Everyone has their own Parikrama story, and even if we could list all of them, that still would not scratch the surface of what this Delhi band has done for Indian independent music; not only as an industry or a community, but even as a concept. The story closest to us is that they played at Great Indian Rock, of course, but that’s just one of a million things they did to push us forward as a country capable of making art on its own. What important to point out is that almost everything that makes today’s scene what it is stands on a strong foundation of shoestrings, dreams, and a willingness to make music for music’s sake. Parikrama was all that. Releasing their music for free in the early era of the internet? Yes. Including Indian classical instrumentation to rock music without being fusion? Yep. Opening for Maiden at Download? Obviously. Being socially conscious with music at a time when that was not really a thing in this country? Very much so. We could go on and on and on, but in all the flowers the band is currently getting for their run, one thing they have done over the years seems to be missing a little bit.

Parikrama started in 1991, of course. They completed 35 years as a band on the 17^th of June; an achievement people can’t really understand on account of its complete improbability. Think about it; artists who started in the tape age, lived through CDs and internet and streaming and the rampant commodification of music as an art form, and still around making good ol’ rock music. And if that wasn’t enough, what we should be really and truly grateful for is what they have done along the way; nurturing young musicians, supporting other artists, continuing the spirit of independence, and most importantly, being a part of the scene. This is something we should all be grateful for, because without them, none of us would even know what we were doing, or most importantly, why we were doing it. This – this commitment is why this band matters as much as they do, and this is why we must celebrate them.

The band has a new single out to commemorate this called ‘Inside My Skin’ and a documentary that’s coming out soon called ‘The Wheel Of Indian Rock’. We had the privilege to speak to the band’s keys player Subir Malik to not necessarily just go down memory lane, but to understand why the the band is important, and how they got here. This conversations contains minimal editing.

One thing about the scene today is that people don't remember how... ‘difficult’ is not the word, but how tricky it was like becoming a band back in the day. I just wanted to ask you because I feel like people need to know –  Do you remember how you guys started figuring out how to jam and where to jam and all that back in 1991? And where you could get instruments from?

It’s – in 1991 it was a very different time because getting instruments was out of the question. You could not even get a simple plectrum; forget about getting a guitar or dreaming about a drumstick. So basically, you know, I was supposed to join my family’s spare parts business. And a few bands I was playing with before were not playing classic rock. I wanted to play classic rock. So I just saw this band in IIT Kanpur, and I just approached them, “Let's form a band.” So essentially, slowly... we were very lucky that we had the Kirori Mal College music society room open for us for rehearsal. And also, you know, my house in old Delhi in Model Town near the Delhi University. Those were those huge houses. So it had one full floor that was empty, which was Parikrama's rehearsal room from almost ‘91 till 2005. 17th June is when we found Sonam as the sixth member. So that's how the whole band got completed. And what happened is that initially, rehearsals were actually more talking and speaking. I had been playing with other bands for five years before this; most of the kids were forming bands in 12th standard into college. What we knew then is what today's generation would know in the third and fourth grade. Because there was no internet, no exposure to anything.

(back row) - Subir/Chintan/Prashant (front row) - Nitin/Sonam/Rahul (Original lineup @ Kirori Mal College, Delhi University, Music Room called MUSOC - 1991)

The TV had one channel, Doordarshan, which used to only show a program called Krishi Darshan, which was about farming. And they used to have one movie on a Sunday. I'll tell you why it was a big thing and why it's relevant in today's time. You know, it's like, we used to have one movie. And for that one movie, everybody, the whole community used to wait and get together to watch that movie. And they had just one music program called Chitrahaar that used to come on Wednesday, if I remember correctly. So where do we get our exposure from? What do we know? A little bit of Deep Purple, we would know from, you know, a few cassette tapes, friends coming in, people coming from outside and stuff like that. Hardly any music schools... Like, I'm a self-made musician. I've learned on a harmonium, my keyboard playing. I, by the way, still do not know how to read and write music, you know. So I'm still – I play by ear. I've learned keyboard playing by rewinding Jon Lord's solos from Deep Purple and trying them on a harmonium.

I did a deal with Swee Lee Music from Singapore in the early 90s because we realised that to sound good, we need to have world-class equipment. That is why for the first four to five years of Parikrama, we never distributed any money. We kept that in a pool that was also earning interest. And on the other side, what we did is that we would – I still remember speaking on a trunk call, which was not the easiest thing in the world. Luckily, Swee Lee had a fax machine and we had bought a fax for the band. Through these few phone calls with City Music and with Swee Lee, we could manage to send them faxes with all we needed. And slowly, slowly, whoever is going uncle, aunty, if you go to Singapore, beg them, please carry it back. So, you know, I still remember there used to be, you know, super slinky Ernie Ball guitar strings. If we used to get one piece, for example, it would cost you 500 rupees. But if we were getting a lot of 50, it would cost us 200 rupees. So, whenever we would know that somebody is going in a month to Singapore, then, you know, from the six-digit analog phones, we used to dial all our other musician friends. So, okay, Orange street, two strings. Two strings, another band. Two strings, x, y, z. We used to keep about 20, 25 strings for us and rest for everyone. So, it's not only Parikrama that we helped getting the best of equipment from abroad. But doing this method, we used to feed the entire, and at cost, the entire Delhi music circuit too.

We also made some rules. A lot of those rules, by the way, we still follow. Those rules included things like punctuality, being on time, not drinking before a show. All those kind of things that I had experienced in my earlier bands that led to the band totally going haywire and stuff like that.

I think it's important to mention now because it's not to sound particularly cynical or anything, but see that these days, making music is so accessible to everyone. There are always two sides to the coin. One side is that lots of talented people who might not have had access to all these tools and all – now they do. But the flip side of it is some people don't put as much deliberate effort into making music. And that's why along with giving this thing to everyone, you also get a lot of low effort music that comes out of it. A lot of people don't remember that making music was a big effort and like a huge deal to just be able to even cut one song or even practice for like half an hour...

The bigger question is how do how did we keep the band together for 35 years, you know? One very big important decision that Parikrama took in ‘91 – I was major into Floyd, Zeppelin, Purple, AC/DC, Iron Maiden since i was in my probably in my senior school. And i'll be very happy to say I'm not grown up at all. I still listen to the same music you know I'm still that that small kid. Now we made this very clear that the idea was not to be rigid about playing only classic rock, because we started as as a band who wants to pay tribute to all our gods that we've grown up listening to before i say goodbye to music and join my family business. Though in the first show itself, we did an original called ‘Xerox’, the main emphasis that time was not on originals. it was one person for a magazine who changed everything for everyone; he was by the way my closest friend. In fact, let me tell you the connection I didn't even think about! So when i told you i saw this band playing from my college... in 1990 we had gone to IIT Kanpur for the sports fest so there were three bands. The third band was a band called Impact from Allahabad whose guitar player was a certain Mr. Amit Saigal, and the singer was a certain gentleman called Mr. Sam Lall... we were friends even before Parikrama or RSJ was formed.

Anyway, at the Parikrama rehearsals, we decided we will never compromise on our music. We had decided that we will never ever make Parikrama our main earning source for anybody in the band. So whereas all our friends nearby were thinking we'll do rock and roll, we'll be rock stars... but we had this realisation which which helped keep us being grounded and knowing the reality much before everyone else could. Nobody took us seriously. They thought “This is bullshit, we live off rock and roll.” But unfortunately everybody perished only we survived. So, in 35 years we kept this band rolling and people still coming in for two hours even in today's world, still not being their primary earning source, which I think is a ten-times bigger thing. It shows the dedication of the band members that we have and the atmosphere we have in this band that they still want to do this besides doing whatever else everyone is doing.

Yes, it’s absolutely correct that in our times, making a song, the distribution and all that was very very difficult. The only way you could do it is come up with CDs and stuff like that and tie up with a record company or something like that, which is the way we didn't want to go. It comes back to the same thing of that one Sunday movie, because you had to wait for a week to be entertained for three hours. There was a scarcity of that and people used to work so much and treasure those three hours of their life. I still cherish that one vinyl that I bought in the 80s or the 90s and that one CD. But in today's time, in an era where you get over a lakh of songs coming on Spotify and all that every day, you just take it for granted.

(back row) - Subir/Chintan/Vipin (front row) - Sonam/Nitin/Dilip (1995 - sikka)

The songs I heard growing up to compared to now, yes, they were popular at the time, but I feel like I remember them better. I feel like you can listen to amazing music that is coming out today, but it gets drowned out by the next 4000 songs on the playlist. And then it won’t stick. That is a problem.

The dedication I would have to conserve and save that one CD of mine of the 90s or the 80s – today it's impossible because you're getting it in abundance. And it's no one's fault. Everyone has the right to be heard. Everyone has the right to release their music. In the 90s, over 60% of the music sold in the US market was UK music, and it fell to under 3-4% in a span of 10 years. The bullshit that happened is that after Spice Girls, everyone thought – the US people, the UK people, the Europe people, everyone thought the same thing. So many bands came up, right, and I'm not saying they were good or bad but what happened was oversupply. So much started coming out from the UK and the other markets that earlier, if we were going in the 80s to buy a CD, chances are if you have a choice of 30 CDs, 28-29 were brilliant. But by only trying to copy the formula and not really putting quality music out there, it reversed. Out of 28-30 CDs that came out of being clones of what was happening in the market, you would have 25-26 being utter crap and only 4 brilliant CDs. This is what led to the UK domination of the US market ending and the same thing is actually happening today. Not because the music is bad or something, just because that there is so much of choice that it's not humanly possible for you to find the best songs. I still say that the millions and trillions of great pieces of brilliant music is lost.

For my first concert I saw Jethro Tull in IIM Bengaluru. I had no idea who Tull was. I guess like it brings up the point –  do you remember how college crowds like used to be during the heyday of the college fest era?

I remember because that was the best time to be a musician because almost everyone was into the same kind of music. It used to be very very different. I mean, I have played college festivals where we could play till 4 o'clock, 6 o'clock in the morning. I have played festivals where you know the first IIM festival I played actually had a bar just under the stage in the 90s. I've never seen anything like that. You know and we've played in campuses like all; in fact IIM Bengaluru was probably the only college who called us two years consecutively. When they called up the second time I asked them, Are you sure? We played last year.

I don't think anyone would ever not miss those days. In fact, that's what we're working for. In the last six months, we've done three college festivals. So colleges are calling us back. Just played CMC Vellore one week ago. And before that we just played for about 20,000 people at Jadavpur University in Kolkata. And before that we just played IISER Bhubaneshwar. Again a great crowd. See I'm very happy that they've started calling English rock bands back in colleges. It's happening. Battle of Bands is happening. It's coming back. And it might not be as big as the other commercial shows. But at least it's a start. And I'm really looking forward to that.

It doesn't have to be as big as what it used to be or like any other shows. The fact that it exists is itself a big deal. Because if you look at 5-7 years before today, the college scene was just gone.

I mean, I think it had been 10 years since Parikrama had done a college show. And suddenly, even last year, we had, till almost the end of December, we were in talks with Mood Indigo. Before that, we were in talks for BITS Pilani. If I would have counted every college that, just say, in the last year itself, that we were in talks with and we had dates, we would have probably ended up playing in ten-plus colleges. Three itself is a very big amount for us. In fact, we lost a year. Otherwise, trust me, we would have done 15, 20 colleges already. We lost a year because of Nitin's illness.

We had already started our strategy to –  In fact, recording material, releasing songs... the last 2-3 years, we've already released 7 songs. And we've released a vinyl with 10 originals which almost sold off before release itself. That's also a part of the fact that, you know, we want to hit the listener of today. Now, for the listener of today, you cannot do the same formula. We can do the same formula as we did in the 90s. But, the problem is that the biggest conversion of that thing is the college community. Suppose I ended up playing at 50,000 people for Mood Indigo. I know that 1,000, 2,000, 5,000 will convert to rock music. Or they will start listening to an Indian band that probably these younger kids have never heard of. It was different back then. It's not like the 90s where bootlegging and all would be possible in today's time because everything is streamlined.

That is why we changed the entire mindset and started recording. We were, you know, I can't find the word here. We were, like, open enough to change something that we have believed for 33 years of our lives and work and make that change.

(credit: Yeashu Yuvraj)

It deserves a lot of credit because this is part of a bigger generational thing. There are a lot of people who sit and gatekeep, let’s say, the early 2000s saying, “Bro, you don't remember, piracy was such a big deal. You know, I had to go to my friend's house because they had broadband internet so we could download the new Linkin Park.” Which, the stories are cool and all that, but at the end of the day, all you're doing is alienating young people from the music that you only want them to listen to. It's not a bad thing to change your approach.

See, we didn't, by the way, we didn't even know we have a YouTube channel. We went to see one day and we had a YouTube channel. And of course, we had to fight it to get it back to our control because somebody had opened it. We have no problem if somebody opened it or is putting up stuff. That's not an issue. But we wanted to start putting our own stuff a little bit. And so we had to do that. And, you know, when we took control of that channel, it had about 800 or 900 subscribers.

But when we woke up to realise and see it four, five years ago or something – we still frankly don't release too much stuff there. But that is something we're going to be changing from this year. We will be putting in a lot of stuff there. In fact, we have been able to convert all the old tapes and this and that, all that stuff into digital. And slowly but surely, we'll be releasing it periodically very soon on our YouTube channel.

In the last 35 years, the scene has changed in obvious ways, of course. However, what is the difference y'all have seen in the crowds at shows? At any venues that have been around – what differences have you seen in the vibe of the crowds from then to now?

Now, I'll tell you, the major difference that you see in the crowd today or for the last 10 to 15 years is that earlier, even at festivals, whoever is playing, majority of them will be only playing covers. Now, you'll find hardly any band going to a big festival and playing any covers at all.

In fact, the fact that the audiences have changed so drastically, of course, goes mainly to legends like Amit Saigal and all, who single-handedly changed it for not only Parikrama, but loads of bands in India and the crowds. So, the biggest change is that today's audience does not only expect you to play originals, they accept it also. So, there are two words between a thin line. So, you know, they are open. They are acceptable to material and that they listen to and have a good time on your originals even when they have not even heard new songs and stuff like that.

Otherwise, a rock audience has been as mad and, you know, mental as they were in the 60s, 70s to what they are today. They all know how to have a good time. They all freak out and they're some of the nicest people, actually. As always. In the 90s, they would listen to a new original and we would throw a CD to them. So, we were giving them actually a Spotify link in a physical format. Otherwise, if you look at all our songs, they were never recorded. So, all our songs, Vaporized, this, that, and all. They all became famous only by repeatedly playing them live. And people, you know, getting out their dictaphones and stuff like that. So, you know, earlier, the show in IIT Bombay I was talking about, I would send them 20, 30 pirated CDs of our own music three months in advance. So, by the time we would reach, it would reach like hundreds and thousands of people within IIT and their friends. And they will all know our songs.

What are you guys looking at the next year of, like, two years or, like, five years to be? What’s the... what’s the plan?

Yeah, we've already announced that we'll be releasing 50 songs in the next five years. That's the mission that we've kept to challenge ourselves. It started with recording a song, which was, frankly, a very difficult thing for us. We seriously hate the studio. But somehow we are getting through it. But, you know, we didn't want to go and record our old stuff that's already there. Of course, that has to be recorded because the fans want it. Changing our entire strategy of 30 to 33 years, we challenged ourselves further by saying, let's, you know, put more pressure on our brains and hearts and write new material. So we wrote Demons of Time. We wrote Translucent Light. We wrote Bring Me Down. We wrote a lot of songs that are new songs. You know, Inside My Skin.

So we are releasing  more studio versions of our newer material that we've written now than of the older stuff. But yes, now onwards, since fans wanted, we'll be starting recording our old catalog as well. Because there are no studio versions available of that for anyone. Even Vaporize is only available from that Download Festival video and what people have done. Am I Dreaming is not available. Xerox, Load Up, all these songs, nothing is available. So we will be surely getting back to writing.

There is this documentary coming out. The documentary will presumably span your entire career and so on. Have you all ended up looking at any old footage from, like, back in the day or any old photos and stuff? Was there some really strange, surprising thing that you don't remember that made you laugh now that you're looking at it years later?

Yeah, of course, seeing ourselves in different shape and sizes and all that... This documentary, just to let you know, so this guy, Ankur, who's making it; we made it very clear with Ankur. We have not – nobody in the band has seen that documentary, by the way. We saw the trailer the day it was released. So, we made it very clear to him that this is actually his own perspective. It is a fan's perspective. So, we said, you do whatever you want. We didn't want to control his creativity. We said, you write. You speak. Negative, positive, good incident, bad incident, anything. It's totally your call. We will not interfere in anything in the documentary. So, we have no deadline. I don't know when the film is coming out. I've not seen the film on purpose. I've just left it to him and told him, you know, whenever it's coming, it's coming. We'll see it then.

The band's latest single 'Inside My Skin' is out on all platforms.