One fine morning a harmless mail landed in the JAM inbox. It was bodhiTree, a band from XLRI Jamshedpur, asking us to check out some of their OCs. Out of the four options they had given, we chose two - Gaand Mein Danda (GMD) and XL Ki Kudiyaan. And man were we blown away! Wanna know more about them? Read on...

How was the band formed?
bodhiTree was formed on the second day on campus, Jun 12 2004. [time was quite short, compared to most trees that are born by the painfully long process of grafting, transplantation and/ or plain pollination, yada yada, you know the drill.] We just sort of gravitated towards each other, spending value-added nights jamming into the wee hours of the morning. We had a one piece each of bassist, guitarist and vocalist, but the only one who showed up when we called for drummers was this petite girl with plaits called Poornima. She'd never played rock live before, but she had the rhythm in her blood. And that was it.. before we knew it, we were taking to the stage as a band.

How would you describe your music?
We started out as a rock band, and that's who we are. We come with a random assortment of musical preferences - as a result the bodhiTree sound becomes a rather spicy dish: heavy on blues based rock, a left-of-the-middle alternative and a hint of metal, that tends to get overdone at times.

It's low on predictability, but...

that's what makes it exciting. The Indian influences began to surface in the summer of 2005, but that's another story. It's now part of our identity, and though we're a 'rock band' we're proud it's (the Indian-ness) part of our creative streak.

Are you into covers or only original compositions?
We've gone through the motions of every Indian rock band, playing covers of our favourite bands before finding our own feet and own sound. But the focus on originals was there right from the start. In fact, our earliest song 'Too many potatoes' was written within two weeks of joining college - a song about first impressions in XL. Right now, we have about 6-8 originals and more in the pipeline.

Which songs have you composed so far?
Too Many Potatoes - A blues-based rock song, antiseptically simple in structure but a lot of fun to play. It talks about our first impressions in XL. It won the 'Best Original Song' at XIMB's Decibelz, the rock competition.

Sabka Katega - This song is born of a campus incident that sparked off the phrase that made us laugh. The fact that it morphed into a song high on sentiment took even us by surprise!

Which is your most popular song so far?
GMD is pretty much the hit across campuses, but in XL, all the songs are popular.

What is the reaction of XL girls to XL ki kudiyan?
First off, XL Ki kudiyan was originally composed by Rohit Munjal, XLer 2003 batch, while hanging around in the...

JLT [the place that provides much of the inspiration]. We just did a better sounding recording of the same song. As for the XL Ki Kudiyan, they mostly go into raptures and dance like there's no tomorrow. Does the song inspire the kudiyan or the kudiyan inspire the song? Well, chicken and egg, you know...

With GMD, were you trying to be provocative or just having fun?
If you consider the language spoken by b-schoolers, and youth in general across the country, none of the songs are provocative. With GMD we were trying to bring out the experiences of the average b-school student. You could say we were exploring a niche using the G-word that lent it character, as it were.

Reactions in XL from faculty...
Some of them have heard the songs and have appreciated them. We don't know if the rest have heard them yet, or are plainly feigning ignorance.

Any plans to commercially release an album featuring these song?
Yes, some day. When mankind is ready.

Future songs in the pipeline?
It is a time of great emotional churn as musical minds come together, inspired by recent sojourns into the cesspools of collective creativity. No seriously. Believe us.

Plans post XL
'Gaon mein saabun bechna' ;-) Well, the campus job will continue to put food on the table. But we do plan to keep the spark alive. To many bright youngsters the MBA is an easy way out, and too many authors, movie makers and musicians have let their talent die, choked by the...

pressures of the corporate world. NOT US.

Any message to JAMmers
'SABKA KATEGA'

Download mp3 files:
- Gaand Mein Danda
- Sabka Katega
- Too Many Potatoes
- XL Ki Kudiyan

- Rashmi Bansal

bodhiTree is...
Poornima Dore - Drums
Jishnu Dasgupta - Bass/ Vocals
Bharat Rajagopalan - Guitar
Abhishek Narain - Guitar/ Vocals
Satadru Bagchi - Vocals
Shambhavi Kumar - Vocals
Dhananjay Mishra - Vocals