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Lucknow is a difficult crowd for buskers: First pro street singer of city
Lucknow may just about be waking up to the art form, thanks to the efforts of young musician Yash Agarwal.
Busking is a particularly popular art form where artistes the world over sing on street corners and at railway stations, perform, draw quite an audience and money too.
It is not uncommon to see the artiste – who recorded the original song – to be there, and join the busker in his effort, drawing a much larger audience and collection too. Quite a coincidence but a happy one at that!
Lucknow may just about be waking up to the art form, thanks to the efforts of young musician Yash Agarwal. And though things are far from how he expected them to go, he remains hopeful.
“I have been advised to move to Delhi, if I want to continue busking. But that is not an option for me,” said musician Yash Agarwal, who is the first and only consistent busker of Lucknow.
According to him, the city does not provide a very conducive environment for this form of livelihood.
Agarwal started busking outside Royal Cafe in Hazratganj last year, and makes around ₹600 daily, which, according to him, is not enough to sustain a reasonably comfortable lifestyle.
“It was a coincidence that I started busking,” he recalled, “I was in a bad place in life and I was seeing a psychiatrist at the time. A stranger, a dancer by profession, came up to me and asked me to sing for him. He suggested that I start busking to gauge the public reaction, and also start publicising my work on Instagram. Another singer who happened to pass by my spot also encouraged me to perform on the street.”
While this strategy has worked well abroad and also in a few metropolitan cities in India, in Agarwal’s experience, the culture of busking has not quite caught on in Lucknow.
“At first, the response from people was very demotivating and I was often met with ridicule or rudeness. People would mimic my singing, or mock my choice of songs. It does not feel as disheartening now, because people have gotten used to seeing me there, and also, I have gotten accustomed to the occasional jibe from passers-by. It is a combination of both,” said Agarwal.
He said that there are a handful of others who sporadically tried it out on the streets of Lucknow, but the community is extremely scattered and most give up soon after giving it a shot - “We do not know each other, nor do we come across one another very often. Lucknow is a difficult crowd for buskers.”
Agarwal also has a YouTube channel with around 2,000 subscribers where he has released four original songs, but his main avenue of income is still busking.
He recalled that once he had a group who were visiting the city from Delhi stop by to listen to him, and they suggested that he take his busking to Delhi, where there is more of a market and acceptance for street artists like himself. “But I cannot afford to leave Lucknow as moving cities is an expensive affair. And although I do not live with my family, my home is here in Lucknow and I have to take responsibility for my parents and look after them,” he said.
While he doesn’t plan to leave the city to look for greener pastures any time soon, his advice to aspiring musicians considering the same is that busking for a living in Lucknow is unlikely to flourish - given that response from pedestrians is extremely bleak. Although he is torn about how to capitalise on busking, he will continue to perform his favourite number, Dil (from Ek Villain Returns) at Hazratganj, and pursue his career in songwriting.
