The Run: How Parikrama built one of Indian Rock's longest running act

There was a time when discovering a band did not begin with an algorithm.

It began with someone refusing to let you leave without listening. A cassette passed across a hostel room. A senior at a college festival saying, “You have to hear this!” A name carried from one campus to another until it became part of the air.

You did not find Parikrama. Parikrama found you.

This year, Parikrama turns 35. On June 17, they released ‘Inside My Skin’, proof that the band is still writing, recording and pushing forward. Not preserving a legacy. Adding to it.

Formed in Delhi in 1991 by Subir Malik, Nitin Malik and Sonam Sherpa, Parikrama arrived when Indian rock had no clear map. There was no proven route for an English-language rock band from India to build a national audience with its own songs. They built one anyway, through word of mouth, college festivals and live performances that stayed with people long after the amplifiers were switched off.

Their journey took them well beyond the college circuit. Parikrama shared stages with Iron Maiden, Deep Purple and Porcupine Tree - not as novelty openers, but as a band that held its own. At a time when Indian rock rarely received that kind of exposure, those appearances were not just milestones for the band. They were milestones for Indian rock itself.

‘But It Rained‘ became the rare Indian rock song that moved beyond the scene. But the larger achievement was this: Parikrama proved that an Indian band could write original material, develop its own identity and matter without asking to be translated for the mainstream.

The late Sonam Sherpa, who passed away in 2020, remains central to that story. His guitar work defined the emotional grammar of the band. His absence is not something to work around, it is something the music continues to carry. Today, Nitin Malik, Subir Malik, Gaurav Balani, Srijan Mahajan, Abhishek Mittal and Saurabh Chaudhry carry that forward.

Thirty-five years later, they are still those kids who started with the love of rock ‘n’ roll. That is the real legacy worth preserving.