Mumbai duo Namit Das and Anurag Shanker recall just how far out of an experience their first gig together was, in Pune in 2014.
Das is exaggerating a bit when he says, “You don’t like 50,000 people staring at you at your first show.” Shanker adds, “You don’t want a place between Indian Ocean and Raghu Dixit in the line-up.”
There are a lot of bands who would kill for the same slot that the duo had in Pune, at the NH7 Weekender festival. But instead, it went to Das and Shanker, who are slowly building up their repertoire of music that takes the mysticism of Sufi, Urdu and Hindi poetry and mingles it with jazz, grunge and modern rock elements. Shanker says, “What we’re trying to do is revive poetry of the forgotten kind. And writing-wise, drawing from classical music.”
The duo seemed much more at home at their recent debut in the city, performing at BFlat in Indiranagar. Das’s sublime vocal delivery amazed with each song as he and the band – comprising guitarist Shanker, bassist Wilson Kenneth and drummer Vaibhav Wavikar – switched up tempos between mellow jazz to the most emphatic rock. Namit + Anurag also hosted a songwriting workshop the next day. Before all that, they spoke to Metroplus about their journey ever since they came together and released their debut EP Din Gaye in 2014. Excerpts:
Tell us about how the collaboration is going so far.
Anurag: We kind of revived writing from these forgotten times in India’s culture, which I’m also just discovering through Namit’s family. His dad is an amazing ghazal singer, Chandan Das ji, his grandfather (K Pannalal) was a great composer and folk/classical musician. So through that, I’m discovering so much.
We thought we should bring it out. We’ve been adding these contemporary colours – more grungy, world music-like, jazzy – to this. It’s not easy to do and be typical about it.
Namit: I think the beautiful thing about the music we’re doing is that it is constantly evolving.
What can you tell me about the next album?
Anurag: Those five songs on our EP were just to try out different things we could do together. There’s some Sufi in that, poetry. Unplugged vibe to it.
There are some classical bandishes, some funk-jazz happening in that.
Namit: The idea with the next album is to sing more poetry.
Which poems or poets are you drawing from?
Namit: Faiz, I think, will be one of the popular ones featured on the album. There would be Amir Khusrau, Shiv Kumar Batalvi. There’ll be some Kabir and then Munir Niazi, a rare poet from Pakistan, who has written some beautiful poems. His words are really simple, but they say what he wants to say.
Anurag: Unsung heroes, all of them.
Namit: There’s a beautiful poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz. I wanted to do something with it for a very long time, because it talks about the evening, colours, in its metaphors. We have tried to compose it keeping this essential feeling alive. Whenever we’ve played it to audiences, they respond to it in the same way.
Anurag: Originally, Indian classical and ghazal music used to be something that was enjoyed by people who knew every word’s meaning. For every line, they’d go ‘wah wah’. Now, you can’t expect that. As long as you get the vibe, it’s great.
Namit: It’s not a morcha to get Urdu and Hindi poetry out there to the masses. But it’s just making it available to these people.
There’s so much literature which just needs to be sung.
