Mumbai: The Mumbai Police has been a constant newsmaker for the past year for a variety of reasons — for suffering a grave toll in their role as frontline personnel against Covid-19; for the case regarding the alleged manipulation of Television Rating Points; and, more recently, for the controversy surrounding assistant police inspector Sachin Waze, who has been arrested for his alleged links with the Antilia bomb scare case, and the accusations of bribery that emerged as a consequence of this investigation.
But last week, the force created a buzz for reasons quite different as the Mumbai Police band recorded a rendition of Monty Norman’s iconic James Bond theme.
A video of the performance was published by Mumbai Police on 23 August across its social media handles. As of Friday afternoon, it had over 30,400 views on YouTube.
Band, Mumbai Police's Band!
Presenting to you, ‘Khaki Studio’ – A Tribute to Monty Norman’s ‘James Bond Theme’
Theme, arranged by Head Constable Zameer Shaikh. #KhakiStudio #MusicalMonday#MumbaiPoliceBand #JamesBond007 #JamesBondTheme https://t.co/hKThMhcxTP
— Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) August 23, 2021
The video is just the first of a series of such police band recordings across Indian and Western music genres that the Mumbai Police is planning to publish every week, as part of a project called ‘Khaki Studio’, ThePrint has learnt.
“The name was inspired by the popular ‘Coke Studio’. We are men in khaki and we are creating music, so it felt apt,” Sanjay Kalyani, a Mumbai Police inspector and band master, said.
“We decided to produce ‘Khaki Studio’ because, over the last many months, the Covid-19 pandemic has put a strain on everyone. People have been cooped up at home and stressed. Frontline warriors have been putting all their efforts in containing the infection,” Kalyani added. “Listening to music can make people relax and relieve some of the stress. The Mumbai Police can protect people as well as entertain them,” he added.
According to Kalyani, the ‘James Bond’ theme was chosen as their first recording because of the sheer popularity of the tune across generations.
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The Mumbai Police band
The Mumbai Police band was born pre-Independence and performed for the first time at the Naigaon police ground in a special annual ceremonial parade on 18 December 1936, with one C.R. Gardener as its first band master.
Since then, the brass band — a “group of musicians playing brass instruments and sometimes also percussion”; brass instruments include trumpets, trombones, French horns etc — has grown to a 100-strong team, of which about 40 are now part of Khaki Studio.
All members of the band have undergone basic police training and their commitment is “first to law and order, then to music”, Kalyani said. When these musicians are not practising for performances, they are on the streets, helping out in police ‘bandobast’ duties.
Mumbai Police picks eligible musicians who can join the band and skilled instructors from its band department give these candidates professional training in playing Western musical instruments, reading music notations and so on. While the band’s priority is to perform for government and uniformed personnel, civilians can book them for private performances if the band is free.
Khaki Studio
As part of this season of Khaki Studio, Mumbai Police will publish one fresh video every Monday. In the coming weeks, followers of Khaki Studio will be able to enjoy genres such as waltz, Indian classical bhajans, old Bollywood songs, patriotic songs as well as Marathi numbers such as ‘Jai Jai Maharashtra Majha’ and ‘Bahu Asot Sundar (very beautiful)‘.
As of now, the band plans to put out at least 10 such videos, but there could be more, Kalyani said.
Head constable Zameer Sheikh, who got a special mention in Mumbai Police’s social media posts releasing the first recording of Khaki Studio, is the band’s arranger. “He takes the original song and copies the notations for the band, writing each and every part of the music for different instruments,” Kalyani said.
A major reason behind kicking off the series was also the fact that the police band hasn’t had many occasions to perform over the past 18 months, ever since the pandemic hit.
A band that used to be fully booked between government and private performances suddenly had only ceremonial performances such as 15 August and 26 January to look forward to, Kalyani said.
“So, we started preparing to record our music. Our commissioner Hemant Nagrale saw one of our practice sessions, and gave us a lot of encouragement to go ahead,” Kalyani added. “It took three months to prepare for Khaki Studio.”
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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