A State of Confusion

Session 55 summary

Their journey started in 2012 when Rumio and Bhaskar had just finished their graduation and they thought of heading back to their hometown and start working on music in an occasional format. They started from there and slowly, have seen and found that people are already cheering for what they were doing at that time. In 2014 they thought of going for the studio recording for their first album and by then they met their drummer Shimul.

Who came up with the idea of the name KOLOMA and what is the meaning behind it?
The name was given by Rumio. There is a backstory to it- Koloma was the script name of Kokborok, just like Hindi’s script name is Devanagari. But in the present time the script name does not exists anymore. While Rumio was searching for band names, in one of his researches he found that Koloma was the script of Kokborok language. Since, in their language the most precious thing is their script so Rumio gave the name Koloma which does not exists anymore as a scriptbut now it will remain in the band name and that’s the base idea of the name Koloma.

They have an agenda through their music; their way of caring for their culture through music and songwriting and so it is quite meaningful that they came up with the name Koloma so that it would keep the name alive because even their community was not aware that they had something like that. So, even after Koloma’s own research, they wanted to make their people aware of that. They kept that name and other objectives of future hoping that people can be made aware of it.

The music endeavors to preserve your language ‘KOKBOROK’. Why did you choose music as the medium?
Since they are musicians individually and a group of musicians so definitely that was the medium which they found suitable. If they were educators then education would’ve been the medium.

Since you fuse folk music of Tripura with other genres, how do you combine them?
Since the three of them have different tastes in music; Rumio is more into folk, Bhaskar into alternative rocks even Shimul has his own taste in music, so instead of dividing everything they want to put everything into one format but at the same time keeping it real. They wanted to keep their traditional sound, tone and the flavor of it. So, most of the baseline is their folk music and along with that they fuse everything and since it is a modern era so modern music is also there. Even if they go with the pure folk form it is helpful but they didn’t want to be casted away by the younger generation.

Who comes up with the lyrics and what inspires them to do so?
The lyrics are credited to Rumio and some other people also help the band. Most of the lyrics are originally written by Rumio, his mother and one of his friends. Even one of the legends from there, Artbeats Rampurudhwajia who is a legendary flutist of Tripura, helped them. So for most of the songs the composing and writing is done by the band members themselves.

What are the themes these lyrics revolve around?

Mostly the elements of their land Tripura- love, nature, about the people, about the folk tales. Combining everything that is there in Tripura culture- culture of their land, their identity and nature of their people. They also have romantic numbers- romantic in terms of contemporary time- love and life.

The main idea of writing their lyrics and portraying it, is that they are trying to portray what their culture-their state means through the medium of music. The same is portrayed in their lyrics also, like the song MasingJora which talks about how winter season looks like in their state. Basically, the whole idea is about how they are going to portray their state through the medium of music.

Do you use any folk instruments or sounds?
Yes they do use their folk instruments. There is a Chongpreng, Sarinda and sumui- sumui is a flute. Chongprengis a three-string instrument, almost like a guitar which is used in many of their songs. Mostly Rumio is the one who has perfected those instruments. Sarinda is similar to violin. There is also Dangdu which is similar to the Jewish harp and Uakhrap which is made from bamboo which has a slit in between and works as a clapper. These are the instruments they use in the folk side of their compositions. While recording Rumio plays all the folk instruments, on stage Bhaskar sometimes play the Chongpreng.

Since Rumio is the one who knows how to play all the instruments, what do you do when 2 or more folk instruments are needed at once on the stage/live performance?
Rumio still has to do 2 or 3 things at a time- like playing the guitar and doing vocals. The formation on stage is quite different than in a recording, they also keep it simple since Rumio is the only one who can play the folk instruments so we do the recordings and structure our compositions according to it. The whole production structure is done in such a way that when they go on stage, they do not need to go with a lot of folk instruments. First of they try to use limited 1 or 2 repercussions or 1 or 2 folk instruments that can be used on stage. 

Do you plan your music videos by yourself or have someone help you? How do you plan them to reflect the essence of your music?
Normally Rumio does the planning because he is a part of the video production team. In Koloma the members do everything on their own- music production, video production etc. Since Rumio writes the lyrics, he comes up with different plans about the video and everyone goes with it. Sometimes their manager plans the music video.

According to the lyrics they go through the video. The sketch of the video is always through the lyrics, how the lyrics comes out and how the lyrics is giving us emotion and all the emotions and all their ideas, in terms of particular lyrics. The videos were shot in Tripura also.

How was the reception of your music in your state?
The band has a good number of listeners, not only from their state. They have a reception in their state because the songs are in the local language, so people do listen to their songs as they have heard the language. Apart from this the most important thing they get as a band is listeners from outside the state as well because they got to perform in a good number of music festivals both in their state and outside. Through those they have received a very good number of response, even though other states don’t understand the language, they were really connected to the vibe Koloma is trying to promote through their music. So, it is kind of a mixed approach that they are getting.

Were there any challenges in your journey which you would like to share?
The initial challenges are there in the form of their requirements as a band, like; it is hard to get proper gears for them to play, financial problems are there and other than that not much happening in terms of music scenario- Not getting much gigs. Because the financial problems they cannot give full time to music, instead they have other jobs for financial support, so they are getting tired.

What are your future expectations of the kind of music which you create?
Lots of project and they will come up with new records, new videos. What they are trying to do with their music is to make people aware- aware of their language, to show how rich and how beautiful it is, and through music they want to promote that one more thing which is lacking in the state in Tripuri culture, i.e. the community is not using much of their folk instruments. It is hard to see the young generation not know the names of the instruments which the band is using. Sometimes they are able to recognize the name but if the instruments are put before them then they won’t be able to tell which is which.

The band is also trying to make them understand that in the modern era they can use their folk instruments for the base of their music.

What opportunities do you wish would be made possible to promote your music and your culture?
The only opportunity that they want is to get more platforms to showcase their talent, performance and their songs. If they get that more often then, definitely it would be great because as independent artists they do not have such kind of platforms, when taking their state into consideration, it does not have many things which other metropolitan cities have. They definitely require some platforms to make it more accessible for people to get to know that there are things which they can also do.

Have you collaborated with artists outside Tripura? What has been the positive and negative experiences?
Yes they once collaborated with Mr. Vikas on his project which is yet to release. There was another collaboration with one of Rumio’sfriend who is from Assam who wrote a song in English ‘Passerby’.

If you have not been able to collaborate yet, then who are the kind of artists that you would want to collaborate with?
There are so many collaborations they want to do. There is Papon (AngaraagMahanta), also Lucky Ali and Coke Studio as it helped a lot with their music.

What is the traditional making of the folk traditional instruments and who are the people who keep it in use?
They use all types of instruments- string instrument, leather instrument, etc. and they use three notes i.e. Sa-Ga-Pa. For a major part of their work they get the instruments that has four strings. Their traditional music is mostly string music with three strings. There are elders who are really into folk and they dedicated their life for folk and there are even folk colleges there. Talking about manufacture, there are very less folk manufacturers who have the knowledge of its shape, so the production is very less and it is hard to reach the artisans also.

How would you describe your Tripuri cultural identity? What is the uniqueness?
First of all the language, it is unique and significant. Then their: attire- traditional attire, food and songs which is called Jaduni. Tripura is a princely state and even their festivals are unique; like Ghoria festivals, podagiri festival, khachi – which are renowned and related culture.

How does knowledge in your community gets passed on from older generations to new? Is there any formal institution?
It is done orally mostly. There were no specific institution till now, but with time there are folk music colleges. From there people get some provisions but it is mostly oral. During the King’s rule in the 1900s it was found that the future generations were orally taught, but coming to the present era the academic education was more valued than oral education. At present times the present generation are fortunate enough that Kokborok language is already in a good position where education system has already taken up responsibilities, school education have taken up Kokborok subject, even M.A. in Kokborok is available. In terms of language, it has been safeguarded but in terms of the instruments and other cultural practices not so much have been saved. There are two music colleges which touch upon the cultural music and instruments but only those people who attend the college get to know about them.

How do you plan to transfer your musical knowledge to the younger generation?
Yes definitely. It is up to the youth, how they are going to accept the band but Koloma is trying their best to give them what they can through their music and how they carry their culture with their music and their objectives.

Any message for the future generation?
Rumio says, “Be strong and Always connect with your roots, then it can grow up.”

Bhaskar says, “As we are working on same platform it is similar; know your roots first of all and keep working with your roots and stay with your roots.”

Shimul says, “Wherever you are, wherever you need to go, you need to carry your roots so that people would know that you have an identity so that we don’t face the identity crisis that one might face at one point of time.”

Would you like to share anything about your upcoming music?
The band is already working on a project which is one audio single and one MV(music video). So, there are those two works and they also collaborated with one of the senior artists from Tripura by presenting his composition through their own style.