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Artist
Goutam Chattopadhyay
4+ albums
about
Moheener Ghoraguli (or Mohiner Ghoraguli) was formed by a group of Kolkata musicians led by Goutam Chattopadhyay towards the end of 1974. Initially named Saptarshi, the group experimented with several names—including Teerandaz and Goutam Chattopadhyay B.Sc. & Somproday—before settling on “Moheener Ghoraguli,” a name proposed by Ranjon Ghoshal and inspired by the poem “Ghora” by Jibanananda Das. The band is widely regarded as the first Bengali rock band from West Bengal. Around the same time, bands like Souls and Feedback were emerging in Bangladesh. Goutam Chattopadhyay (Bengali: গৌতম চট্টোপাধ্যায়) was an Indian Bengali singer, songwriter, guitarist, and composer, as well as a theatre personality, filmmaker, and ethnographer. In 1975, he formally established Moheener Ghoraguli with Tapas Das, Abraham Mazumdar, Pradip Chattopadhyay, Ranjon Ghoshal, Biswanath “Bishu” Chattopadhyay, and Tapesh Bandopadhyay. During his student years at Presidency College, Kolkata, he was involved in the political movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, including the Naxalite movement. After a brief period working as a medical representative in Jabalpur and Bhopal, he returned to Kolkata and fully dedicated himself to music. Moheener Ghoraguli introduced a radically different sound in Bengali music, blending Western instruments such as guitar, saxophone, bass, and drums with indigenous influences like Baul traditions—sometimes described as “baul-jazz.” Their lyrics often reflected socio-
