Youth ambassador for peace between India and Pakistan; Twitter’s youth ambassador for using social media to bring positive change; and now a collaborator with UNICEF India to address climate change—Guwahati singer-songwriter Rahul Rajkhowa is all this and more. After pursuing higher studies from JNU, Delhi, this youngster is teaching History at a small school in Mumbai near Haji Ali.
The Arabian Sea is his muse. Sitting on the side, he addresses the chaos in his mind. As he stares into the horizon, issues ranging from LGBTQ rights in India, religious violence, violence against women and students, CAA, felling of trees for open coal mining, to littering by tourists at hill stations of the Northeast, the devastating Assam Floods, climate change, and farmer rights, find a voice through his pen, which he later sets to music.
A firm believer of leaving a better world for the generations to come, the singer says it pains him when he sees people throwing garbage into the sea or tourists littering the hills when they go travelling. “Can you imagine educated people in South Mumbai notice all this and not saying a word?” he wonders aloud shaking his head as he goes about cleaning up after the people and trying to educate them.
“You can’t help but feel terrible when you see plastic bottles and chips packets lying next to crystal clear waterfalls or lush green mountains,” he says. Comfortable with diverse genres of music, Rajkhowa grew up watching his school seniors play to songs by Metallica, Simple Plan, Nickelback etc. In fact, by the time he was 12 years old, he had self-learned the guitar and formed a band—The K-Reactives—which lasted till the members passed out of school. He feels responsible to not only entertain but also to convey a positive message to his listeners. Listeners should “catch the purpose behind the song,” is what he aims at.
His social ideals have brought forth much collaboration. The biggest being, when a man from Hyderabad, who had heard his song ‘The Flood’ based on the Assam Floods, wanted to support his movement financially. This led Rajkhowa to begin his own collective—an NGO called Rajkhowa & Arya Aid—in 2019. Through an online crowd-funding campaign, the NGO managed to provide relief aid worth Rs 2.5 lakh to over 500 families in Assam. Also, he adopted a village school and helped rebuild it. Next, the youngster plans to take his NGO on a cleanliness drive to the hills of Meghalaya. “The world isn’t your garbage bin!” he exclaims.
If there is one song that he loved writing, which one would he choose? “‘No god ever taught to hate’,” pat comes the reply. Based on the gut-wrenching effects of mob violence—a topic close to his heart as he too has been a victim of it—the song is “my way of dealing with the trauma,” says the singer, whose main inspiration comes from blues artists of the 70s.
It is legends such as BB King, Albert Collins, Freddie King, Buddy Guy, Albert King, Chuck Berry and Eric Clapton who addressed the working-class struggles that continue to motivate him. At the same time, he takes a leaf or two out of the music books of contemporaries such as Kendrick Lamar, Joey Badass, Jermaine Cole, Kanye West, John Mayer, Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran. Now, that’s quite a range!