Meet Gonje Fereshta's Syed Farhad: A poet, singer and dreamer

Sketch: TBS

Growing up, singer-songwriter Syed Farhad of the recently born Bangla rock band 'Gonje Fereshta' was heavily inspired by Pop Guru Azam Khan. And not just by his extravagant music, but also by his simplicity as a common fellow when not funking hard in the then pop scene.

Favourite persona aside, as a school-going boy living in Chattogram, Farhad's earliest exposure to Rock n Roll began with Ayub Bachchu's LRB, James' Feelings and the glorious original line up of Warfaze. In later years, Kabir Suman played a huge role in how Farhad wrote songs and felt music. 

Talking about his musical journey, Farhad said, "My mother used to work around our Bank Colony house, always humming in her sweet voice.

"My two older brothers, on the other hand, would sing Warfaze, LRB, etc, songs in the house on the top of their lungs. These and many other rock songs would blare all the time on a cassette player," he added. 

Throughout his life, cassettes of Pink Floyd, The Doors and many other bands' albums graced his home. 

All that shaped Farhad into the singer-songwriter that he is today. Alongside music, he is an avid reader, reflected by the use of beautiful and sensible words in his songwriting. 'Gonje Fereshta' released their third single only a couple weeks ago. Being a mix of alternative and funk genres, the single is titled 'Durotoro Dwip'. It was jointly written by Farhad and Md Shad Ashraf.

The story behind Farhad becoming a singer-songwriter is an interesting one. 

"I always wanted to sing and have proper schooling in singing, but couldn't, for one reason or another. Sometimes I used to sing in the choir of the boys' scouts I was a part of, but not always; I was a shy kid," Farhad said. 

But Farhad gained quick fame in his school as a singer among his friends through singing loudly between class breaks, keeping the beats on his desk. Enthused, Farhad formed a three-piece band around 2006 right after completing secondary education. Initially named 'Access Road', the name was quickly changed to 'Arbachin'.

"I wanted to write songs but my early attempts were weak. I began writing poems early on and later wanted to shift to songwriting. Anyway, the band didn't last and we went our separate ways," he said. 

In 2009, he moved from Chattogram to study History of Art at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Dhaka University. Music and songwriting were on pause essentially until he formed another band with like-minded people in Dhaka and called themselves 'Anya Swar'. 

It was with this band Farhad had a real taste of working with music the way he always envisioned. They were doing multiple shows at the DU campus and TSC. 

"I was with the cultural wing of a club back then. There, I did a lot of public singing, performed with my band and did at least one jamming session a week," Farhad said. But the band saw two quick year's worth of success and broke off. By then, his reputation as a singer-songwriter was taking off.

"I'm a singer-songwriter. Lyrics are of paramount importance to me. But all the other components, like music and the composition itself, complete a song," he said. 

"But poetry doesn't translate to lyrics. In poetry, there is unbound freedom of writing. But with lyrics, I have to be mindful about how every word falls in rhythm and the flow of music," he expressed.

Many times that a poem is adapted to a song, certain wordings have to be changed to satisfy the musicality of songs. This, added Farhad, happened with James' adaptation of Shamsur Rahman's poem 'Uttar' into the song 'Taray Taray'. 

"Certain words were moved around and after Shamsur Rahman heard the song, he didn't mind," Farhad added. This goes to show Farhad understands the clear demarcation between poem and lyric.

Even in our fading Bangla culture of 'Puthipaath', the 'Puthi' was written in a way so that they can be recited with tune. Many other examples such as this exist from times old. All this came from the conversation with Farhad. 

After the dissolution of 'Anya Swar' in 2011, Farhad took his own time to improve his own songwriting. Years later, in 2017, he released his first solo 'Ebhabeto Chaini', all written, tuned and sung by him, assisted by Masud Hasan Ujjal. "I'm grateful to Ujjal bhai for this!" he said. 

In the background, the idea of forming 'Gonje Fereshta' was brewing. Farhad felt the urge to work with fellow music lovers again, after long. Initially, it was called a project titled Syed Farhad. Then it became Syed Farhad O Gonje Fereshta and eventually, in 2018, just Gonje Fereshta. 

Meanwhile, they were consistently playing DU's own seasonal music show 'Sodium Batir Gaan' until 2019 and then fully focused on the band's advancement.

Gonje Fereshta now has three singles to their name and with time they are gearing towards at least one song a month that will help establish their tone and style in the Rock n Roll scene of Bangladesh.