Love Notes: Anindo Bose and Pavithra Chari on Sabar
Sabar, the new album by Anindo Bose and Pavithra Chari is all about raw human emotions.
When Sabar released on Saavn’s Artist Originals, there was something that tugged at listeners’ heartstrings. The musician duo behind it, Anindo Bose and Pavithra Chari of Shadow and Light, created its niche audience in a matter of days.
What’s interceding is that Pavithra and Anindo fuse Hindustani classical music with contemporary, jazz, pop, electronica and soul to create cinematic soundscapes and compositions in Hindi, English and Tamil. May be this is why the reach is wide.
Their latest album has eight songs about human emotions: gratitude, grief, contempt, perseverance, inspiration and aspiration. The compositions have a melange of intense emotional experiences, expressed through poignant songwriting. The title is an adaptation of the Arabic word sabr or patience.
Your album has all possible human emotions decoded...
We have consciously taken a different direction to this albums’ songwriting.
We wanted a more up-tempo album generally, so the arrangements are R&B and pop driven, yet the traditional Hindustani classical vocals ground it to the Indian roots.
With the help of Saavn’s in-house label Artist Originals, we hope to get across to a much larger fan base this time. It’s certainly been excellent so far, we have had over a million plays on Saavn alone.
We now have our US tour coming up and are looking forward to playing it live for a global audience.
Your album has been praised by some of the big names in the industry.
When we are appreciated by the likes of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Salim-Suleiman, Amit Trivedi, Karsh Kale, Talvin Singh and Raghu Dixit, we feel extremely humbled and proud of our work. It’s reassuring to know that our music has connected with the top industry professionals in the independent and commercial music scene. We hope that someday we will be able to collaborate and write music with some of them for a film.
Which one is your favourite track out of the eight?
We honestly can’t pick favourite, we don’t think we will ever be able to! There are two songs that are uplifting: Dhadkan (written about how love triumphs all setbacks) and Dilruba (written about gratitude and how the mind wanders in search of thanks).
How apt is the title Sabar for this album?
Sabar is a work of patience and effort. The album and the songs reflect this process and we feel like the title says it all. The word Sabar is a derivative of the Arabic word sabr which means patience. The title also gains more depth and meaning through the detailed visual experience provided by the album artwork (hand-drawn by Pallab Baruah).
Pavithra, you have trained under Shubha Mudgal, right?
It’s an experience. She is a brilliant teacher and spends a lot of time to teach all of her students with love and support. I admire her fearless way of resolving situations. She has so much knowledge, and she doesn’t hold back from sharing it, I feel that is the best thing about her.
Your thoughts on romance.
We feel romance is a state of mind. And when the object of one’s romance is worth it, it flows without restriction, in all situations.
Our second album Elements was an ode to the different perspectives of love. And our most loved love song from the album was Tum.
From the April 2018 issue of FHM India.
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