‘Clubhouse is where I found my stage’

This writer first interacted with Anirudh Deshmukh on social media where wersquod like and comment on each otherrsquos Instagram posts and stories But that was before the audioonly app Clubhouse roped him as its icon making him the first Indian to receive the coveted title This newfound fame is yet to sink in says Deshmukh ldquoI still havenrsquot realised how big a deal it is every day it is hitting me little by littlerdquo shares the musicianDeshmukh a selftaught musician hosts Late Night Jam a 72000member club every day In this room people can share their poetry and songs or just jam togetherDeshmukh joined Clubhouse in February purely out of curiosity ldquoIrsquom always on my phone and I have this keeda of downloading any app and testing itrdquo He says that the apprsquos audioonly feature got his attention because he is camera shy He soon came to prefer it over Instagram ldquoI sometimes get worried because it Instagram is not in the moment and the conversion in terms of feedback isnrsquot realtime unlike Clubhouse You can edit shoot and make everything look a certain way which Clubhouse doesnrsquot let you dordquo He finds Clubhouse more genuine and a platform that has a wider reach He talks about how due to his habit of staying awake till late at night he was exposed to rooms from different parts of the world ldquoI was in every other room possiblerdquoIn the initial few months he was just exploring with no agenda of hosting a room until he realised the potential and the need to use this audio feature to his benefit Then one day on the spur he started singing in a room ldquoI clearly remember the day it was May 22 I was feeling low after my first vaccine dose and I just decided to start singingrdquoAround the same time Clubhouse had opened its doors to Android users which garnered a lot of followers ldquoPeople started sending me requests and a few musicians also joined and we started jamming along It the room went on till almost 5 amrdquo says the 29yearold architect turned musician ldquoClubhouse is where I found my stagerdquo he shares adding that it gave him a new purpose after all his live shows were impacted due to the pandemic ldquoAll I had to do was set up my mic unmute and start singing It didnrsquot matter what I wore what I looked like as long as I sounded goodrdquoHe believes that Clubhouse treats everyone in the room equally ldquoWersquove had Mohan Kanan and Shilpa Rao but even they had to wait for their turn to singrdquo For an upcoming musician like him sharing space with Prateek Kuhad Rao or Ankur Tewari and singing their covers would have seemed daunting but Clubhouse he says has broken these barriersldquoThey the artistes also offer realtime feedbackrdquoThe community that he has established on the app is a closeknit one ldquoThere were days where I wasnrsquot feeling well and I would have people checking up on me giving home remedies and ensuring I rest and not host the roomrdquo On a few occasions he has also had someone else lead the roomHe admits that as a creator not every day is a good one ldquoMany renowned musicians would enter my room and if I was having a bad day where I didnrsquot sound good I feared being judgedrdquo But putting that aside what helped Deshmukh was that he was never the focus of his room ldquoIt was never about me it is about everyone togetherrdquo