Singing is just not the same with an N95 mask on. Naturally, Sucheta Roy, lead singer of local jazz band Stormy Norma, was disheartened when the pandemic struck. But then she pulled out her other card. She was a practising doctor before she switched full-time to music. Since April, Dr Sucheta Roy has spent her time in emergency wards helping patients struck by the Covid-19 virus.
Over two years, her bandmates and she have performed at venues such as Tollygunge Club, The Saturday Club, Hard Rock Cafe, and Someplace Else. But live gigs dwindled during the second wave in early 2021.
Band Stormy Norma in a jam session Courtesy: Stormy Norma
When a friend contracted Covid-19, they contacted Sucheta and she gave them medical guidance over a phone call. This made her realise she could, and should, heal with more than her tunes. “I realised that I couldn’t just sit at home doing nothing,” she says. She returned to work in a COVID-emergency ward first in Chennai, Tamil Nadu and, then, in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh.
She had left her decade-long medical career in 2007 to give her full attention to music, her first love. “I had been away from medicine for some time. This period gave me a renewed appreciation for the profession, and the compassion that comes from medicine is a very crucial emotion in creating good music,” she said.
After treating her friend remotely, Sucheta decided to join a COVID-19 emergency ward to help with the rising cases. Photo: Sucheta Roy
Music was always an intimate part of life for this alumnus of Shri Shikshayatan School. “I trained in Indian classical music. Growing up, learning music wasn’t an ‘option’ for me, given the musical influence all around. My aunt, Reba Muhuri sang quite a few songs in Satyajit Ray’s films including Mohe Lagi Lagana Guru in Joi Baba Felunath and Chhabi Dikhla Ja in Shatranj Ke Khilari. My grandfather, Dr Amiya Nath Sanyal wrote a book, Ragas and Raginis, that I found in Harvard University’s library. When we lived in Bombay, my father would bring home accordion players from nearby slums,” she says.
However, that didn’t mean she could slip into music as a profession. She was academically strong and her mother wanted her to study medicine. Sucheta graduated from Calcutta Medical College in 1998, and practised medicine until 2007. But then she dropped it all and moved to Houston, Texas, to learn music under Pandit Suman Ghosh of the Mewati Gharana.
In 2018, she succumbed to the call of home, which any Calcuttan would find hard to resist. She attended a workshop by legendary guitarist Amyt Datta at Vedic Village, where she wrote her first song in collaboration with Tre Ess, a rapper from Jharkhand. This proved to be a turning point for Sucheta. It not only compelled her to move back to the city for a career in live music but also introduced her to musicians whom she would go on to form Stormy Norma with.
“The musical culture of this city is amazing. Just in my neighbourhood in Jodhpur Park, there are exemplary musicians in every corner, who are constantly honing their art and trying to get better. Besides this, Kolkata has amazing venues, and I enjoy performing at Tollygunge Club and The Saturday Club as their audience really gets jazz. The sound of Hard Rock Cafe, and the role of Someplace Else in advancing the musical scene of the city make both these venues special to perform at,” she says. She counts Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Cole Porter and Janis Joplin as her major jazz influences.
With the rise in COVID-19 cases, Stormy Norma stopped performing. “The most important thing to me as a doctor is the safety of all my band-mates, their families and our audience. Initially when live performances halted, we were very depressed as we couldn’t meet or rehearse. I collaborated with some music organisations online which had international audiences, and am also teaching music virtually for free,” she says.
But who can hold back artistic expression for long? The band is now gearing up for its comeback. “We are already planning our new playlist. We’re hoping to jam again as soon as I am back, and to hit the stage in September,” Sucheta says. Her pandemic experience has enriched her music and resulted in many new songs that helped her vent the suffering she saw. However, she plans to hold on to her recent work for now. She says cheerfulness is the bigger need of the hour.