A high tide of song on Team India floods Bengal

Kolkata, Mar 6 (UNI) Contemporary music attained a high tide with World Cup fever gripping the metro big time.

Bangla Band 'Jowar' (High tide) has set the city on fire with their peppy track 'Team India' composed with the dream of seeing India bring home the Cup.

Band composer Debmalya Banerjee said, ''This is a song meant to cheer India and inspire the players during the World Cup.'' ''Bengali are extremely emotional. They are charged with World Cup fever now and the song is in sync with the cheering mood,'' he said.

'Jowar' has already cut a niche for itself singing on contemporary issues that hit the headlines like bird flu, tsunami and cricket. However, the songs are based on folk tunes.

''Team India is a mixture of Caribbean and Indian folk with a fast-paced song track and multilayers giving it that international feel,'' he said.

While the song is already a hit, the lyrics talk about all the 15 members of the team and the various ways their exploits could help India win the Cup.

It talks about Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Robin Uthappa and Dinesh Karthik with the same passion as Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Virender Sehwag.

It talks about Bhajji's 'doosra' and Kumble's googlee, that will do the magic, along with the pace quatret of Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar and Munaf Patel.

The song signs off with the line - ''Bharat abar cricket sabhai srestha asan nebe'' (India will once again be the King of world cricket.) ''This is exactly what we dream of. We are seeing a dream that India has regained the World Cup and Rahul Dravid is holding aloft the Cup,'' said Gautam Brahmo, lead vocalist of the group.

''We have composed this song literally within 14 days,'' he said, adding, ''The idea came while I was travelling by the Metrorail on my way to office and it crystalised in the next 10 days. Today we are recording the song. This is the last of the six songs that we are composing for our new album.'' ''However, the song Team India is already a popular number as we have done shows and sung this number,'' he said.

Incidentally, Debmalya is a banker by profession and Gautam a journalist. They form the core team of the five-member band.

Of course, Sourav Ganguly could not be outside the ambit of the group. So another song in their album will be on the man himself.

The album has four other numbers.

Jowar has already done folk numbers for BCC Asian Football show on World Cup soccer and background scores for CNN-IBN for Durga Puja.

UNI