Between rock and a hard place: Cultural politics of 1970s rock music in Calcutta

This essay follows 1960s American rock music as it emerged in Calcutta during the 1970s as a subcultural phenomenon. It engages this phenomenon on both representational and socio-historical registers. The essay first analyzes the diegetic functions that a rock band and its music serves in the Bengali Marxist auteur Mrinal Sen's 1972 film, Calcutta '71. The essay then moves on to consider the seminal Calcutta rock band, the High (formed in 1974), and the socio-historical conditions that produced it. It closes with the argument that a formal Marxist critique of the city's rock musical culture such as Sen's fails to adequately address the real, local complexities inherent in its production, mediation, and dissemination.