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Rahul Ram isn’t impressed with the question. The bass­ist, vocalist and the oldest (not just in age) member of the rock-fusion band Indian Ocean, might be an inch away from frowning. We’re sitting at a new lounge-cum-bar in Noida, where the band is going to kick off its tour for their latest album Tu Hai, their first album since 2014’s Tandanu. We’re accompanied by Ram’s bandmates Himanshu Joshi and Nikhil Rao, when I ask them if it’s hard being an idealist today. “What a strange question! How does one answer this?” Ram grunts. Rao is more receptive, as he leans in to answer. “I think what you’re going for is how we’re not necessarily changing our sound with what’s ‘working’. There are two answers to this,” notes Rao. “Indian Ocean has never been interested in doing that. And, we don’t think we’re compe­tent enough to learn every new trick.”

Having existed for more than three decades, Indian Ocean has been one of the pioneering, stubbornly independent music outfits in India. Started by percussionist/vocalist Asheem Chakravarty and guitarist Susmit Sen in the late ’80s—the band spent a few years searching for their sound. After the exit of a few members with brief stints, the band welcomed Rahul Ram as the bassist, and Amit Kilam on drums in the early ’90s. There’s a peculiar self-taught, homegrown quality to the sound of Indian Ocean’s early works like ‘Desert Rain’ (1997), ‘Kandisa’ (2000) and ‘Jhini’ (2003). Even at the height of India’s indie-pop fandom, Indian Ocean never quite gave into the temptation of becoming MTV sensa­tions, always preferring a smaller audi­ence who loved them for who they were, rather than trying to impress a larger audience who, perhaps, cared less.

“More than idealists, I think we’re pragmatists. We’re comfortable with what we do, and we have our own narra­tive, texture of sound—something you keep learning all along,” says Rao. Despite their nonchalance about it, in the age of instant gratification, unlimited money, and infinite fame—it’s nothing short of a miracle that the band has managed to preserve its sound and also probably its values about making music. It’s harder than one might imagine. “It’s hard only if you want to be an instant success. We never were. We knew we were never pop. We also knew pop musicians would earn significantly more than us,” says Ram, going on to add, “Daler Mehndi proba­bly earned more than Pandit Bhimsen Joshi—but I could call it the most meaningless statistic. The Spice Girls made more money than John Coltrane. Does it matter? Who cares? Are you happy doing what you’re doing? That’s what matters.”

Finding a solidity during the ’90s and ’00s, the band was at its prolific best during this period, playing to sold-out halls. They even crossed over to a larger audience with the help of Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday— a film on the ’93 Bombay bomb blasts— which became their first mainstream film project. Stuck because of court injunctions, the 2004 film finally released in 2007.

Starring in a documentary film (by Jaideep Varma) called Leaving Home in 2010, the band touched upon their notorious process of “slowly cooking” a song and not performing it in front of the public until it’s “ready”. It’s a process that is directly at odds with the era we live in—where the intent is to quickly capitalise on fickle fame, to sell more music and make more money. “That’s because we’re not Maggi two-minute noodles yaar!,” says Joshi. “Even though Tu Hai has just come out, we’ve been playing these songs for years. The more you play a song, the more comfortable you become with its groove and the more it prepares itself.” How do they know when a song is done? “Mutual consent,” says Ram, “It’s like sex.” Rao claims Amit Kilam best understands the look and feel of a song. “It’s really important to have someone who can look at the song at a macro level, and know what it is saying beyond the nuts and bolts.” Unless it’s a film project with a strict deadline, the band prefers to take their time.

“Indian Ocean: Mach 2”—as Ram refers to the current version of the band— after the departure of both Chakravarty and Sen (Chakravarty died in 2009, and Sen moved on to pursue a solo music career in 2013) is apparently “rockier” than its previous iterations. It might have something to do with Rao having been a guitarist in a metal band. However, you’ll still hear a collective of vocals rather than a single voice singing a whole song. “Vocally, we’re not big fans of soloists,” says Ram, “We all have such different textures.” Lis­tening to the crowded vocals in an Indian Ocean song, it’s hard not to imagine people singing along. Given how the band has showcased its social and ecological awareness in songs like ‘Ma Rewa’ (in Kandisa) or ‘Des Mera’ (in Jhini)—it doesn’t seem like a far-off possibility. In the first lines of the first song of their new album, ‘Jaadu Maaya’, (written by Varun Grover) Ram sings, “Yeh duniya thodi kshanbhangur, yeh duniya thodi thethar hai / Tum jitni zehar samajhte ho, bas usse thodi behtar hai (This is a world that’s transient and obstinate /However toxic you think it is, it’s slightly better than that.)”

“We’re pragmatists. We’re comfortable with what we do, and we have our own narrative, texture of sound—something you keep learning all along,” says Nikhil Rao, musician

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The band’s film work is eclectic ranging from Black Friday (2007), Peepli Live (2010), Katiyabaaz (2014), to arguably their most famous work— Neeraj Ghaywan’s Masaan (2015). One almost wonders if the band seeks out filmmakers with similar socio-political sensibilities. Joshi laughs it off saying, “It’s what is offered to us. We’ve rarely been in a position to pick and choose. They [filmmakers] come to us because they want a certain kind of sound in their films.” Ram recounts how he once had to turn down a popular Hindi film. “I asked them for a brief, they said, ‘Koi bhi gaana de do sir! (Any song will do, sir).” It’s one of the rare instances when the band rejected an assignment. Rao thinks that specificity of a brief also channels one’s efforts in the right direction, adding, “‘Mann Kasturi’ (from Masaan) would never be something we would come up with ourselves.”

Tu Hai is a remarkable six-track album that showcases Indian Ocean at their most refined. The first part of the two-part title track has a pronounced Kashmiri folk influence, while the second part is a Punjabi folk song fused with pronounced rock guitars. ‘Jaadu Maaya’ is easily the album’s most accessible and impressive song, featuring their staple sound of raga-in­fluenced electric guitar duelling with the tabla, drums and tambourine. Another accomplished track is ‘Jungle’, a 10-minute rhapsody, starting off like a jazz composition with an extended solo by saxophonist George Brooks in the first two minutes. Soon the tabla and electric guitar take over as Ram’s raw vocals kick in. A paean to the vast expanse of mother nature, the song changes gears many times from jazz to a folk ballad, to folk fusion, where Brooks’ saxophone jams with the rest of the band, all culminating in the stunning phrase—“Dole dole dole dole”. It needs fortitude to nurture one’s voice and vision for over 30 years, and reject distractions for a longer, more impor­tant journey. It must be real love.

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Tatsam Mukherjee