"Happy Hai Hum", the band's version of Happy has distinct Indian undertones, and draws upon the transgender community's musical traditions such as clapping to the beats of the song. While the song has a feel-good, Bollywood-esque touch, the six-member band will bring out a series of five more music videos on their experiences over the next few months.
Locally known as hijras, members of India's transgender community traditionally perform at births and marriages as their singing and dancing is believed to be auspicious. The name 6 Pack Band reverses a common Indian abuse for transgenders, and also refers to the band's six members, six songs and their debut on 6 January.
"We realised that the LGBT community in India is very different from the rest of the world. They belong to the lowest economic strata and are shunned by their family," said Ashish Patil, head of Y-Films, which launched the band. Y Films is the youth division of one of Bollywood's oldest production houses Yash Raj Films, and had produced last year's popular web-series Man's World on gender roles in India.
Patil began the project to start a conversation on accepting transgender people. "If this reaches out to more people, you look at them a little differently, with more tolerance," he said. He was careful to avoid caricaturing the community, who have often been stereotyped in most mainstream Bollywood films.
His team, together with composer Shamir Tandon spent over six months looking for the singers through NGOs, transgender rights activists such as Laxmi Narayan Tripathi and casting agents. After initially shortlisting 200 candidates, they brought down the prospective singers to 40, and finally six.
The chosen six, who are all from Mumbai and between the ages of 22 and 33, were trained in music studios. The songs highlight their unique voice textures and quality, with one member chosen for her regional Marathi singing, another for her Sufi style, the third for her skills in Bollywood songs, and the fourth for being able to sing English numbers.
The band members will be singing with popular singer Sonu Nigam in their next video "Sab Rab De Bande" ( translated as "We are all children of god"), which will be released on India's Republic Day, 26 January. The third song will release on 6 February, and is inspired by a band member's experience of being under-paid as a nurse because of her transgender identity.
"There is now a transgender cop in Chennai, a transgender mayor in Raigarh" Patil told Mashable. "There is a transgender staffer working with Barack Obama at the White house. There is Caitlyn Jenner. Why can't there be equal opportunities for each one of them?"
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