Anagh’s Romance with Music

Ruchira talks to New York-based Anagh, an upcoming singer, about his music and life, in a candid interview – exclusively for Different Truths.

New York-based Anagh Banerjee wears many hats. He is an efficient graphic artist and an upcoming vocalist of great promise. This 30-something youth with an impressive appearance — trimmed beard and curly, raven, flowing locks— shot into the limelight when he solemnly recited the sacred Brahmaswaroopam in an ensemble online live concert with eight other vocalists scattered far and wide. The video was widely acclaimed. Even otherwise, Anagh (eponymous with Lord Shiva) has dabbled in various genres of vocal music. His online albums are steadily garnering popularity.

Ruchira: How was your childhood, and how did you drift into music?

Anagh: My childhood was rooted in a typically middle-class Bengali family upbringing. It had exposure to visual art and music as art forms that were celebrated and identified with. My maternal grandfather was a visual artist who worked with Ogilvy, Bensons and Mather. My uncle was a very accomplished artist as well. As for music, it was always around me as a thread in our social fabric. However, my journey into music started almost by accident. Our family moved from one part of Bombay to another after my 5^th grade. It was around this time that my mother learnt about a music teacher who was looking for students. She and some of her colleagues decided to get their children together to learn under this teacher, Shri Arnab Chatterjee. It was her way of helping me integrate into my new surroundings and keeping me engaged. That was the beginning of my musical journey.

Ruchira: Was there music in your family?

Anagh: Not really. Everyone loves music and celebrates it as an essential part of their personal and social lives. But no one had ever pursued or even learnt music.

Ruchira: Please trace your career graph for us.

Anagh: I completed 10^th grade in the central board secondary education system in 2004. After which, I studied science for the next two years in what we call ‘junior college’ in Bombay at Jai Hind college. Around this time, I completely fell out of love with technical subjects within the conventional education system. Tapping into my aptitude and interests in art, I studied graphic design for my bachelor’s at Maharashtra Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design till 2011. After this, I worked as a freelance graphic designer for a few years. During this time, I realised that within this field, my main interest lies in drawing and doing more expressive work. I pursued illustration and got into one of the world’s most prestigious visual arts institutes, the School of Visual Arts (SVA), New York, NY. Since graduating from SVA in 2018, I have worked as a freelance illustrator/storyteller, printmaker, and muralist. My primary medium of work has been printmaking which includes traditional woodblock prints. I have been working on a project on the Partition of the Indian subcontinent for the past few years, documenting peoples’ stories of displacement from the Partition.

Ruchira: Share your experiences working with Joy Sarkar, a great name in the music industry.

Anagh: Joy Da was great fun to work with. He is a very sensitive composer with great taste and an accomplished guitarist. It was nice of him to include me in the music-making process, which let me see him up close and experience the inner workings of such an environment. I also met stalwarts such as Sanjoy Das (Bapi Da), a virtuoso guitar player and Srikanto Acharya, another stalwart singer of the past few decades, during this process.

Ruchira: Which genres of music do you dabble in?

Anagh: My favourite genre is the ghazal form. Apart from that, I adore mainstream Hindi/Bengali film songs from the 60s and 70s. I love Hindustani classical music, which I have been training with Pt. Shantanu Bhattacharyya, for over the past year or so. But I cannot claim to be a performer.

Ruchira: Who are your other gurus?

Anagh: Shri Arnab Chatterjee, Shri Shurjo Bhattacharya, and Shri Kuldip Singh.

Ruchira: Please describe the experience of Brahmaswaroopam performance.

Anagh: Brahmaswaroopam was based on the complicated Raag Shree. During our rehearsals and time spent learning our respective parts, I learnt a lot about such a difficult scale and the nuances that maintain the purity of this raag. The issue with classical music is that it is an ongoing process. One can never say that they have mastered a raag. However, after spending some time on it and practising it repeatedly, you can start seeing the entity that is a raag. It is like a human with unique features, moods, and personalities. It was a very enriching experience.

Ruchira: What is music to you?

Anagh: It is like going to the gym – for my mind.

Ruchira: A graphic artist and a singer, which one is the real you? 

Anagh: Both. Music is closer to my heart, but with visual art, I can engage with it more detachedly, which helps as a profession.

Ruchira: Your views on Tagore.

Anagh: Tagore is an eternal mentor figure. The sheer volume of work that he has done is quite humbling, let alone the content of his career. Without going into too much detail (because this could become an essay), I think Tagore is very appropriate for these times. He has the misfortune in our country and amongst the Bengali community of simultaneously being super important and not as influential. He is portrayed as immensely important because of his music, poetry, and Nobel, making him a cultural godfather. But one cannot be speaking of and romanticising Tagore, the poet, by isolating him from Tagore, the thinker, philosopher, social worker and educator. It is very convenient to break into Rabindra Sangeet to reinforce one’s connection to one’s culture and, at the same time dismissing, completely his views on nationalism and nation-states and boundaries and humanity because they are uncomfortable truths to confront in a society that is increasingly fraught with polarity and communal unrest.

Photos and video clips sourced by the interviewer