Premiere: Gauley Bhai’s ‘Aunty Ko Tato Bagaicha’ (Aunty’s Warm Garden) Video Is Surreal Yet Grounded in Stark Realities

Bengaluru-based rock act Gauley Bhai’s latest music video for “Aunty Ko Tato Bagaicha (Aunty’s Warm Garden)” puts the political, ecological and psychological impact of the Teesta river area in West Bengal is at the center with a day-in-the-life music video.

Directed by Gauley Bhai’s violinist-vocalist Veecheet Dhakal with a script by Angarika G and cinematography by Eric Shrestha, the video plays out like a short film set along the Teesta Highway region and features a strange creature – dubbed Alakatre the Tar Phantom – that their lead cast (also musicians known as the Teesta Troupers) Manoj aka MJ Humble, Asis aka Sound of Streets, Anil aka Mr. Anix, Saugat aka Zayn encounter.

The video is described by the director as being “rooted in the everyday reality” and he’s been “personally researching the infrastructural changes in the area for several years.” In the face of dams, highways and railway work, the Teesta region is no longer the refuge it was for its people. “Broadly, the video reflects the deteriorating landscape in the background, and we have the boys moving through it, as the center of the narrative. In spite of the difficulties of everyday life, we wanted to capture their agency, their resistance and their playfulness,” Veecheet adds.

They found their cast after Gauley Bhai’s Veecheet, guitarist Siddhant Mani Chettri and bassist Anudwatt Dhakal (all from Kalimpong) set up a jam space for artists in the region and saw the creation of the Teesta Troupers. The video is dedicated to Siddhant Tamang aka Real Talk, who was one of the first key people to come on board the Teesta Trouper project and helped develop the groundwork for the Teesta Troupers. Veecheet adds, “The most acute tragedy was when unfortunately just two months before the project kicked off, Siddhant lost his life by suicide.”

The cast bypass the highway and into a raft on the river and roam on the beach before finding an old archway gates and ruins of a bridge, all built in the 1930s by the British. With Gauley Bhai’s groovy, violin-aided Nepali folk and Afro-informed rock, things melt into a dissonant kind of jazz-inspired section as the Teesta Troupers encounter a spectral black mass engulfing their surroundings. Featuring animation by Sowmya Swaminathan, scriptwriter Angarika says, “The Tar Phantom emerges from a hallucinatory reality, which really intended to capture the psychology of living within this forming/breaking landscape.”

Gauley Bhai’s music has often been tied to their memories of the Teesta. Lyrically, however, the song weaves in metaphors of escapism and nature, invoking bees and flowers but also reminds us of certain things that can’t be changed but still confronting reality.

“Aunty Ko Tato Bagaicha (Aunty’s Warm Garden)” follows Gauley Bhai’s 2019 album Joro and lives up to their powerful visual stories, as seen in the videos for songs like “Simrayo” and “Morau.” The band spent some time away in different cities due to the pandemic, but are now back in Bengaluru and readying new music. “It took us a while to find the consistency we need to create work. But now we are back in the city, back at our studio, gearing up for the next album,” drummer Joe Panicker says.

Bassist Anudwatt says they hope to release more singles through 2023 and will compile it all into their second album. There’s a new direction, which the band credits to having sound engineer Samuel Amulraj in the fold. Anudwatt adds, “Let’s just say that if Joro was born from an innocence, the next album is a journey toward experience.”

Watch the video for “Aunty Ko Tato Bagaicha” below.