There was a time when Dhaka’s underground rock scene survived on rooftop gigs, borrowed instruments, burned CDs, and word-of-mouth devotion. In that world, a group of teenagers fresh out of high school came together in the summer of 1999 with little more than time, instinct, and a shared obsession with music. Twenty-five years later, Nemesis stands as one of the country’s most enduring alternative rock acts. This band has weathered lineup changes, distance, uncertainty, and reinvention without losing its identity.
Nemesis began when Saber and Reeshad brought Maher Khan and Yawar Mehboob together to form a band that Maher would eventually help shape creatively. Maher then brought in his brother Sabin on bass, forming an early three-piece setup. Their first performance took place at a New Year’s Eve rooftop gathering, modest beginnings for a band that would later become a staple of Bangladesh’s rock landscape.
It was there that they met Zohad Reza Chowdhury, a school friend of Reeshad and Maher, who soon joined the group. By early 2000, Sabin had left, while Yawar introduced his school friend Nandito and cousin Raquibun Nabi Ratul to the lineup. That phase marked the official formation of Nemesis.
Like many bands of the era, Nemesis initially built its reputation through covers on the local underground circuit. But even in those formative years, the band had larger ambitions. Work on their debut album began as early as 2001, with recording sessions often squeezed into summer breaks whenever members studying abroad returned to Dhaka.
The first breakthrough came in 2003 with “Obocheton”, released on the mixed album “Agontuk II”. The song earned the band wider attention and eventually led to a record deal with G-Series for their debut album.
Released in 2005, “Onneshon” introduced a darker, emotionally charged sound that resonated strongly with a generation of young listeners navigating alienation, urban anxiety, and shifting cultural identities. Soon after the album’s release, Yawar relocated to the UK, while Nandito later settled in Canada. Dio and Omayr, who had already been supporting the band during that transitional period, officially joined as permanent members.
Mainstream recognition followed quickly. Songs like “Dhushor Bhabna” and “Joydhoni” became widely popular and secured spots on Radio Foorti’s year-end charts across multiple years. “Mrityuchhaya” would later earn similar recognition in 2010. Yet Nemesis never entirely abandoned the ethos of the underground scene that shaped them.
Throughout the late 2000s, the band became regular performers at concerts tied to social causes and youth awareness campaigns. They appeared at events such as “Say No To Drugs” at Gulshan Youth Club, “Stand Up Against Poverty” at the Dhanmondi Amphitheatre, and BAMBA’s “Vote for Sundarban” concert at Army Stadium. The band also became familiar faces at major corporate music festivals and tribute shows, steadily expanding their audience without dramatically altering their sonic identity.
Six years after their debut album, Nemesis returned with “Tritio Jatra” in 2011. The album arrived at a time when Bangladeshi rock music was undergoing significant change, with digital platforms slowly reshaping listening habits. The single “Kobe” quickly became one of the band’s most recognisable tracks, aided further by the release of its music video.
“Tritio Jatra” also brought critical recognition. The album received nominations in multiple categories at the Citycell-Channel i Music Awards, including Best Band and Best Sounding Album. In 2013, Nemesis won the Best Band Award under the critics’ choice category — a moment that reaffirmed the group’s standing within the country’s rock community.
But the years that followed were marked as much by instability as by achievement. In 2012, Maher Khan and Omayr Khan left the band for personal reasons. Zerif Ahmed and Zeheen Ahmed stepped in as replacements, while later changes brought guitarist Zafir Huq into the fold. The band continued recording and performing despite the revolving lineup, releasing the single “Ghuri” during this transitional era.
Another major shift came in 2016, when Zerif departed to pursue studies abroad. Sultan Rafsan Khan joined the band in his place, adding a fresh dynamic to Nemesis’ evolving sound.Then came one of the band’s most difficult chapters.In 2018, drummer Dio suffered a heart attack, forcing Nemesis to halt its activities temporarily. For many fans, the uncertainty surrounding the band’s future felt painfully real. Later that year, drummer Jeffrey Ovijit Ghosh joined the lineup, helping the band gradually return to live performances. Although Dio stepped away from stage appearances, he remained deeply involved behind the scenes through recording work and band decisions.The lineup shifted again in 2022 when Zafir Huq departed and Ifaz Abrar Reza joined as guitarist. By then, however, Nemesis was no longer simply a band surviving changes — it had become a band defined by resilience.That resilience found perhaps its clearest expression in “VIP”, the group’s fourth studio album released in May 2025, eight years after “Gonojowar”. The long gap reflected not only the band’s internal changes, but also the emotional aftermath of the global pandemic and the evolving realities of adulthood, loss, and creative survival.Built around themes of introspection, disillusionment, and social observation, “VIP” presented a noticeably grittier and more mature sound than the band’s earlier work. Singles like “Ghour” and “Bhanga Ayna” hinted at that evolution even before the album’s release. Critics and listeners alike noted that the record did not attempt to recreate the energy of early-2000s Bangladeshi alternative rock; instead, it embraced the scars and experience accumulated over two decades.The current lineup — Zohad Reza Chowdhury, Sultan Rafsan Khan, Ifaz Abrar Reza, Raquibun Nabi Ratul, and Jeffrey Ovijit Ghosh — carried that momentum into a nationwide tour following the album’s launch, reconnecting the band with longtime listeners while also introducing them to a younger audience discovering Nemesis for the first time.In many ways, the story of Nemesis mirrors the story of Bangladesh’s rock scene itself: passionate, unstable, deeply personal, and constantly evolving. The band has survived changing eras of music consumption, the collapse of physical album culture, internal departures, personal crises, and the challenge of remaining relevant in an increasingly fragmented entertainment landscape.Yet despite all the transformations, Nemesis continues to occupy a distinct space in Bangladeshi rock — somewhere between nostalgia and reinvention.On May 22, the band will celebrate that journey with “25 Years of Nemesis — Eto Diner Poreo Je” at InterContinental Dhaka’s Winter Garden. For a band born out of rooftop rehearsals and underground gigs, reaching the 25-year mark is not merely an anniversary. It is evidence of endurance.
