrote songs and whistled along to melodies.

Bipul Chettri is now a household name in the Nepali universe, his trademark singing style drawing diaspora crowds in concerts all over.

His father died when he was just three in Kalimpong, and Bipul was frequently taken to visit relatives in Dharan and Pokhara.

In school in New Delhi, he tried singing in English but there was something missing in the music — they lacked a soul. Not much satisfaction singing in Hindi either.

“I was looking for my identity and voice at that point in time,” Chettri added, describing how he wrote his first Nepali song Wildfire (Dadhelo) in 2012.

The song indeed spread like wildfire on YouTube and Facebook. The lyrics, music and message were different from anything sung before in Nepali.

Chettri also felt true fulfilment for the first time, and recalls being overwhelmed at finally finding the musical spark he was looking for. It was genuine music, expressing genuine sentiments, and sung in a pure Nepali voice.

“Singing in Nepali was meaningful, it took me to my roots,” Chettri says. “When I write songs in Nepali, I am honest with myself.”

When Chettri travels to New Delhi or Kathmandu, he passes through Siliguri near the Nepal border. It was on one of these trips that he was inspired to write Syndicate in a country-western style about an intense encounter with a stranger at a bus stop.

Chettri wrote one of his singles, Aashish (Blessings), on the day his daughter was born. “I hope she will still be listening to this song when I’m gone,” he says.

Inspiration often comes to Chettri during journeys, in dreams, or with the pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof (Asara). Nature is also his muse (Junkeri). His latest single, Salala is inspired by the sound of the Teesta flowing down from Sikkim and about the deadly flood on the river last year.

Chettri has a degree in classical guitar from London, and now heads the arts department at the Vasant Valley School in New Delhi.

Chettri’s The Travelling Band then released its first album, Sketches of Darjeeling, which included Wildfire and Syndicate. One of the songs is Ram Sailee, written by his father.

The Travelling Band is made up of Pranai Gurung on guitar, Rahul Rai on bass, Aman Singh Rathore on drums, Prince Nepali on sarangi, Kiran Nepali on tungna, Achint Khare on keyboard and has Binaya Man Amatya as sound designer. The band is managed by Sonam Tashi.

There have been three albums so far: Sketches of Darjeeling, Maya, and Samaya, and seven singles.