Guwahati, Jan. 13: Come April, the beats of a 500-year-old Assamese folk song could be climbing its way up to the top of the national music charts. Sakhi ao mere sang tujhe le chalu Asam (come, friend, let me take you to Assam) is a Hindi number that is being attuned to the beats of a naukhel geet (boat race song) typical of Assam?s Barpeta district at the Jyoti Chitraban studio here.
The song will make its debut on all the popular music channels, including MTV, Channel [V] and B4U, in early April. ?Sakhi ao mere will be a peppy number, with charged beats, though it will have the typical touch of Lower Assam,? Devasish Sarma, the singer who has rearranged the folk tune to make it contemporary, said.
Naukhel geet is inextricably linked to the traditional boat races in Barpeta district. The tunes of these songs are inherently rhythmic, blending with the motions of the oarsmen.
?Naukhel geet has all the elements that people from across the country can attune to easily. Moreover, fusion music that blends contemporary tunes with original folk harmonies is riding the rhythm waves now,? Sarma, also a bureaucrat, said.
Sarma, who is in charge of the yet-to-be-inaugurated Assam Bhawan in Mumbai, is a member of the growing breed of music-makers experimenting with new combinations of melodies.
He wants to release Sakhi ao mere, which he calls a love song, in the run-up to Rongali Bihu. ?Assam is a veritable mine of musical notes and I want to popularise them at the national level. Making cross-cultural music is a wonderful way to show how people from different cultures can grow by learning from each other,? he said.
Sarma is scouting for models to feature in the music video. ?I would love to have a celebrity model for the video and get hotshot choreographer-filmmaker Ken Ghosh to direct it, budget permitting, of course,? he said.
The video will be shot entirely in Assam and feature Sarma. The singer and four friends have ?pooled in? their resources to record the song and make the video. Sarma has a successful album of modern Assamese songs, titled Moukon, to his credit. Moukon is Sarma?s pet name.