Naagin

The problem with most Indian rock is that it’s rock that happens to be played by Indians. Western structures, Western tone, maybe a tabla dropped in for colour. Fusion as a costume.

Decibel’s “Naagin” is something else. It sounds like it grew out of this soil. The Lady Cobra – pulled straight from mythology, not as decoration but as the spine of the song. The riff has weight. The vocal has bite. It doesn’t ask permission to be Indian and it doesn’t perform Indian-ness for a Western ear. It just is.

I spent my college years chasing this. Concerts, small venues, bands most people hadn’t heard of. The Indian alt-rock scene was real – it just didn’t have the infrastructure to be visible. No streaming, no algorithms surfacing it. You found it by showing up.

“Naagin” is the song I play when someone tells me Indian rock isn’t a thing. It’s not a rebuttal. It’s just proof.