Neil mukherjee: My style did not exist in the vocabulary of the guitar

Neil Mukherjee believes that music is a means of connecting with people and one's surroundings.

"We don't always need language to connect with others. I have shared warm moments with people from totally different cultures. Speaking the same language helps, but not speaking isn't limiting either," he said.

Mukherjee is a renowned composer, producer, and songwriter. He has been known to work with artists such as AR Rahman, Shankar Mahadevan and Shankar-Ehsan-Loy. 

He came to Dhaka as a guest of the American International School Dhaka recently. 

During his visit, the 52-year-old guitarist from Kolkata performed at a number of venues.

Mukherjee trained as a classical guitarist from Trinity College of Music, London, in Carnatic classical and Dhrupad. His love for music was greatly inspired by his maternal uncle Gautam Chatterjee, founder and frontman of the band Mohiner Ghoraguli. It was Chatterjee who showed him the ropes of playing the guitar. Mukherjee, out of his own enthusiasm, perfected his skill for the instrument. 

As a young musician, Mukherjee voiced songs such as 'Bhikkhetei Jabo' and 'Binita Kemon Acho'. He also composed 'Jao Chhere Chole' for Moheener Ghoraguli. 

"Then I moved on to Madras from Kolkata, to train in Carnatic and South Indian music. I learned a lot about our musical cultures and traditions here. This involved a lot of studying and I also worked a job on the side." 

He composed the score for the film Meherjaan in 2010, "The movie got banned in Bangladesh because the story is a love story between a Pakistani prisoner of war and a Bangalee girl. Political turmoil stalled the film's release, but I am extremely proud of the film's score. I consider it one of my best works," he said. 

Mukherjee has been writing Bangla songs for a long time, but somehow they never saw the light of day. "So in 2019, I grouped up with some musicians and started calling us 'Neilmukho', with whom I do bangla songs – my own bangla songs," he said. 

With 'Neilmukho', he released nine self-composed songs on YouTube. Joyjit Lahiri (who famously wrote the song 'Tomay Dilam') and Aniruddho Ghosh helped Neil write the lyrics for 'Neilmukho'. The band is composed of Koustav Dey, Shamik Chatterjee and Ritoban Das. 

Photo: Noor-A-Alam

"If we get an opportunity to play for Bangladesh, I would love to come with Neilmukho and play," Mukherjee said excitedly. "Since Bangla is the language of this country, we have a chance to connect here and that is heartening." 

In Mumbai, Mukherjee had started playing session guitar for music directors such as Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. In 2011, he played the flamenco-style guitar for the song 'Senorita' from the movie 'Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara'. 

In 2018, he reinterpreted two Beatles songs 'I will' and 'Sexy Sadie' for the accompanying album of a British documentary 'The Beatles and India', celebrating fifty years of 'The White' Album, and 'The Beatles in India'. In 2022, Mukherjee composed and played the theme score of Soumyajit Majumdar's movie 'Homecoming'.

"I worked on jingles for brands like Thumbs Up, Britannia, Google Photos, Gillette and then some. Advertising was paying my bills for a while. With AR Rahman, I worked on songs like 'Rang De' from the movie 'Thakshak', 'Kay Sara Sara' from 'Pukar', 'Main Albeli' from 'Zubeidaa', etc. These are just a few from the ones I did with Rahman Ji. I've been lucky to work with such people," he said. 

"Throughout my journey with the guitar, I've played classical, flamenco, blues, jazz, hard rock and whatnot. Then, when I began learning Carnatic music, I started to understand our own musical styles and reflect them in my music. It was like I was talking in my own language through my instrument. This comes with lots of research, study and hard work, but in the end, this also allowed me to better validate myself as a musician and find out where I belong." 

Mukherjee believes just having knowledge of music is not enough. The knowledge has to be executed on an actual instrument. During his Carnatic music days, he also took lessons on the veena. Although it was uncharacteristic of a guitarist to be taking veena lessons, he did it to have a profound understanding of string instruments, especially those that belonged to his culture and heritage. 

"These instruments reflected my playing. If you listen to me playing the guitar, you'll think it's not the sound of guitar you're used to hearing. You may find that style on the sitar but not the guitar. Because it doesn't exist in the existing vocabulary of the instrument, and I had to find the path myself," he said.