Assam Skies

An amalgamation of 15 artistes from India, the United Kingdom and the United States of America (USA) shaped this project with an aim to tell a true story set during the colonial era. Assam Skies is adopted from the poem written by Karen Weed, a poet based in London.

The poem is about Frank Cyril Edwards who came to the Balijan tea estate in Assam in the year 1919 and joined as an Assistant Manager. During his working tenure, he met with a tribal girl, Rampyari and soon fell in love with her. By the year 1922, they had two daughters but destiny had other plans.

In the year 1925, Frank’s fiancée from London Muriel Florence Collins arrived at the tea estate to marry him. With the arrival of Muriel, the relationship between Frank and Rampyari restrained which led the later to take some hard decisions. He separated Rampyari from her daughters and took them into a children's’ home in Kalimpong in Darjeeling.

Soon after the separation, Rampyari couldn’t bear the pain and died shortly. While Frank returned to England and married his fiancée with whom he had a son.

In Dec, 2018, Char Seawell, a folk-country singer from Bothell, USA, after having a talk with Karen, came forward to give a tune to the poem, transforming it to a melodious song.

In 2019, Assamese music producer, Jim Ankan Deka, was approached by Karen to produce the music for Assam Skies. He brought together a team of traditional and western musicians, actors and filmmakers to fully produce a musical docudrama based on the story. For the first time, traditional Assamese musical instruments are used for an American country-folk based song. The audio was released worldwide in June, 2019.

The song is sung by Char herself along with Catherine Khiangte from Mizoram. The Assamese traditional instruments have been recorded by Barun Das and Debojit Kalita in Assam. The percussionists are Prabal Gogoi and Debjani Hazarika. Jim himself played the guitar, bass and keys. Char's voice was recorded in Washington.

The music video was directed by Avataran famed director, Tarunabh Dutta. The shooting of the video started in August with the lead actors Lain Heringman from Spain, Alice Banting Bhattacharya from UK and Gargi Buragohain from Assam.

The video was released worldwide on Sept 25, 2019.