Songs about them all

The song is barely four minutes long, but you’d feel like you’ve just watched an entire movie. It starts slowly — Janvi Anand’s acoustic guitar begins a tune that her voice then picks up.

That’s where it started/ Leaning her head against the window/ The curls falling down her face/ She was the girl on a train.

The last line repeats through the song, as Janvi becomes the lover’s voice. The protagonist sees a girl on the train for the last time and parts with her.

“The song is based on an actual story of two people who met on a Delhi metro,” reveals Janvi. “They started travelling together and fell in love. But then it didn’t work out, and the train is also the last place they met.”

A Delhi girl herself, Janvi has lived in Los Angeles for the past three years. Even as she moved to study music, she’s now a teacher and a performer. Janvi is currently in India, for a tour for her new album Faces of Love. Girl on a Train is one of the 11 songs on the album, all of which have been inspired by people around her, she informs us.

Music came into Janvi’s life a long time ago, when as a little girl, she found a mini keyboard her father bought for her sister. Little Janvi went on to pick it up and learned how to play it by herself. By the age of 13, she had her first guitar, and by 17, drums. And while she played sports and participated in debates actively, she decided to drop it all and dedicate her time to music.

“By the time I graduated from school, all that was left was music,” she says with a small laugh, adding that she didn’t consider herself to be a singer then, It was always the acoustic guitar that came first for Janvi. She says, “There’s something about the acoustic guitar that no other instrument has. You can so easily combine the piano on your left hand, percussion on your right, and play a bass line while playing your harmony. You have a complete band in one instrument.”

In the album — her second after her EP Inside These Pages — Janvi plays the acoustic guitar, sings, and has also written these real-life songs. Wish You Goodnight is about long-distance relationships. How can I? Is about relationships that have not found acceptance because of religion, caste or money. Faces of Love, the title song, is her take on how she wants to be. “The song is about someone who constantly encourages you to do better; and who you want to be. There will always be ups and downs, but they come back together because that’s how it’s meant to be,” she smiles.

The music to her songs comes usually to her as she sits to write them with the guitar. “When I write, it is just me singing, finding the melody and the chords on the guitar. You start playing those instruments in your head.  As a solo artiste, I know what I want, and I invite other musicians to play,” she explains.