India's Most Hard Working Band- Parikrama

The story of Parikrama, the Nineties band that is still going strong, playing more gigs than anybody else

- Nirmika Singh

Subir Malik won’t allow the slightest in accuracy in remembering gig details mara precious trivia experience. “No, Srijan [Mahajan, drummer],” says the co-founder and keyboard player of the Delhi-based rock band Parikrama, “We were going to play in Jamshedpur that day, not Ranchi…This was on January 25th 2008. Remember, our flight from Calcutta to Jamshedpur was delayed and then cancelled? So we hired a tempo traveler – a bad version of it actually – drove for 10 hours, played the show, came back to Calcutta and from there flew back to Delhi where we had a show the next day.”

When your gig memories run into thousands, attention to detail isn’t a virtue worth upholding at every anecdotal retelling. Or so we thought! Another memorable concert: Recalls Subir, “On December 28th, 1995, we played our first concert at IIT Bombay – Mood I. We travelled in a second-class train – we took [Rs] 18 thousand including travel. That was the deal. We lost money to do that show but we got all-India established. Farhad Wadia noticed us at the show and he immediately called us for Rock Yatra in Feb the next year and for I-Rock for almost every year after that.”