As a doctor of internal medicine, Rupa Marya deals with issues of life and death nearly every day she clocks in for work.

Mortality has also figured prominently into Marya's other job: leading her eclectic San Francisco band, Rupa & the April Fishes, which performs today at the Outside Lands Festival.

"Medicine gives you a very privileged vantage point into what's happening socially," Marya says. "I see San Francisco from the underbelly. You get to see into people's lives, into their families and the injustices. You get to see humility and the human experience, and that is inspiring."

Marya's band combines elements of French Gypsy music, cabaret, jazz and Latin rhythms. Its debut album, "eXtraOrdinary

Born in the Bay Area to Indian parents, a 4-year-old Marya and her brother were sent to live with their grandparents in northern India while her parents were struggling financially in the States.

When Marya was 10 her family moved to France, where she quickly picked up another language. Although she lived there for just a few years, "eXtraOrdinary rendition" is sung mostly in French, with songs in Hindi, Spanish and English thrown in.

Since she was a child, Marya said, she knew she wanted to be either a musician or a doctor. In college she couldn't decide, so she pursued both. She graduated from medical school in 2002 and juggled music and medicine by taking two extra years to complete her residency.

"I was able to take big chunks of time and devote that just to my writing," she said.

She's been an attending physician at UCSF Medical Center since last year. When not at the hospital, Marya, who plays guitar, was writing music and performing in cafes, art galleries or on the street. She was approached one night by cellist Ed Baskerville. The two realized they lived on the same block, and agreed to practice together.

"I had no experience playing with other musicians, and he was very stiff and classically trained," she said. But over the next several months, a collaboration began. Eventually, the duo added trumpet player Marcus Cohen, accordion player Isabel Douglass, upright bass player Safa Shokrai and drummer Aaron Kierbel.

The name of the group refers to April Fools' Day. In France, on the first of April, tricksters stick little paper fishes on unsuspecting people's backs.

While the name took a comedic turn, Marya's music continued to revolve around serious social issues such as immigration, politics and mortality. "The music gives me a place to understand and question some of the deeper issues that come up in medicine," she said. "(The issues that deal with) why we're here and what we're doing."

Source