Music Room

Legendary singer Hariharan has collaborated with music maestro and composer Bickram Ghosh on an album titled Ishq – Songs of Love. Read on as the remarkable duo chats with Nikita Nikhil about the album, their musical journey, and their take on the contemporary music scene of India…

Hariharan: We were playing table tennis for two months and the ball was the song. He used to send me a song, then I used to sing it and send it back. Then re-sing certain portions. It has lovely compositions and the genre is geet. Yeh 6 gaane aise khelte khelte ho gaya in one-one and a half month. And I loved the compositions because they had Indian melody, the beat is raag or folk-based. I really liked the subject because it was six stories of love with different endings to the story but the basis was love. I really enjoyed singing and when you enjoy something, it finishes up quickly. So I sent the songs back to him. Then Bickram worked on the songs and arrangement of the sound aspect of it. He added some beautiful rhythm and harmony. So the voice was gliding on a streamlet of beautiful compositions of harmonies and rhythms. The tabla has its place and it’s very musical. It’s traditional but used in a very innovative and modern way. That is what drives the songs and makes the songs sound different. We really enjoyed the process. After this came in six videos. The recording company – Sufiscore, supported us in every way and gave a tremendous kind of push from their side, and we really enjoyed it.

Bickram Ghosh: Well, four years back, I had sent Hariharan Ji a song and I had requested him to sing it. He immediately sang and sent it back - but I realised at that point and he too mentioned that I had only sent him one antara - normally a song has two antaras. That’s when I realised that my engineer and I had made a mistake. Strangely, after that, four years just went by and we never got down to getting the second antara done of that song. Of course, Hari Ji and I have performed together on several occasions including one massive concert we had done at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 2010. Then there were other occasions when Ustad Rashid Khan, Hariji and I have performed. So we have done shows in the past but we have never collaborated on an album before. So, during the pandemic, we suddenly got chatting and I said, “Can I send you the song again?”. He said, “Sure, send it!”. Now this time I sent it with both the antaras and in two days, it came back, sung like a dream. Then I sent him another one and then again, he sang and sent it in a couple of days. So, this became a process over the next month or two. And in a couple of months, we had done all six songs. During that time, it was pretty crazy because of the pandemic so we were not travelling. If one is constantly travelling, you can’t do a project from start to finish. So, we got a break in the middle. In this case, there was no travelling for either of us. It just got finished very quickly in record time. And as Hari ji has said it himself, this is the fastest album he has done. I then spoke to a very dear friend, a famous director from Bengal, film director Arindam Sil and he came on board after we spoke to Sufiscore. Sufiscore was really excited and very supportive of the entire project and said, ‘Please do whatever you need to do’. We decided to shoot all six songs as videos. Then we got Arindam on board and I requested Hari Ji to come down to Kolkata to shoot this entire project. He came twice to Kolkata and we did all six videos in about four or five months. And of course, I travelled to Mumbai also, due to mixing and mastering which was done in Hari Ji’s studio in Mumbai. So that’s it! The project was ready.

Hariharan: When a composer and a singer match each other’s wavelength, it’s easy to work. Bickram Ghosh: There are two aspects to what I do. One is being a tabla player or being a fusion artist, and the other, is a composer. So as a composer I make the melodies and do all the arrangements of all the songs and drive the soundscape of the song. So I had done some melodies initially and basic arrangements and then sent it to Hari Ji. But you have to understand that Hari ji is a mammoth singer, and when he digs into a song, he sings the song as his own and gives it a different kind of life. So when he sang the songs, I felt that I had to arrange it one more time because then it would be more in-sync with what he has done. He had given some interesting and new thoughts to the songs. That’s why I worked again on the songs and we really achieved a wonderful synergy of sound, arrangements, singing and of course, my tabla playing pretty much came right at the end because I wanted to play it in a way that it does not disturb the flow of the song and yet, doesn’t sound typical. That’s how it was done and I think that’s how it stands out. There is a unique freshness to this album. It is not like what you would hear today or you may feel some feelings from the past may creep into the songs. But eventually, it’s a very fresh sound and a special kind of approach for making these songs. As Hari Ji described as “geet” which are soft melodies that are hummable. And the soundscape is very different. Also, the way Hari Ji sang it, he has sung in such a way that you won’t find similarity of his singing with the body of work he has done. So it’s very unique what he has done. So I think that’s what made the album special and I would say that all of this was possible because we were so focussed throughout the period. We have really put our heart and soul into this project.

I come from a music family. It was my mother’s and father’s combined contribution. My mom has been a Carnatic musician and teacher. So, I learned and inherited my initial music from her. I have done my schooling from Don Bosco High School, Bombay. So I had Carnatic music at home and at school, we were exposed to western music in school. I used to sing in the school group also. And then, of course, we were all exposed to Bollywood. For a long time, I used to sing a lot of geet from Bollywood, romantic songs and I have sung a lot of ghazals because those days so many ghazals were there and I used to sing them too, without knowing ghazals. So, from then, I have attempted to sing all these styles. Then I went to Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan saab and learned Hindustani music. That was a different world, I started learning khayal singing. It was quite a good journey. So more than half the time went on learning music. I never learned music because I wanted to be a professional singer. In the ‘60s and the early ‘70’s, we didn’t have the television in front of us. So we had a lot of time to pursue this talent. So it was pretty normal doing that like cricket khelna hai, gaana bhi gaana hai, school jaana hai aur kuch padhai bhi karna hai. And that’s all. Then I got my first chance from Jaidev Ji for his film called Gaman. My first ghazal album was released in the ‘80s. It was called Ghazal ka Mausam and was composed by Ghulam Mustafa Khan saab. That started my journey towards ghazals. And the rest is history!

My journey has been very varied - a very different trajectory. I started as a pure classical tabla player which I learned from my father Pandit Shankar Ghosh. From a very early point in my life, I must have been 14 or 15, I learned the Carnatic percussion techniques from a great maestro called Pandit S. Sekhar. So those were my learning years and I ended up playing for Pandit Ravi Shankar ji. So I played for him for the first time in 1993 and then played with him for continuous 11 years where I would stay with them and play in all his concerts. So that period was a huge exposure for me, it was a learning experience and I also became his student. Thereafter, somewhere in 1998-99, I kind of started feeling that there was another form of music inside me that needed to express itself. That was the beginning of my fusion career which started off eventually with Rhythm Scape, my first album which happened in 2001. I still do a lot of fusion shows besides doing classical shows. And somewhere between doing those fusion concerts and fusion albums, I also started scoring for films. I have scored for 38 feature films, 10 Hindi and 28 in Bengali. My latest work is a Sanjay Dutt film on Netflix called Torbaaz, directed by Girish Malik. Sonu Nigam and I have scored for some movies together named Jal, which got an Oscar contention for us. So the trajectory of my career has been in different directions. Hari Ji is a decade older than me, and I was subconsciously influenced by what he was doing because I always admired the fact that he was able to do so much. He was able to do Colonial Cousins and he was able to do Hazir (album) and Tu Hi Re, all those different things that he did. So I think I belong to that headspace. That’s why we ended up making an album and doing it so smoothly together. We do have a lot of varied interests. In the album, you’ll find a convergence of all these trajectories of Hari Ji and mine. There are some parts where you would feel like a fusion of a beautiful Ghazalish line or something. So those influences are all there. Then there are places where he is taking off or I am taking off on the tabla and doing something crazy for like five or ten seconds. There is a song called Bawra Yeh Mann where Hari Ji did a completely impromptu interlude. Initially, it was ending on ‘Pa’ and he does it on a higher scale and it was completely impromptu. We just went into the studio and I don’t know what happened at that moment, but he just thought that we should do something like this. It came off so wonderfully, such a treasure moment. That’s what we tried to do, we wanted to make something different, fresh, and something that would inspire people to make music that is more organic not following a certain kind of typicality. That’s how we are here. Our life trajectories have been out of the box and that’s why we made an album like this.

Actually, I enjoyed all the songs. Each one had its own kind of melody and uniqueness. In an album, all the songs have to sound of a certain level. In fact, in these six songs we picked, Bickram has initially sent me 12 songs. Out of those, we chose these six. So these were already our favorite picks and that helped us put our heart and soul into them. Toh bada maza aaya. The first song I sang was Baaton Baaton Mein and then from there, we took off with each song.

Yes, I have recorded some songs with him and I am a part of his journey. I keep doing songs with him - I have been doing it for the last 7-8 years with him. It is always a nice experience. He is growing in his knowledge and style. Akshay is into electronic music and he is coming out with his album. It will be releasing this year. We really enjoyed working together and had some good moments together. I didn’t have that much time when they were growing up because I have been traveling all my life. So maybe God has given us this time to know each other and have a good time.

Hariharan: So it is basically what you do to remixes is that you keep the essence of the old and give it a shine of today’s times. But the soul has to be there. You have a song and you give it a modern kind of arrangement. So at the end of it when you hear it, you say, “Wow, that’s my favorite song from the ‘90s or ‘70s, and it sounds beautiful and different.” So it is basically about respect and also think about the creators of that song, the melody, the lyrics, the way it has been composed. Modernity is fine. Like our grandfathers and their fathers spoke and behaved in a certain way. Whenever we are talking about the same subject, our way of talking is different. So as society changes, the way you sing or interpret things are different but we think the same. So you got to keep that in mind and bridge both the worlds through sound. When it’s a nice kind of a remix, it’s fine. It’s not like you can’t do it or something but you have the responsibility of giving it a new shape but not disfiguring it.

Bickram Ghosh: My views are a little different because I feel what happens is if you have a copyright law for 50 years, it’s already there, so I feel you should not be touching the song for a certain period of time. If the composer is alive and if he does not have anything to do with the remix, then I don’t think it is fair to touch it. The person had a certain kind of vision when he/she made it. Yes, I agree that certain songs are re-interpreted - the melodies, the arrangements are done in a fresh way. That’s also good because if a certain amount of time has gone and the composer is not alive anymore. But you have to take a song from the person who made it alive and then you do, as Hari Ji said, add value to that song. But most of the time you end up disfiguring it as Hari Ji said. If you make something lesser than the original then the purpose is not served. There are so many songs that you feel should have been left alone because they are such iconic songs. Like there are youngsters singing ‘Tu Hi Re’, they are singing covers for it all the time. But I don’t like it because what Hari Ji did to the song was ultimate. Uske baad kya hoga? It happens a lot in films because people want to cash in on the popularity of a song that is already there. I don’t think that lasts at all. People may just forget it in two-three months and then it’s gone from the face of the planet.

Hariharan: Working with Leslie Lewis was amazing, it still is. We still do shows together. In fact, few months back, we landed up doing eight cover versions of The Eagles. That was a great experience. There is nothing difficult about it. When you have two different kinds of music, the feel of each band is different. Like I am doing ghazals one day with the same musicians, the next day I am doing something else, the repertoire also changes. One day I’m singing thumri and dadra and the next day, I’m singing Bollywood songs. The third day, I’m with Colonial Cousins and so on. So, we don these characters according to the genre. Our thinking changes, our mood changes for that amount of time when we are singing these songs and that’s what keeps me going, actually. When you are doing three-four things, you don’t get bored. Or you don’t end up doing just one thing around all your life. This is something common between me and Bickram which we felt too while working on this album. Bickram Ghosh: I think Hari Ji just said it all. The first and foremost thing that happens when you have different setups when your career has different trajectories. For me, there

is a Rhythm Scape, then there is a tabla career of neo-classical and there is also film composition. So all of these give you opportunities to explore yourself as a musician. That’s very special because it keeps you engaged in your path. As Hari Ji said, we don’t get bored because we are doing different things. So if I have done a tour of Rhythm Scape and then I come back and I do a film score, it’s very fresh for me. So in your mind, that keeps you really attached to your craft because you are doing different things. We are lucky that we are able to straddle these different ports. That gives us a lot of leeways to experiment with our own craft. For me, Rhythm Scape is like a great aphrodisiac because when I do it, I suddenly become like a half-rock artist playing tablas. The audience is different too. So we are moving from one zone to another and that is very exciting for an artist.

Hariharan: We did six videos across Kolkata and everything was outdoors. For Dil Hawaai Hai, we shot in six locations right from Maidan to North of Kolkata – Howrah Bridge and so many beautiful places. I could see North Kolkata, it’s very quaint looking. It comes from a different period, it’s colonized. It’s a very old area with small streets and very cute. We had great fun doing Dil Hawai Hai. Then we went to a 150 years old jute mill which has been closed for decades. The whole structure of the mill has been engulfed by the roots of the Banyan tree, acres of it. I have never seen anything like that. It was fantastic. We worked with top models, actors, and actresses in the Bengal film industry. They were really professional and it was really a treat to work with them. Bickram Ghosh: The shooting was amazing. All six have been shot by Arindam Sil. The experience was very intense because we literally shot six videos in eight days. We went to the city across Bengal actually, we went outside the city, some village locations, and an old mill too. So each video has a different location. Arindam really put a lot of energy and thought into it and made some wonderful videos. A little bit of conceptualization was also helped by one of our lyricists Sugata Guha. We had a blast shooting the videos because in one video we are playing sutradhar, in another, we are playing two musicians in search of a memory. In one video, Hari ji and I have a conversation at the beginning of the video and I invite him to Kolkata to experience the ishq of the city. So the city becomes the metaphor for love. So it was a wonderful and enriching experience. The whole unit was so involved and we interacted with them too. We had so many wonderful actors from Bengal. We had Hari Ji’s son Karan who was the main lead in the video Radha. My wife, Jaya Seal Ghosh who has done several films in Hindi, was the main lead in the song Mora Mann Mehka. Then we had Ishaa Saha, Tuhina Das, Sauraseni Maitra and Priyanka Sarkar. So it was very enriching.

Hariharan:The genre which we have dealt with is Geet. It is a very delicate form of poetry and complimenting that would be the music which is very lilting and soft. I feel that it will hit the target and the people would love it because it’s a bouquet of love in terms of lyrics, singing, composition, and video. Bickram Ghosh: The music will definitely resonate with the audience. We saw that happen for the last few days when the songs were released on 21st, the first video, and the album, and the people have been raving about it. At its music launch, all of the music industry came. Anupam Kher came too. They have all written back to us and even at the venue told us that it is such a fresh album, fresh sound, and beautiful singing. There is a feel of melodies of the past but with an edgy, modern soundscape. So yes, whoever is listening or watching the video is coming back and saying that they loved this.

Hariharan: For contemporary music, there are so many influences, there is Electronic Dance Music (EDM). It has a lot of western influences along with folk music coming into play. Especially Punjabi music has become very popular. Most of it is based on Punjabi music. Western music in the sense that bands have come into play like rock bands and fusion bands. The fusion is becoming more and more refined. It’s becoming seamless. So, it’s growing in a big way and that’s absolutely interesting.

Bickram Ghosh: Let’s not restrict the scene to Bollywood especially now. I think the contemporary music scene has really expanded. There is so much music, there is, of course, traditional and classical music happening, that’s getting stronger again. Ghazals are getting stronger again.Then there is a Bollywood chunk of music, which is filmy and that’s happening in its own trajectory. There is folk music taking a huge slice of the cake, more and more nowadays. There are bands across the country. People are singing in English. There are instrumental performances. There are big festivals happening across the globe and in India. So, it’s a very good time for music. Personally, I feel the only thing that we require is to have more songs with good lyrics and melodies especially in popular space, which is why we have come out with Ishq.

Hariharan: I am doing a couple of songs for my son Akshay Hariharan’s electronic album. It has a lot of Indian-style compositions and also contemporary compositions. I am looking forward to that. After that, I’m doing a ghazal album with Farhat Shahzad. He is an amazing poet who has done a lot of work with Mehdi Hasan Khan saab. We are doing six ghazals, all different styles of ghazal in subjects which he has chosen, and accordingly, I have put them into slightly different genres of music. Both the albums - Akshay’s and the ghazal album will come out this year. Bickram Ghosh: I am doing a whole bunch of stuff. I just acted in a Hindi film called Band of Maharajas, directed by Girish Malik. I have scored Girish’s first film ‘Jal’ along with Sonu Nigam and we got an Oscar contention for that. Then I scored for his second film called Torbaaz which is still running on Netflix. And the third film, Band of Maharajas, I have scored as well as played a role in that. I play this Afghan percussionist called Firoze Jamshed. That’s been a really interesting experience, shooting over three schedules. We shot last in September, once the shooting opened. Besides this, there are tons of films in Bangla – Avijatrik, which is the fourth part of the Apu trilogy of Satyajit Ray. It is being filmed by Subhrajit Mitra in black and white. There is Arindam Sil’s film called Maya Kumari and a whole other host of films that I am doing. I am doing a new Rhythm Scape album which is very exciting after many years. The work on that is on. Then there is a collaboration which we are trying to figure out between myself and a couple of Indian artists including Ronu Majumdar Ji and some foreign artists like Barry Phillips on cello, who is a Grammy award winner. That’s an international project. More films in Hindi are coming my way. I’m looking forward to it. And of course, Hari Ji and I would want to do something in the near future, especially after Ishq has been so well received.