At 23, Aadya Jaswal has done something she spent years postponing— releasing her first album, Sanctuary. For the longest time, she wasn’t sure if music should be more than a secret sanctuary. After years of hesitation, the Gurugram-based indie artist finally released Sanctuary in March — stepping into the spotlight. “I kept telling myself that to keep music special, I shouldn't pursue it. But I also had these visions of performing. That tension got intense, because part of me really wanted to give everything to this,” she says.
Jaswal once described her relationship with music as “volatile”, a phrase which partly explains why she didn’t study it formally in college, choosing English literature instead. “But somewhere inside, music has been a constant — whether through poetry, music, or a combination of both.”
A piano and vocals instructor at Gurugram’s One World College of Music where she once trained as a child, Jaswal in her album, moves from the rawness of teenage songwriting to more self-assured expressions, a reflection of her growth. Each track explores themes of fear, self-expression, and the beauty of life’s mundane moments. Though trained in Western vocals and singing in English, her sound is ingrained in lived experience — memories of wind, monsoon rains, and the kind of solitude that makes you pause and look closer. “Feelings, and exploring them, are very important to me,” she says. “And the tussle between them making sense and not making sense — that’s where my music comes from.”
Inside Sanctuary
The eight-track album spans songs written in between 2017 and now, is an aural diary tracing Jaswal’s growth as a person and an artist. “It is both what I was when I started and what I’ve become through the process of making it,” she says. The melodies are haunting, the sound atmospheric. There’s quiet pain, sudden joy, nature, memory — all gently woven into indie folk and acoustic pop. “It feels like it embodies and traces versions of myself all through these years,” says Jaswal.
Vulnerability is baked into her writing — something she’s still learning to live with. “One reason I was scared of doing music in the first place was this resistance to letting people see those parts of me. Because once it’s out, it’s not yours anymore.”
Sometimes the hesitation to share lingers but Jaswal has learned to make peace with it. Now, she tries to start from the personal but leave room for the listener. “I try not to make it so specific that it only makes sense to me. I focus more now on what the feeling means — how it expands.”
The album features her newest single, ‘Anoushka’, reflecting on lost innocence, with soft piano and layered harmonies. Its melancholy simmers like a memory you’re not ready to let go of.
Then there’s Jaswal’s personal favourites and her debut single from 2023 — ‘Aisha’, a dreamy, transportive track she wrote after noticing how raindrops looked like pearls. “Even when it was just a demo on my laptop, I’d play it in college when things got too much — it would bring me back to myself.” Anchored in rain, sky, and childlike wonders, it became a reminder of who she is. The melody melds slow, harmonious guitar strums with her soft vocals with lyrics painting vivid images of skies shifting colours, and rain-soaked walks that feel straight out of a memory. “It’s the best example I can give of nature eliciting so much that the only way I can feel it is by writing poetry and turning it into a song.”
‘Aisha’ was born during a downpour at music school. The next time it rained, she picked up her guitar on the balcony, and the song evolved. She saw a girl playing in the rain and realised — that was her too. “It was like watching another version of myself,” she says.
On ‘Hooded Figure’, Jaswal shifts into eerie, urgent territory, evoking a chase through shadows. ‘Pariah’, written at 14, is upbeat but bittersweet — celebrating the freedom that comes from letting go of judgment. The song was born out of a moment of teenage angst. “It came from a place of frustration — of caring too much, of fighting myself for it,” says Jaswal.
The Milestones list
Beyond the album, Jaswal has ticked off dreams she once thought were out of reach — documented under a list in her Notes app titled “Milestones.” She opened for Grammy-nominated artist Jamison Ross in 2018. “I sang one of my own songs with a full band for the first time.”
She’s also opened for indie names like Tanmaya Bhatnagar, Frizzell D’Souza, and Raghav Meattle, and has performed at venues like The Piano Man. Her most unexpected credit? ‘Perfect Love’ from the Amazon Prime series Made in Heaven. Back in 2017, she and a few classmates had recorded what they thought was a hymn for a documentary. “My friend sent me a screenshot, and I was like — wait, what? I hadn’t even watched Made in Heaven,” she laughs.
Looking ahead
Her next dream? Collaborations. “I love the American dream pop duo, Vansire. I’d love to sing with them,” she says. “And the Welsh singer Novo Amor — I really admire him.”
Now that Sanctuary is out, she’s pushing into braver creative territory — less filtered, more vulnerable. “I want to stop being so afraid of writing. Right now, I’m writing safe things — things people around me already know. But I’d like to write less safe.” She’s started arranging her own music and wants to experiment more. “Every song is its own story. I want to stop worrying if it’s too plain, too derivative. I overthink that a lot,” she says. “But really, I just want to ask: what does this song want?”
But beyond the poetry of her work lies a tougher truth: that being an independent artist in India often means building the stage, the spotlight, and the audience all on your own. “I really wish everyone understood that it isn’t the artist’s responsibility to draw their own crowd,” she says. “There’s so little infrastructure, so little money—and almost everyone I know is doing something else to get by.” Still, Jaswal carves out her space, and maybe that’s the most nature-like thing of all—creating something luminous in a world that doesn’t always make room for it.
Aadya Jaswal is set to open for singer Ankur Tewari at The Piano Man, Eldeco Centre, Saket, on May 3 at 8:30 pm