Playing for the tiger

London-based sarod player Soumik Datta’s Earth Day single is a cry of anguish — and a call to action — in response to mankind’s continuing assault on nature

Saibal Chatterjee

The fast dwindling tiger count in the Sunderbans is among the many alarming facts that have triggered London-based sarod player Soumik Datta’s latest musical creation,Tiger Tiger, a single released on the occasion of Earth Day, April 22.

Thanks to his musical roots, the 36-year-old instrumentalist, composer and television presenter is of the firm belief that music and nature go hand in hand. “Indian classical music,” he says on phone from London, “is intrinsically linked with nature.”

While Datta plays a traditional Indian instrument, he uses it to create vibrant, radical sounds rooted in the present. They serve to give vent to personal concerns and reflect his hyphenated British-South Asian identity.

In November last year, Datta released a five-track EP,Jangal, to express his anguish at the havoc that mankind is wreaking on the world’s forest cover. It was his response to the Australian wildfires in which billions of animals perished as well to the continuing crisis in the Amazon rainforest.

Greta Thunberg, the Swedish schoolgirl who raised her voice to demand urgent action on climate change, “was a figure of great inspiration” for Datta. “For months on end I thought about the impact of the human carbon footprint on the world around us,” he says.

“I imagined how the animals would have felt as they fled their habitat to save themselves from the forest fires.” He admits to also calling into question the toll he takes on the environment as a musician. “The sarod itself is a piece of wood from a tree,” Datta says.

Datta is an Earth Day Network artist. He has, over the years, collaborated with Nitin Sawhney, Anoushka Shankar and Talvin Singh and played with pop stars like Jay-Z and Beyonce.Tiger Tiger is a follow-up toJangal. “It is a culmination of the EP,” he says.

“Tiger Tigeris a faster, more frenzied track. InJangal, the music is slower. It is based on Raag Miyan ki Malhar. I wanted to capture the beauty of the forest and the rains. I was thinking of the regenerative power of rain,” he adds.

Tiger Tiger, on the other hand, is built upon Raag Meerabai ki Malhar. “The speed comes from imagining animals racing for their lives through the Australian forests.”

A tiger mask connects the music videos ofJangal andTiger Tiger. While the earlier work was shot in the Sunderbans, where the number of tigers is “greatly reduced”, the new piece assumes the form of a live performance in which Datta himself wears a tiger mask.

“I wanted to have the beginning of the project rooted in the real space. So, theJangal music video was filmed in the Sunderbans. And now, through the live performance, I am seeking to inspire myself to make changes closer home,” says Datta.

For a Bengali musician, Datta was born in the steel city of Burnpur, West Bengal, the metaphor of the tiger, is a natural choice. “The tiger,” he says, “is a powerful symbol. The majestic animal stands for all that is beautiful in nature.”

Datta, who learnt under the tutelage of sarod maestro Pandit Buddhadev Das Gupta (who passed away in 2018), believes that music should be used to make a social impact. That is why, he says, he did not go down the pop and rock path. “One can create engaging, entertaining music with a message at its core,” he adds.

Datta’s sarod, a 19-stringed fretless instrument, is “heavily customised”. “The music I make isn’t traditional,” he says. Datta is one half of Circle of Sound, a band in which he collaborates with the Austrian percussionist Bernhard Schimpelsberger.

Datta has composed music for narrative features such as British filmmaker Sarah Gavron’sBrick Lane and his mother Sangeeta Datta’sLife Goes on, a 2009 film starring Sharmila Tagore, Girish Karnad, Om Puri and Soha Ali Khan. “I do music for short films and television shows. I love scoring for films, but that is only one aspect of music-making,” he says.