The Making of Nucleya

“It’s been more than 15 years, but I still get nervous before every single show...And then I hit the play button... I’m not Udyaan Sagar, I become Nucleya.” Something you wouldn't expect the baap of desi EDM to be vocal about, especially if you witness how he handles his concerts, which are a crazy concoction of heady beats pumped from the gullies of Mumbai to thousands of fans screaming ‘F**k that shit’ under 'koocha monster masks’. But ‘Ride to the Roots –​ Nucleya’, a 30-minute documentary by Red Bull Media House that premieres on VH1 today at 9pm, reveals a surprisingly vulnerable side to Sagar. It especially relives those three years when his career tanked post his breakup from a decade-long partnership with Mayur Narvekar, the other half of Bandish Projekt, which they’d co-formed, to become India’s most sought-after EDM artiste.

The documentary starts from the 'mancave' where it all began – Udyaan’s bedroom in Ahmedabad, with confessions from his family over aam ras backed by photographic evidence – the EDM sensation was once golu molu (chubby), his mom dolled up like a girl, his dad thought he’d become a dancer, and his elder brother calls him a monkey. Udyaan was a typical loner kid, who disliked going to school and preferred to stay holed up in his bedroom, playing video games, and later, mixing and making his own tracks and DIY audio mixers, with Mayur Narvekar of the Bandish Projekt. His other pastimes in a Gujarat that was then, so un-happening without a ‘day life’ either, was driving around town with his friends and listening to a track he made fresh-from-the-oven. That, and making NID his adda where he met his now missus, Smriti.

The narrative continues to Mehirr Nath Choppra, then an artiste manager, who was so impressed by the “two scrawny teenagers”, when they opened one of his gigs that they joined hands and gave Ahmedabad a nightlife. From playing their own dance music at friends’ farmhouses to a 1000-plus crowd of mostly students from NID, CEPT, IIM, NIFT, became a successful working model. Reminiscing how they operated under ‘Private Sauchalay (Toilet)’ before ‘Bandish Projekt’ at Mihir garage, the band jam area, is one of the film’s highs.

Then Bandish Projekt splits up and Sagar’s career nosedives to a point he can’t pay his rent. It’s humbling to see the country’s top EDM artiste admit: “...from being one of the best bands in India to coming back to zero and restarting your life, I gave up...” That’s when Smriti steps in, and recounts how she turned into the sole breadwinner to let her husband rediscover his own sound. Lucky for Sagar, he soon found his inspiration from the band baaja, Azeem-Premji era radio presenters, shady horror movies, and a lot more – sounds that make India. From here, the tempo soars, when Only Much Louder (OML) takes him on and repackages him as Nucleya, launches his first album – Koocha Monster ­– at a Ganesh Chaturthi procession and tops that with another launch at a stadium of 10,000 fans, making it the country’s largest sellout by an indie act.

Sagar’s is a case in point that behind every successful man is his entire family, who’ve compromised with his living-out-of-a-suitcase ways. They’re his number-one crew: a mother who is sad to see her son visit only when he has a gig in Ahmedabad, a protective elder brother Nitin who kept the bullies at bay in school and is now vigilant of the ones who’d aim to bask in Udyaan’s fame, his wife Smriti who reiterates how she ‘wants him to be happy and that his happiness is hers.’ The husband-wife duo emerge as a kickass package deal that blow away the crowds – Smriti with her kitschy raja and rani artwork, and Udyaan, with his desi EDM. Overall, however, the film lacks in depth – more scenes of working on his music, experiments with his sound, more visual of his gigs, how the name ‘Nucleya’ was born. Moreover, when every voice that made Nucleya is thrown at you, Mayur’s absence gets increasingly haunting to a point that that void, frustrates and you almost wish he’d pop up and say his bit.

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“It (nervousness) doesn't show on stage,” chuckled Nucleya, after the first premiere of ‘Ride to the Roots with Nucleya’ at INOX Nariman Point, on August 11. “I don't socialise much, to be honest. Even now, once the show is over, I go back to my hotel room, while my entire team goes for an after party. It's been like this right from the beginning.”

So how did it feel seeing himself on the mammoth multiplex screen? “It was so f**king weird,” admits the fiercely private artiste over a cigarette puff and says he was a bit cagey when Red Bull approached him for the documentary, but eased up as the interviews felt more conversational.

He also no longer follows the obsessive all-day music-making schedule of his formative career path, but now matches it to his son, Guri’s schedule. “When he goes to bed, about 8pm, I lie next to him, put on my headphones on and work for about 2-21/2 hours. The other window to work is, if and when, he goes to school – for about four hours,” chuckles the doting father, and explains how Guri, is Hebrew for ‘lion's cub’, as both Smriti and Guri are Leos. He still digs Aaja as his favourite track because, “Guri gave me the melody for the song, with, his blabbering stuff. It’s more of Guri’s song.”

About the documentary, he feels certain narratives took an unexpected route. “I thought some of things I said will excite people, but they didn’t. For instance, when I spot my college and introduce it (...yeh launda jiska naam Nucleya hai, woh yahi padta tha...). I was also hesitant to put in the bit where I’m talking to the crowds in Gujarati about how a bedroom DJ turned independent artiste.” His crew is quick to assure him that these bits were vital and well-appreciated, and he breaks into a boyish grin.

Ride to the Roots — Nucleya aired on VH1 at 12pm and 9 pm,  August 15, and will be available on www.redbull.com after August 21