An all-male student band in Pennsylvania sing Bollywood songs without accompaniments.
Fourteen years ago, a group of Indian students at University of Pennsylvania got on stage to sing Bollywood songs they had grown up listening to, and called themselves Penn Masala. They are perhaps the world’s first Hindi a capella group, and interestingly, function on rotation. From the start, the group had two clear rules laid down: Penn Masala members had to be current students of University of Pennsylvania, and, strictly male. To fulfill condition number one, the group became a rotational band, where members, once they passed out of the university, were replaced by freshers. Penn Masala, in its current avatar with 13 members, hasn’t aged thus, but the changing group’s collective repertoire has reached as far as the White House — where they performed for US president Barrack Obama on the occasion of Diwali — and beyond.
Penn Masala is now in India on a cross-city tour, in their second visit to the country. The group’s business manager, Sachin Amrute, a former student of University of Pennsylvania, says, “The band remains all-male only out of tradition. It started out like that so we’ve kept it going. Also, the sense of camaraderie that exists among men is different.”
While Hindi a capella is a novelty for many, for students in Pennsylvania, it isn’t an unusual choice of genre, for the state has a tradition of a capella. A cappella, an Italian phrase for chapel/choir, is vocal music without instrumental accompaniment.
Penn Masala’s music has caught on quickly across the US, because, explains Amrute, “South Asian students are receptive to Hindi a capella because it reminds them of home.” Penn Masala’s latest album, On Detours (2009) features a mix of popular Hindi and English covers, and a handful of originals too. The group recalls performing at a landmark awards concert with A R Rehman, and another, a few years ago, at NCPA in Mumbai.
In India, the group will perform their popular hits including evergreen numbers “Mere Sapnon Ki Raani” and “Aap Jaisa Koi”, at Hard Rock Cafe, Delhi on January 3, and move to Mumbai on January 7. “We like to sing old Hindi songs, with a bit of English lyrics,” says Amrute. Over the past decade, the band has gone from fusing Hindi music with R&B, to matching old Bollywood favourites with alternative rock and pop. They may have impressed the audience abroad, but their true test, we reckon, will be right here in the heart of India.