A young group of band members, who apart from playing music also contribute to social issues, decided to do something good for the ecology. Deeply concerned with the destruction of trees, causing imbalance to the fragile ecosystem of West Bengal, they decided to plant mangrove trees in the Sundarbans area.

On the 10th birthday of their band, they wanted to create awareness on the ongoing climate change and take a step towards nature conservation. They planted 1,000 mangrove saplings in a village in the Sundarbans.

The band, which calls themselves Radical Array Project (T.R.A.P), started off as a four-people collective, comprising college students back in 2014. Gradually, they scaled up over the years to become one of the most sought-after bands in the college circuit. The band has covered 25 states covering major Indian institutions like the IITs, IIMs, NITs, AIIMs, IISC, IIEST, Jadavpur University and Presidency University.

“We picked Sundarbans because of two reasons. First, because it is a World Heritage Site closer home that needed to be protected, and second, because of the amazing carbon sequestration power of mangroves reducing carbon emissions and helping to combat global warming,” said Bhaswar Sen, the founding member of the band.

Giving further details of their nature conservation at Sundarbans, Bhaswar said, “We ventured into the mangrove forests accompanied by locals, who very generously arranged the saplings for us. Navigating knee-deep muddy mazes, we started our plantation process. And after a day’s hard work, with the assistance of the local volunteers, we reached our target of planting 1,000 saplings.

In a continuously speeding world, where felling of trees to establish commercial establishments is seen as a sign of progress, being able to give back to mother nature is a joyous feeling for the band members.

The musicians have seen how the embankments in the Sunderbans area are disintegrating due to lack of trees, roots of which hold the banks in place. Climate change and global warming is a big issue nowadays, said a band member.

“Out of 1,000 saplings we planted, if only 100-200 survive, they would do wonders to the village,” said Bhaswar, adding, “The world heritage site is so close to our home and is in danger. It is our duty to save it.”

A computer science graduate, Bhaswar explains why they named the band ‘Array’. “It is a term used in engineering, which is about similar forces stacked together in a pattern. We members are also like-minded. And ‘Radical’ because we wanted to change things through music.”

The band has Bhaswar Sen as violinist, Suanjita Dutta (drummer), Arijit Paul (vocalist), Swapnabha Roy (bass guitarist), Darpa Das (guitarist), Anupam Pyne (keyboardist) and Soumadip Das (manager).

The band was unique in its initial days as it covered background scores. Bhaswar says they were probably the only such band in Kolkata then. Now, of course, they do vocals, Bollywood and Hollywood song covers and Bengali songs.

Bhaswar has also played violin for the web series Sacred Games Season 2.

In their earlier anniversaries, the group had celebrated Chandrayaan and also played for the underprivileged children.