Kaushiki Chakraborty. Photo: Jaywant Naik
Vocalist-composer Kaushiki Chakraborty’s life is explored like never before in her new six episode project Pankh—including the fact that she has never tasted ice cream, as her father forbade it.
Renowned vocalist Ajoy Chakraborty says in a video interview for their song “Mere Suro Mein” how he believed ice cream and sour things are bad for one’s throat and thus never allowed his daughter to consume them. “I didn’t know, but what if it is?” he adds. Kaushiki, sitting next to him, intervenes and says with a laugh, “Too late, baba!”
Spanning interviews, behind-the-scenes songwriting sessions with co-composer (and director) Shantanu Moitra and the band, and music videos of the final song, there’s reminiscence, tears, laughter and gratitude from the seasoned Indian classical stalwart on Pankh, described as a “live autobiography” by Chakraborty. She tells Rolling Stone India over a video call, “For the first time in front of the camera, me and Baba had these dialogues, which otherwise we haven’t had. These are very true emotions; these are true relationships.”
Easily Chakraborty’s most ambitious project to date, the six songs have been in the works for about four years between her and Moitra, who also serves as director behind all the episodes. While the duo have worked together for season 2 of Coke Studio in 2012 on songs like “Lagi Lagi” and later on, Moitra’s Songs of the River – Ganga recently, this was new territory for Chakraborty, who even took on the role of a lyricist for the melancholic, yet patient and yearning song “Baithi Hun.”
These new pathways were made after Chakraborty felt like she was “very happy doing classical music but also thinking of what my heart’s heart wants to say.” She adds, “What is it that is not taught but I want to express? What is it that is coming from within and not from outside?” When she brainstormed with Moitra, a longtime friend, and wondered how her evolution and “transformations” could be translated into music, he said something striking: “Don’t look for all solutions in music, start looking for experiences from life, outside of music.”
Pankh brings stories of motherhood (“Baithi Hun”), the Bengali/Hindi song “Nayi Bhor” that remembers her gurus Gyan Prakash Ghosh, Zakir Hussain, Shubhankar and Rashid Khan (with archival footage and a tearful interview segment), reliving childhood with her teenage son Rishith Desikan also singing on “Chaand Sakha Re” (featuring lyrics by Swanand Kirkire and a Bihu beat by Moitra) and the piano-infused gentle fusion of “Kyun Aise Rehti Hai” that turns the spotlight back to the storyteller in Moitra. It ends with the playful “Tarana,” with a video that takes the band for a day out at the beach, with violinist Ambi Subramaniam also featuring.
As the project took shape over the years—with Chakraborty even stalling all concerts to focus on pushing Pankh to competition in recent months—it became a “live autobiography” for the vocalist. Chakraborty says that when she came across the term, it gave her confidence that she wasn’t the only one going through transformations in her life and trying to find expression through it. “You suddenly find yourself looking back and you see like a different person, and you look ahead and you see a different journey,” she says.
Sonically, the songs average at about six minutes and take influence from a cinematic and fusion sound, although Chakraborty and Moitra didn’t want to churn out a “typically Bollywood or fusion sound.” There’s guitar and piano, saxophone as well as sitar, sarod and sarangi, among other instruments Indian and Western. She says, “It’s a fine balance of all kinds of sounds that have touched us and that have reminded us where we come from creatively, and whatever has suited the narrative.”
Visually, Moitra has worked as filmmaker to recreate Chakraborty’s childhood home, commission charcoal drawing animation, colorful VFX and somber settings to match the themes of each track. Through each episode, Chakraborty speaks thoughtfully to Moitra’s prompts as interviewer off-camera and also takes the occasional jab at him when the opportunity comes. She says about the interview segments behind Pankh, “I was scared to look vulnerable in front of my audience, to tell them that I am not perfect all the time. I am not all-powerful. It’s not all sorted out in my life. There are things that I also struggle, and there can be a beautiful story and a beautiful song that I can give myself and to them for those moments of fear and uncertainty. In emotion, in vulnerability, in loss, we’re all equal.”
With a launch gig for Pankh already done earlier this month at Mumbai’s Royal Opera House, Chakraborty, Moitra and the band will travel with the album to Varanasi on Aug. 2, to Lucknow on Aug. 3 and are expected to announce dates for New Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Jaipur in the coming weeks.
Leave a Reply