Spring of ’99 transforms bus conductor Kumar Bhabesh into superstar

GUWAHATI, April 15: Bihu bihu lagiche gaat...'' goes the most popular bihu song in Assam, loosely translated as. `We have the bihu fever ...

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GUWAHATI, April 15: Bihu bihu lagiche gaat…” goes the most popular bihu song in Assam, loosely translated as. `We have the bihu fever in our body’. With spring around the corner, bihu celebrations, which mark the Assamese new year, are on across the state. But this year is going to be a sort of landmark as far as bihu goes. For in the last year of the millennium, bihu makes a transition to modernity with the first ever CD of bihu songs titled, Tihiti Peper Maat (Sweet Sound of the Flute).

“There are barely 250 days left for the world to step into the next millenium, and bihu too cannot afford to lag behind when the world is racing to meet it,” says Arvind Kumar Agarwalla, who produced the CD under his Meghali Music label.

But it’s a success story in more ways than one. In the state’s audio cassette industry, which traditionally sees a peak in sales during this season, Kumar Bhabesh, a city bus conductor, has suddenly become a superstar. All thanks to bihu, for which the Assamese fascinationknows no bounds. As a matter of fact, the CD which hit the market last Saturday, is already a hit, with one outlet in Guwahati selling as many as 50 copies in the past three days. Apart from the CD, there are no less than 150 audio cassettes doing the rounds this year, with Agarwalla claiming that the total turnover from bihu cassettes alone could touch Rs 5 crore.

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As for the CD, of the 16 bihu numbers in the CD, five have been sung by Khagen Mahanta, one of the most popular bihu singers in the state, and who, along with his wife Archana, draws the biggest crowds at any bihu concert in the state.

But the flavour of the season is definitely Bhabesh, who comes from Hajo village near Guwahati. He first sang for a cassette only a few months ago, when a producer picked him for Dehajan

, also a bihu collection.

Dehajan has already sold more than 1.5 lakh units, with a turnover of about Rs 45 lakh, though industry sources say Bhabesh could not have made more than Rs 50,000 for the songs. But theCD has made a difference to Bhabesh’s reputation. Agarwalla reveals: “The producer has now signed him for Rs four lakhs for one year.”

“Bihu is the season for the music industry as well as the singers to mint money in Assam,” says renowned musician Bhupen Ujir, who runs one of the leading recording studios here. “While producers from the city as well as other important towns book the studios in November or December, some groups of young boys and girls from the villages arrive around the same time to record songs and cut albums.”

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But what worries Ujir the most is the quality of bihu songs flooding the market. Most of them are influenced by modern-day musicial instruments, and bihu songs are increasingly being recorded using computerised keyboards and bass guitars played alongside traditional folk instruments.

No one personifies dilution of bihu more that Zubin Gard, a singer who has lent his voice to about 30 bihu cassettes.