From the fiery and metal-infused Paageyta Pugey (Smoke of Vengeance), expressing the rage of being stolen from, to Ashana (Meal), which tells the story of a village feast where caste shapes what food you receive and when, Tulu folk rock band Alva Kuuto’s songs attempt to tell stories rooted in Tulu culture but with the sounds of today, in the process becoming a snapshot of the fast-fading language as it exists today.
Singer Praveen Alva explains, “I wanted to see if we could create the sound of now in Tulu so future generations can look back and think ‘this is how Tulu was in 2026’. This is our drop in the ocean, especially as Tulu is considered a vulnerable language by UNESCO and its speakers are reducing. Art forms’ responsibility is to showcase the time that we are in now, the problems, celebrations and the common man of today – that is what we try to capture.”
The journey did not start with the intention of preservation or of being a cultural ambassador though, but ‘emerged out of boredom’ as Alva recalls, “I’d taken a break from my architecture job and in that gap, I figured out I can write songs. I’d written before in Hindi and English, but they were mediocre. But when I started writing in Tulu, I could come up with lyrics that were personal and access memories of my childhood with ease. It opened up a lot within me. The song I came up with, about my grandmother putting me to sleep, was so powerful, I got sucked into it.”
Alva started off as a solo artiste, performing at open mics where he met the rest of the band – bassist Abhilash Shet, drummer Anshuman Upadhyay and guitarist Shashank Kandachar – forming Alva Kuuto in 2022. Alva’s solo work is often more bare and intimate than the band’s rock sound, usually accompanied by the strum of his guitar, like his 2020 single Prarthaney, a prayer to save the earth from environmental destruction. However, the essence of Tulu Nadu’s folk arts informs both the band and Alva’s solo music, especially the songwriting, as he explains, “Folk is a form of storytelling – people talk about the mundane, the heroic acts of an individual, there is one, for example, where a girl who has been bitten by a snake is saying ‘please tell my father I love him’; the whole song is about that. The essence of storytelling in folk arts is beautiful and that’s what we try to bring into our music too.”
To make sure this storytelling translates to audiences that do not understand Tulu, Alva often starts off each song by setting context in English, but most of the work is done by the music itself, says Alva, “We set the context so the song can become the background score for the audience’s imagination. We try not to complicate it too much because it is not necessary to understand the lyrics word by word; we tell our audience to stop understanding and just feel the rhythm. If someone is really interested, they can go home and look up the lyrics.”
At the festival, where 24 artistes across Bengaluru’s indie scene perform one song, Alva is set to perform an unreleased song, Rajana Deverh, which translates to ‘King’s God’. Alva explains, “Whenever a new regime or king takes over, throughout history, and today too, the first thing the king does is establish the King’s God, which the people have to follow too. The song is an exploration of that.”
(Praveen Alva is set to perform at the 24 Songs Festival organised by Blr Groove Co at Sabha, Kamaraj Road, on April 12, 3pm onwards)