Can meeting the ‘right person’ change your life? Or, is this just a cliché that the right and left swiping millennials will never relate to? For musician Anand Bhaskar, who’s now done the music for both the seasons of Mirzapur, meeting ‘the one’ – Nidhi Sethia, gave him the push to go back to his true calling – music – after a decade in advertising.
She “annoyed” him till he recorded his originals, and his band Anand Bhaskar Collective came together.
Couple goals
The couple tied the knot in April 2013, his debut album released in August 2014, prompting him to quit his job in October 2015. Snide remarks came his way for leaving work early for band practice. By 2018, he had a bankable reputation in the music scene, becoming the go-to person for last-minute jingles and other projects.
“Nidhi would keep saying I can’t let my musical sensibilities go to waste, to the point that it was annoying. I was 33 when I quit my job and worried about rent kaun dega. She said I should dedicate at least six months to it, after which I could decide if I wanted to go back to a job,” the now 39-year-old says.
Anand did the rounds of composers’ offices and production houses, when he got a jingle gig for Amul in March 2015 for ₹10,000, and before long he was doing a jingle with Akshay Kumar and got ₹1.5 lakh for it. The advertising professional spent the first three years pitching himself and learning production and practising.
{{/usCountry}}Anand did the rounds of composers’ offices and production houses, when he got a jingle gig for Amul in March 2015 for ₹10,000, and before long he was doing a jingle with Akshay Kumar and got ₹1.5 lakh for it. The advertising professional spent the first three years pitching himself and learning production and practising.
{{/usCountry}}“I was aware I had started late in life and there were many kids half my age, who sing 10 times better than me. I needed to do whatever kids were doing but three times over,” he says, adding that smoking and drinking over the years had also taken a toll on his voice.
Not that singing was a new thing for him. He’s been singing since he was three, and even trained in Indian classical music, growing up in a household where his parents played plenty of Malayalam film music, Rafi’s songs, AR Rahman’s Tamil works and, of course, Michael Jackson, which introduced Anand to the world of international music.
“I even stole money from my dad’s briefcase to buy cassettes,” he sniggers. But he stopped training when he was 17, brainwashed by peers and the society to go for engineering or a masters degree. “I did a BA in Stats, which I’ve never used,” he laughs.
Anand spent two years working in a BPO, before coming to Mumbai to do a Masters in Fashion Management and Technology from NIFT, and then joining Mudra, where he met Nidhi.
Cut the chase
The couple, whose birthdays are five days apart, met in 2005 when Anand wasn’t looking to date anyone and both of them had stayed back late at work one day. “I don’t believe in love at first sight, but it was – maybe the lighting was right,” he laughs.
Then, one night he got drunk and sent her a formal email-style message on Facebook, while he still wasn’t on her friend list, asking her out. But his display picture was a tad old and since Anand didn’t look anything similar to it in real life, she couldn’t recognise him and thought it was a prank. “I had to tell Nidhi I sit next to her, for her to finally recognise me,” he recalls, chuckling. But she didn’t respond to his messages and so, he stopped trying.
But one day, when his boss asked Anand to get his guitar and he was forced to sing in office (Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here), Nidhi first noticed him.
When they accidentally met in the elevator soon after, Anand was determined not to ‘give her bhaav (attention)’, so when she complimented his singing, he replied with: “You don’t check your FB messages.” Quick wit and a golden voice worked, and soon they were texting on Hangouts and then they SMS-ed for two months as Anand didn’t have a smartphone in 2011.
“That hardwork was worth every second. It took me 59 days to ask her out. Even now I feel she’s way out of my league.”
They’d discuss music and Bhaskar discovered that Nidhi loves Bollywood music. So, he invited her to listen to an original (Hey Ram) and that day she started pushing him to do music. “Today, I’ve been doing music exclusively for six years and don’t feel bored or burnt out! That’s insane compared to the fact that I changed my job seven times in 10 years of being in advertising and BPOs,” he exhales!
Not that he didn’t take up all household chores after he quit his job – he learnt how to make perfectly round chapatis, besides cooking. “My wife would come from work (she’s currently the head of development at Window Seat Films LLP) and ask me how I’d managed to make them so round!” laughs the musician who’s now sung in Baaghi 2, Mission Mangal and has also worked with Amit Trivedi.
Boy and the band
His band, Anand Bhaskar Collective, too grew by leaps and bounds in the five years. Like Ankur Tewari from Ankur & The Ghalat Family, who is the one to have recommended Anand for Mirzapur. Anand, in turn, got his entire band on to play for one track as well as indie musician Isheeta Chakravarty to sing the track Tittar Bittar.
Season 2 was also distinctively different than season 1, complete with a rap song, Munna. “My first draft got rejected,” he confesses. Then, he turned his composition process around – getting the lyrics from Ginny Diwan for Tittar Bittar. The line ‘ho jaaye saare tittar bittar’ sparked a melody and the song was done in an hour. “It’s an ‘item song’ from a woman’s point of view while a fight is on. I’m grateful the directors supported our wacky ideas,” he sighs with relief.
With so much of the indie scene in it, does he consider Mirzapur a commercial project? “I don’t see projects as commercial and non-commercial. I feel music is divided into accessible and inaccessible melodies, which can be produced with indie or film or ad or web series sensibilities. My goal is to make a melody with high recall value, which leaves an impact on the listener’s mind,” he explains.
You definitely have more freedom in web series as the directors are from the new school of thought, he points out, which allows new composers to showcase their talent.
“In films, there’s a parallel compulsion to make something commercially successful so producers also take a call on the casting of the singer as there is so much money involved,” he says, before citing the likes of indie musicians Shilpa Surroch and Keka Ghoshal, who are singing for web series. In shows, songs make a comeback and appear again and again and you also check out song and credits, which makes a big difference. Proof of which can be seen as his YouTube subscribers and Instagram followers have shot up, and he’s crossed 200k listeners per month on Spotify from a week ago when it was 30k per month. And it’s also trickling into support for the band!
Looking ahead
Bhaskar is also doing the music for Netflix’s Bombay Begums, which will focus on lyrics. One song has a reggaeton vibe with vocals akin to Nadia Hassan in the ’80s! He’s also rapping in Royal Challengers Bangalore’s anthem, besides working on a solo album with a pop, electronic and hip-hop vibe.
Two albums old, Anand Bhaskar Collective is also working on an EP, called Ufaq. The lyrics of the titular song is being co-written by the couple, their (fifth) song together. And no, it’s not a mushy song, but a high-intensity rock number about determination and reaching for the horizon no matter how long it takes and how becoming strong not just involves hard work but also overcoming your inner evil and toxicity. Just like the story of his life.
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From HT Brunch, February 14, 2021
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