Shankar Mahdevan all set to present India's Folk music on an international stage

Shankar Mahadevan captures the crowd with his artistes after the NH7 Weekender gig in PuneFolk music in India with its ancient roots surfaced from folk tales expressionist poetry and social issues The nation being a miscellany of languages collecting sounds from every region seems unattainable but wellknown vocalist and composer Shankar Mahadevan has enrolled for the mission Following a successful gig with his new initiative My Country My Music mdash a band of Folk artistes mdash at the NH7 Weekender recently the 49yearold is up for going international to illustrate Indian cultureHow it beganMahadevan nursed the idea while touring in the remote parts of India For a long time I have been performing for the Andhra market the Tamil market in Kerala and SataraSangliKolhapur in Maharashtra These regions had so much music that I wanted audiences to witness all of it on one stage he saysThe contingent comprises artistes like Maame Khan Rajasthan Anindita Paul Assam Manikka Vinayagam Tamil Nadu and noted flautist cum vocalist Rasika Chandrashekhar People wont have to worry about language for the music is universal adds Mahadevan who also composed a few tracks for the projectOriginal scoresI wrote a song on the Kerala boat race It is about how they hum and chant while rowing It is an interesting musical and visual experience with stage lighting I also wrote a Tamil song called Rasathi which means a beautiful girl To weave Bengal into the project I composed an introductory piece to Rabindranath Tagores Ekla Cholo Re to bring out the old Baul essence informs Mahadevan who intends to have a Baul musician by his side soon Time is an issue So instead of too many dishes seven or eight delicious dishes are better says Mahadevan overjoyed after the response at the Weekender gig At a show like NH7 the age group is between 16 and 24 and the way they embraced our music helped me realise that kids are open to experiments It is not only item songs that they want to listen to I wanted to bind the musicians into a contemporary band so that the listeners can connect to the sound he addsGenres and layersThe artistes have been exploring Rajasthani Folk Kashmiri Folk Bihu Punjabi Folk Thumri Kajari Bhajan and more People only associate Bhangra with Punjabi music but there is so much more mdash Heer for example I also did a geet earlier performed by Ghulam Ali Khan saheb with a traditional harmonium and a tabla he saysThe second layer of the endeavour is to emphasise the connection between traditional Folk and Bollywood music In Uttar Pradesh Qawwali is a prominent form which we use in our films says Mahadevan who easily brings in a Jhoom Barabar Jhoom in the midst of a conventional Punjabi songHis artistes draw inspiration from old Indian practices like composing a song for every occasion In Gujarat there is a song for when crops are destroyed by locusts There is another song when crops are harvested There is another tune for when the dead are being carried for cremation I wanted to test them all The audience is lapping it up This is an image of India I want to take this music all over the world with pride adds Mahadevan