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‘If not now, then when’: Senior advocate and BJP national spokesperson Nalin Kohli turns rockstar
After a video of him performing with his band Sourdough in Delhi went viral, Nalin Kohli speaks to HT City about returning to music after decades, inspired by his parents.
Senior Advocate and BJP national spokesperson Nalin Kohli is grabbing attention online after performing classic and indie rock hits by Pink Floyd, U2 and Queen at a gig in Saket alongside his sister, author Vandana Kohli. “I woke up to a tweet by Gautam Chikermane (author), and the next thing I saw was that the clip had spread everywhere,” Kohli says. “Most people said, ‘We did not know this side of you.’”
That side, he says, has existed for decades. “Vandana and I have been singing for 45 years, and both of us got training in semi classical music and also Rabindra Sangeet while we were in Kolkata in the 1980s,” he says, recalling his college band, Rebels. Music took a backseat as media, legal and political work intensified, until his parents intervened, “Dad is 83, and mom is 80. They’ve been very keen to see more of our music. They told us, ‘If not now, then when? And that just became the main driving force,’”
There was also, fittingly, a Bollywood moment of reckoning.“The movie Rock On reminded me of my college band days. The idea stayed with me for years, and two-and-a-half years ago, when my parents nudged me, I finally said, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’
His first performance came in November 2024, months after being designated Senior Advocate by the Supreme Court. The siblings later formed Sourdough The Band, “The name, like the band itself, was chosen with intention. “Sourdough is a sort of a mature bread. We kind of felt the name summed up the kind of music we do, the kind of identity we have, the kind of groove we play. So we just felt it’s worked perfectly with our ethos,”
After five shows across Delhi-NCR, he now hopes to perform at festivals across India. “Music is a language of the soul and knows no age or boundaries. At our show, we had people grooving from 18 to 80,” he says, adding, “Life, to me and to us, is like a river. You have to keep moving. We are enjoying the journey. And, given the positive feedback, the affection and most importantly the encouragement, I think this journey, we do hope it’ll go further. I would like to play in some festivals.”
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