Playful Melina on Diamond Head

Hawaii To Calcutta: A Tribute To Tau Moe is a studio album by slide guitarist and composer Debashish Bhattacharya. Bhattacharya released the album on January 27, 2017, through Riverboat Records. The project serves as a homage to the Hawaiian steel guitar duo Tau Moe, blending elements of Hawaiian slack-key guitar with Indian classical raga traditions. The album appeared in CD format.

The opening track Playful Melina on Diamond Head runs for five minutes and four seconds. Bhattacharya performs the composition solo, employing his custom-designed lap slide guitars to merge Hawaiian melodic phrasing with Hindustani classical ornamentation. The track title references Diamond Head, a volcanic crater in Honolulu, and adopts a playful, improvisational structure characteristic of both Hawaiian and Indian folk styles. The album does not provide detailed liner notes on the specific raga or tuning system used, though Bhattacharya’s approach typically incorporates modified tunings to accommodate cross-cultural fusion.

Riverboat Records, a subsidiary of World Music Network, distributed the release as part of its series highlighting global fusion projects. The label promoted the album within world music circuits, emphasizing Bhattacharya’s role in expanding the technical and expressive range of slide guitar. Additional tracks on the album continue the thematic exploration of Hawaiian-Indian musical dialogue, but Playful Melina on Diamond Head remains the most frequently cited example of the project’s core concept. No official music videos or live performances of the track exist in the public domain as of the album’s release date.