Maed in India

This week, Mae speaks to folk-rock, indie pop singer-songwriter Aanchal Bordoloi, who hails from Assam. Aanchal and Mae share boarding school stories, she also tells Mae about her super cool grandfather, rebelling against the notion that girls can't be loud and proud, and an epic pick-up line she tried on a boy. This episode features her single Whiskey Blues, so check it out! Song List: Whiskey Bl...

Indian folk fusion band Yugm joins Mae all the way from The Pink City of Jaipur. She chats to vocalist and guitarist Abhishek Jingar, and flautist Mayank Parashar, about how Abhishek initially hid his music career from his parents for a whole year, what drew them to using their music for social impact, having to censor some of their songs at gigs due to security concerns, and their plans for the f...

It’s the last week of March, and with that, comes the final episode of Maed in India’s Ladies Special for this year – and it sure is a fun one! Mae chats to singer-songwriters Sanjeeta Bhattacharya & Tanmaya Bhatnagar, who joined forces for their 2021 collab Itne Pyaar Se (Thoda Darr Lagta Hai) . Sanjeeta & Tanmaya talk about how the song came from a feeling of loving someone so strongly that it s...

A new week, a new lady collab for you right here on Maed in India’s annual Ladies Special! On this episode, we’re featuring sister act The Dasgupta Sisters, made up of Paroma and Pragya Dasgupta. Their self-titled EP marries the genres of electronica, jazz and funk to four Chota Khayal bandishes. It’s also a tribute to their mother, a renowned Hindustani classical singer from Kolkata. They tell Ma...

Welcome back to the Ladies Special! A series we do every March to celebrate the talented women of the country's indie scene. This year, our theme is Lady Collabs, and on this episode, Mae is joined by harpist and singer-songwriter Nush Lewis, and singer-songwriter Kamakshi Khanna, who collaborated on Letters to myself. They have a heart-to-heart about how the two of them met, how writing the song...

It’s March, and we know what that means on Maed in India. It’s time for the Ladies Special! It’s our annual series of episodes to showcase some of the most talented women from India’s indie music scene. This year, the theme is Lady Collabs. And the first musical pair we’re featuring is soul pop duo Gouri and Aksha, made up of Gouri Ranjit from Kerala and Aksha Kini from Punjab. They talk about how...

This week, Mae features an artist who is pretty familiar with the stage, but not as a musician. He's stand-up comedian Aakash Mehta, who recently dropped his debut record 'What a Life’. They chat about his international folk dance performances, how music has always been his first love, his ability to play an array of percussive instruments in high school, and how comedy happened. According to Aaka...

This week, on Maed in India, we’re introducing you to a freshly minted act in the indie music scene. In the studio with Mae are ambient electronic musician Shadaab Kadri aka Riatsu, and multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and educator Nush Lewis, who have joined forces to create the live harp & electronica project Kayoben. They explain how they came together, the meaning behind their band na...

Kicking off our 2022 studio sessions is Bangalore folk rock band Swarathma! They talk to Mae about their time (and money) during the pandemic, they explain their exquisitely worded band member bios, unpack their relationship with social causes, and talk about a musical project that helped tribal musicians from across the country make their own original music. Speaking of original music, get ready...

Joining us on this episode all the way from sunny Los Angeles, California is R&B, soul, indie, folk singer-songwriter Ramya Pothuri. It's been a while since they hung out, and clearly the only way Mae can catch up with people is by interviewing them. On this episode, she tells us why she’s now an LA girl, why she needs Mae to be her drama interventionalist, her latest single 'Male Attention' about...

We’ve come to the end of our nostalgia-fueled expedition into Maed in India’s archives, and for a fitting finale we have none other than rapper Taran Kaur Dillon… aka Hard Kaur! A pioneer in the hip hop scene and one of the few women rapping in a male-dominated industry, she featured on Episode 74 in November 2016. She talked to Mae about her difficult childhood, where her love for hip hop began,...

Throwing it back to September 2017, Episode 110 of the show, we bring you indie scene pioneer and frontman of rock outfit Indus Creed, Uday Benegal! He talks about Indus Creed’s OG avatar Rock Machine, moving to New York, jamming with Slash, and being a cynical optimist. And despite recovering from an injury, he plays stripped down versions of his songs in the studio.  Song List: Take it Harder (1...

Happy New Year to our Maed in India fam! It’s 2022, and for this week’s episode, we’re going waaaaay back into our archives to Episode 20 (you read that right) of Maed in India from October 2015. This was when Mae had India-born California-raised indie-folk singer-songwriter Zoya Mohan on the show! Zoya and her guitarist Anthony joined Mae at the iconic Famous Studios to talk about old albums that...

This week, on Maed in India, we continue our journey through our archives with a very special episode. It was July 2017 when Episode 104 of Maed in India came out, and it featured none other than the British reggae dancehall legend Apache Indian! Trying (but not always succeeding) to keep her fangirlling under control, Mae chats to him about his Jamaican nanny, his biggest hits like  Boom Shak a L...

On this week’s episode of our Maed in India nostalgia-fest, we’re throwing it back to Episode 119 that came out in November 2017. This was Carnatic jazz singer-songwriter Aditi Ramesh’s first appearance on Maed in India. She talks about how she left corporate law to pursue music, her parents’ disappointment, and of course, curd rice. She also performs three songs from her debut EP Autocorrect! Son...

We’re moving fast to the end of this eventful, or relatively uneventful year, and Mae thinks it’s time to slow down and take a look back. We’re talking waaaay back, considering we’re also over 260 episodes old! Yay, Maed in India! So, to begin this trip down memory lane, we’re starting with Episode 67 released in September 2016. At the time “up-and-coming” indie-folk-pop act from Pune, Easy Wander...

This episode features some major Mallu bonding between Mae and singer-songwriter, producer & educator Shilpa Ananth, whose music seamlessly melds R&B, soul, jazz with her Carnatic stylings. Shilpa opens up about her journey as an artist, navigating desi parents, complicated work visas, and above all else, fear... which also happens to be the name of her latest single that you’ll hear on this episo...

oaf. (noun) a man who is rough or clumsy and unintelligent. Not to be confused with OAFF aka Kabeer Kathpalia, who catches up with Mae on this episode of Maed in India. The electronica producer and composer talks about the meaning behind his artist name and if he still resonates with it, his experience attending experimental schools, his punk band, how he wanted to become a particle physicist, and...

The name of this week’s act on Maed in India is enough to get us pumped for this episode, but did you know they were not originally called what they are now? We’re talking about alternative/indie pop band The Lightyears Explode, and on today’s episode, Mae gets to know from vocalist/guitarist Saurabh Roy, bassist Shalom Benjamin and guitarist Jishnu Guha, how they called themselves 'The Mighty Sco...

In the studio with Mae for this episode is singer-songwriter and guitarist Bhrigu Sahni. Between all the banter and hysterical laughing, they talk about Bhrigu’s journey from  Khadki Junction Blues  to busking on subway platforms in New York, the bitter pill that is testing your music on your parents, singing Marathi powadas with his mother, and Bhrigu demonstrates his nifty automatic guitar tuner...

IT’S HAPPENING! Maed in India is back in the studio with some incredible artists, their most entertaining stories, and their latest music. So, of course, we had to turn up the heat for our first one back. And to do that, we have none other than rapper Chaitanya Sharma aka  SlowCheeta  chatting to Mae about the origins of his rap name, having to rip into Ranveer Singh’s character while filming Gull...

The world of the interwebs is a wondrous place (most of the time). For Maed in India, it allows us an incredible opportunity to connect with indie artists from across the country. And that’s exactly what we did on this episode! Here to chat about her journey as an artist, winning a Most Promising Artist award (yes, we do find out what she's promising), and the story behind her single  Dumplings fo...

We’re at the last stop of Maed in India’s Our Neighbours 2021, and it’s a bittersweet moment after a journey filled with music, banter and new friendships from across the Subcontinent. Our grand finale takes us to Karachi, Pakistan, as we present  A For Aleph , a  record label , artist collective & music residency, with their collaborative project ‘Qurb’, by  Anas Alam Khan ,  Waqas Hussain ,  Azi...

On this episode of Maed in India’s Our Neighbours 2021 series, we’re heading east, with a hop, skip and a jump over the border to Bangladesh. Here, we meet rock duo from Dhaka,  Dads In The Park , made up of  Ishmam Salim  and  Tajwar ul Islam . In their chat with Mae, they reveal the backstory behind the band’s name (if there were dads or parks involved), how the two of them joined forces, being...

We’re more than halfway through Maed in India’s Our Neighbours 2021, but the longest trip of the journey has just begun, because for this episode of the interview series, we’re flying over a couple continents to meet Tamil-Canadian mridangam player, singer & producer  Yanchan ! He takes Mae through forcing his parents to let him learn the mridangam as a kid, the beauty of beat tapes, and shows her...