Papon in sync with folk, fusion, Bollywood

Papon is a sought-after name in today’s popular Bollywood music. Well-trained in vocal music like the Indian classical, Borgeet (devotional) and folk music, he is equally facile in instrumentation and enjoys a hand at  khol, tabla, guitar, and harmonium.

His music is found with traces of ambient electronic, acoustic folk,  new-age  Indian classical fusion, elements of the local river songs and soulful, melodic ghazals. Language is no barrier for him as he has sung in several regional vernaculars like  Punjabi,  Tamil,  Marathi, Bengali besides his mother tongue Assamese and of course, in Hindi. Here’s an interaction with the multitalented artist

Any possibility of a musical collaboration at  national or global level?
There is a long-pending project I had started years ago with the eminent Scottish singer-songwriter Rachel Sermanni. Besides, we two were also part of another joint-production called Troikala. Just a few days ago, I received a WhatsApp video from her as she was driving through Scotland, asking me to record the songs we had once spoken about. “Can we get this project resumed?” she inquired in the video.

Well, this one venture is something I am badly hell-bent on to re-open as both Rachel and I were highly enthusiastic about it. Let’s see how things pan out. My latest collaboration with Nucleya (ace musical artiste Udyan Sagar aka DJ Nucleya) is an exciting endeavour that I’d been hoping to do for a while now. I also love dance music but haven’t yet explored the EDM space seriously. So when this project came up, I was instantly hooked onto it since I like Nucleya and his individualistic sounds. It’s so unique and understandably bears his clear signature touch. We have been connecting over this work for sometime now and thanks to the Dewar’s Music that it finally happened.

Luckily we were thrown into a deadline loop, and the process was quite instinctive. I had sent him a melody, which was quite folksy in nature and similar to how Bihu melodies are usually structured. I shared a few more ideas but he constantly kept coming back to this particular tune, which spells out an earthy smell, and we also didn’t have enough time to linger over. So we went down straight to Hampi, and I wrote about how the past heritage is calling out to me amidst those scattered relics and ruins. The lyrics are based around the energies I felt in that famously historical site. Udyan too had an interesting take on the song and I am glad that people have responded quite positively to the track. We hope this vibe would only grow stronger and Inshallah, bigger!  

Singles have created quite a craze in the music industry and it also offers great opportunities to the singers to appear and perform in music videos besides playback. What do you have to say about this rising trend?
It’s the need of the hour you see. The world has changed, so have people’s priorities and preferences. Today’s listeners don’t have much time on their hands to lend a patient ear to an entire album or an extended playlist. Hence, singles are the new alternative on your I-pod. That way, you may invest more time and energy into one track and then promote it well. Earlier, the format was different. The tape-length was such that you would need to fill up the whole space with minimum 8 songs.

Now the medium is digitised and its dynamics have changed with different demands to cater to. Even if you do say 7 songs at present, people will only listen to one at a time. The tape-culture has visibly subsided to make room for electronic music, online releases and live streaming over mass-media.

In recent times, actresses too have successfully lent their vocal chords to film songs. How do you view this development?
I would first like to believe that any artiste who sings in films is primarily a singer and then a farmer or an actor. By that logic, if an actress naturally happens to be a good singer, then that combination is very interesting. To be able to sing well is what mostly matters in playback. One has to be a good singer at the end of the day to put out a quality song and expect music-lovers to buy it.

Remakes of yesteryear hits are back again with a new-age reprised version. Your comments.
There are two sides to this trendy coin. One is taking a shortcut ride through a famous song. The other facet is that you’re in love with a song and you want to colour it differently or give it a twist to redo it as a tribute. I think the second approach is a nice way to revisit a classic gone by. Also if you want to musically experiment and come up with your own edition, you may add to that song’s beauty as a take of your own.

But otherwise, just because a song was a super-duper hit, that doesn’t mean you should remake it in nowadays context. See, if you’re taking an old number and giving it a new life because you’re short on ideas, then you’re simply maligning the song and not doing justice to it. You know about Knocking on Heaven’s Door right? It was originally a Bob Dylan creation but there were other versions later on by Eric Clapton and Guns N’ Roses that were better than the master himself in my opinion. On the other hand, you would also come across some wonderfully great numbers being messed up by lazy production techniques. So it depends how things finally shape up. I am not in complete favour of this fad.    

Have your children, son Puhor and daughter Parijaat already taken a shine to music?  Would you love to see them choosing a path in music like yourself or will it be their personal choice completely, when it comes to making a career decision?
Puhor and Parijaat are too young for me to know whether they would get into music or not. I do keep checking up on Puhor and he does copy me whenever I sing something, and he is on the correct pitch, which is a good thing. He does sing well, I must say (smiles). But technically, he is yet to undergo proper training. For the moment, he tries his hand at a bit of a piano and shows adequate taste for it.

Career-wise, I would be happy if he could do something noteworthy for himself in music. But it’s fine with me if he doesn’t choose the performing arts. Everybody has a liberty to chase his/her own ambitions. I want them to be as pure and happy as they are as children right now and become good human beings in future. It will be a bonus if he aspires to be a musician in the years ahead.