The previous year gave everyone ample time to reflect on the road not taken. It was the same with Nitin Navaratna, Sumantu Kaushik and Ashwin Naidu.
The trio used be engineering batchmates in Hyderabad; they also had a band ‘Reve’ and performed regularly. “While in college, we notched closed to 25-30 gigs between 2005-09, playing both Hindi and English numbers,” laughs Nitin, the band’s vocalist.
Though the band catered to public tastes and played covers, Nitin was always writing notes on what could some day turn into lyrics. Though careers eventually took centrestage, they stayed in touch and wondered if they would ever jam again. “To this, Ashwin, who was our bass guitarist, would always say, ‘ManaKarma’, which in Telugu means ‘Our destiny,’ — that if it was in our karma, we would re-band,” reminisces Nitin.
In 2017, work took Nitin to Indonesia and entailed a lot of travelling. “I was always writing whenever I had the time, in between flights.” When Ashwin visted Indonesia in 2018, he and Nitin had a chance to jam again and they began to explore the idea of their own music.
In 2020, the trio decided to finally get their music going even if it was virtually.
“ Our goal is to put our songs out there for people to listen to and come up with their own interpretations because our music is about our life experiences,” says Nitin.
Current affairs, the books they’ve read and the places they’ve travelled to are all grist to the ManaKarma mill.
Though Nitin is based out of Singapore and Ashwin and Sumantu are in the US, ManaKarma has three songs out and another seven lined up, with an album in the making once they are able to meet in person at a recording studio.
ManaKarma can be heard on Spotify, Amazon, iTunes and Youtube.
