Jim Ankan Deka | Music, Photography and More

(An article by Jadeed Hussain published on Eclectic Northeast magazine on June 1, 2015) Musician Jim Ankan Deka's love for the music of his native land has prompted him to take Assamese music to the global stage Jim had moved to Bangalore from Guwahati to do his Masters in Psychology. After completing his studies, made his foray into the corporate world, but after a series of job changes, he realized that music was his only true calling. He joined a music school and slowly offers started to trickle from the film and television industry of Karnataka. He started off with a Kannada TV series in 2007 where he arranged the music for four songs. He admits that the language barrier was very much there but working with a director who was free to take inputs from him helped him deliver his best. He also teamed up with Carnatic classical musician and playback singer Suchethan Rangaswamy to form a band called 'Veenar'; they released their first song in Kannada called Eesha Ni...

Courtesy: Raul de la Nuez Recently, in one of the Bihu functions (April, 2015), one of the leading female singers of Assam was not allowed to sing for not wearing Chador Mekhela by the committee members. (Chador-mekhela is the traditional Assamese dress worn by women.) What I feel personally in that case, even the male singers, including Papon, Zubben, should be asked to wear Dhoti-Kurta or ban them too. Why this unfairly prejudiced view? And all the committee members also should be wearing Dhoti-Kurta or Chador-Mekhela all the time. Do they? Embarrassing moment for Assam and Assamese culture. This is not culture, This is not Bihu. I understand that cloths are integral part of any culture; but cloths alone can't defy culture. If one has to follow one of the cultural aspects with full devotion, he has to follow everything with complete honesty and sincerity. That means, if one has to wear mekhela-chador to defy bihu, she can't actually use keyboard, guitar or drums in bih...

I remember a time when I used to go to my female friend's place and knock on her door. And if she or her father opened it, I would be real glad. But if it's her mom, I would generally flee before she could ask me questions. Then came the telephone era. It became pretty easy. But the phone is generally picked up by pa, ma or bro of my friend. I would cut the call immediately. At the end I guess God looked down on all the boys and threw the mobile phone from heaven. There's hardly any possibility left for any of the relatives to pick the call other than the owner of the phone. It was not enough. Facebook joined the mobile phone market. And Whatsapp became a household name. In fact, couple of months back when I didn't have the Whatsapp installed on my phone, I was almost a laughing stock among my friends. Of course it made sense. I was spending money on calls and messages. Now I can atleast message for free. Then came the Facebook Messenger. What is Facebook ...

Never cease to learn | The Statesman | SATURDAY, 3 MAY, 2014 |  Meyeinla Longchar spoke to Jim Ankan Deka about his album Aawaz and his formative days as a musician.  Never cease to learn - The Statesman AFTER receiving three International Music Video Awards for his heart rending Hindi-Assamese musical album Aawaz and collaborating with artists for years, Jim Ankan Deka is set to become a household name. After releasing the album, he is now envisaging biggerer and better projects. He is humble enough to talk on everything —from the intricacies of melody to his favourite hobby. Despite achieving all that defines a successful artist, he is still a kind and giving soul. Excerpts: • You were a member of the first Assamese rock band, Prahar, and released an album at the age of 15. When did you fist realise you wanted to pursue musk? - I had never thought of making a career out of music. Even now, I am miles away from commercial music. But I always thought I would contin...

There are people we say who are gifted. There are people who are differently abled. And there are people who have triggered their talents to do extraordinary deeds. But what can we say about a person who can listen to a ten minutes piano solo once and deliver a ditto rendition instantly? Can we call that person Superhuman? Derek Paravicini is a pianist with superhuman talents. He is one of the few gifted people with 'absolute pitch'. He can listen to a song or tune once and can perform it on piano exactly the same. He can identify every note in a chord. While most musicians can pick out only five notes from a chord, Derek can distinguish up to 20. The irony is, Derek is blind and was born with a 'savant syndrome'. Derek was born to Nicolas Paravicini and Mary Ann Parker Bowles on July 26, 1979. He was a 25 weeks premature baby weighing just a pound and a half and due to the oxygen therapy given during his time in a neonatal intensive care unit, lost his eye sight. H...

Updated - August 21, 2014 Click Here to request Facebook for verification if you are a celeb or notable person. Read the full article below F ew years ago when I created a page for legendary American guitarist Eric Johnson on Facebook , I had no idea about verified pages as well as terms of creating a musician or band's page on Facebook. I created the page when I didn't find any official or a proper page giving details of the guitarist. Later, when I was contacted by the management of Eric Johnson to re-create my page as the official page of Eric Johnson on Facebook, I came to know few things. What is an Official Facebook Page? First, Facebook Pages are for musicians, bands, authors, celebrities, businesses, organizations and brands to share their stories and connect with people. Though many times I come across with pages which have no relevance to any of the above. Why do we need a page? Well, profiles are kind of private - mainly for friends and in some rare cases - f...