The year 2020 and its global challenges will be inked in our history. However, no matter the challenges, art finds its way to prosper and one such instance is of Miku Bakshi, who utilised this time to rediscover herself.
This has resulted in a collaboration with singer Mika Singh for the track, Tere Bin, which was recently released.
Tere Bin is a romantic ghazal, classical in its structure with hard-core Urdu nuances being intentionally avoided.
For Bakshi, this was a different process as she normally writes in chaste Urdu and ghazals in the classical style.
“I write my poetry in Urdu, but during these COVID-19 times, I started writing on the current issues and some soft romantic poetry. Mika read these and asked me if I could write something simpler, more understandable for the non-Urdu speakers, something more universal,” shares Bakshi, adding, “Mika’s association with the world of pop and Bollywood, his growth and recognition is the stuff of legend.
I felt that his talent and versatility would allow us to experiment with a song which might show him in a different light and so I started writing a song specifically for him and this project actually grew out of that vision. A vision that he supported completely.”
This song is a bridge between a pure ghazal and a geet, that is not rigidly classical in sound and uses simple language.
“Mika has a huge young fan base and so I thought it was important to have lyrics that can be easily understood.
The song and melody actually just evolved over the course of many meetings, some of which were shared live on Instagram and even stirred up a lot of curiosity.
"Mika just grew into the song and I know his fans will be super thrilled to see their hero in this new avatar,” she adds.
This lyrical journey took place on Instagram live chats. During the chat, Singh’s fans would ask him to sing some of his favourite songs or have Bakshi recite some Urdu poetry.
“It was interesting jumping from Punjabi to Urdu! Also, Mika loves my home food and normally visits when we are working together,” fondly shares Bakshi, who apart from being a poet is a professor of Spanish, teaching at JNU for almost 40 years.
This isn’t the first time the two have collaborated, rather, their association has been for a couple of years now.
“He was performing at a friend’s daughter’s wedding and I was asked to sing on stage by this friend as I’ve been singing all my life.
Mika heard me and suggested we do something together and DJ Waleya happened, a thumping Punjabi pop number! It got a phenomenal response and went on to become a super hit and we became very good friends,” reminisces Bakshi.
The global health crisis has changed the way we work and same was for the duo while working on the track.
An optimistic, Bakshi says that adaptation was the key.
“Initial talks had started just when the pandemic struck, but both of us were so excited by the potential of the project that we thought it best to press on. So, almost all the work on the project, the discussions, the tweaking of the lyrics, the evolution of the melody all happened via the Internet. In today’s world, I believe, eventually all music will be created in this way,” says Bakshi.