“A Bloom in Vain” is not something you can instantly deep-fry, it is something you need to bake slowly.
At first I thought it was an album of Tagore songs covered by a new singer. In reality, it’s an album of four pairs of tracks by a quartet of composers – Rabindranath Tagore (RT), Atulprasad Sen (AS), Dwijendralal Roy (DR), and Rajanikanta Sen (RS).
This is Dia Chakravarty’s debut album. However, she does not sound like this is her first album, she sounds like she has been doing this all her life. Her voice lacks pretension, and she has the sincerity of a schoolgirl preparing for the final exam. It is amazing to discover a brilliant singer who, in her professional life, is a Political Director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance in UK.
There is no discernible common theme, but quite a few of the songs are bhajan-like songs. All the eight songs in the album are good, but among them my favourites are the ones by Atulprasad.
The ones by Tagore sounded the most contemporary, after all, like Elvis, he is the king, albeit a different type of king, the amra-shobai-raja type. It’s silly to rank the songs, but if I must do it, I would put them in the following order:
8. Ami Shokol Kajer Pai Hey Shomoy (RS)
7. Tomar Kotha Hetha Keho To Bolena (RT)
6. Koto Bhabe Birajicho Bishomajare (RS)
5. Ami Shara Shokalti Boshe Boshe (DR)
4. Shey Keno Dekha Dilo (DR)
3. Shokhi Vabna Kahare Bole (RT)
2. Tumi Kobe Ashibe (AS)
1. Bodhuya Nid Nahi Akhipate (AS).
The album was arranged by Prattyush Banerjee and recorded in Kolkata in Usha Uthup’s music studio “Studio Vibrations.”
It was released here by Laser Vision Ltd, with hardly any promotion, plus, it’s not widely available like the other albums released between the two Eids. The album can also be found online at iTunes and Amazon.com under the title “A Bloom in Vain and Other Songs.”
An interesting fact is that Dia, having studied law at Oxford University, chose songs of such composers, who, except for Dwijendralal, studied law, including Tagore who eventually dropped out; and except for Rajanikanta, every one of them went to England for higher studies.