“Parikrama was formed to play live.” And live they will be at the Independence Rock festival in Mumbai in November. Founder of the band, Subir Malik, tells Brut what it’s like to survive (and might we add “thrive”) in the Indian music industry for over three decades.
🥁 Parikrama
🥁 Parikrama
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MusicTranscript
00:00Parkema is still what we call a passion.
00:03We knew that it's not possible to survive on English rock and roll in India for life.
00:15Parkema was formed to play live, you know, we want in 91, I was supposed to join my family
00:21business, which I had four months of music left in my life. Till I went and sold Mahindra
00:28motor spare parts. I did that, by the way, for the first 16 years of Parkema as well.
00:33I mean, office in the morning and rehearsals at night and the middle shows 31 years back,
00:39you know, and we had made a very clear rule in the band that Parkema is not going to be
00:44an earning source for anybody in the band. It will still be a passion. Probably that's
00:48the reason that we're still around today. For the first six years, we didn't distribute any
00:52money that came into the band. We first got everybody world class equipment because they
00:58were not available at that time. And then we started setting up people. So we set up,
01:03everybody was helped to be set up so that they get most of them were doing day jobs as well from
01:09the very beginning. So we knew that it's not possible to survive on English rock and roll in
01:14India for life. What do you do when you're 30, 35, 37, you don't have the same kind of fame.
01:19So that's probably we as a band understood and realized long, long back. And so that was it. So
01:27Parkema is still what we call a passion. And we can say a hobby that that pays us well at times.
01:34If you're playing for 30 years, you need to have that passion and you need to have you have to be
01:38a rock and roller at heart. So that is very important. If you think that you will only do,
01:42let's say 40 gigs in a year, what will you do for 325 days? My biggest advice would be please be
01:47financially secure. If you're financially secure, you can do rock and roll for your life. A lot of
01:52my people who were with me in 90s earlier called me, I give them a simple advice. I said, bro,
01:59you are at one of the biggest multinational running three lakhs a month. So don't do that
02:04thing at the moment. You have Saturday, Sunday off, spend your Saturday, Sunday, write music,
02:10do shows, do everything, no problem. The day if it comes that you have started getting
02:16half of what you're earning right now, leave your day job, no problem. You have to be practical in
02:22life. So you can still have fun, you can still live your passion. And you can still be practical
02:28in life and it works. Otherwise, you know, you'll end up doing it for a couple of years and realize
02:33that you know, I'm not getting enough money because whatever's said and done, you need that
02:37to run your house.