MAKING ROCK MUSIC A HARD PLACE

Releasing in theatres on March 5, Rockumentary makes the storied history of rock music in India seem wholly banal

- Ruchir Joshi

The story of how rock music made its way into India and how it spread is a fascinating one. The arc could take in the arrival of jazz and other popular western music in the 1920s and ’30s, American musicians here during World War 2, then the trickling in of all kinds of foreign music as the music directors of the ’50s and early ’60s Hindi films sponge up and repurpose everything from Russian folk music to American rock and roll. The narrative could then continue with how these prerock microbes—of rhythm n’ blues, of rock n’ roll, of what would later become known as funk—had already seeded themselves here, well before The Beatles, The Stones, Dylan, Hendrix et al made landfall in the mid-’60s.