‘I want to keep the poets’ words alive through music’: Kavita Seth

Songstress Kavita Seth is busy with a project that’s close to her heart: Main Kavita Hoon – Live in Concert. This is a series of shows on works of renowned poets from different eras and regions of India, which are recorded and released as albums. She recently dropped Maine Muddat Se from her album featuring Urdu poet Wasim Barelvi. The Iktara (Wake Up Sid) hitmaker tells us more about the project in a conversation that’s peppered with nuggets on Sufism and healing through music.

The singer has been working on Main Kavita Hoon for a while. She reveals that the title is a nazm written by poet and her friend Jagdish Prakash, with whom she has also released an album, Ek Din and has her name along with describing what poetry really means. The idea for the collection of albums came from the fact that she has plenty of concert material by past as well as contemporary poets such as Mirza Ghalib, Amrita Pritam and a shayar from Bhopal, Bashir, among others. “Singing just one creation doesn’t do justice to them. So, I started writing songs, ghazals, etc by each one of them,” she adds, saying that if the creators are still living, she invites them to the concert and has a conversation with them, too. “Unfortunately, people hardly get to listen to live music and they are only being served programmed tunes. Kitne sher hain jo kitaabon ki kabr mein dafn hain kyunki log aaj kal padhte nahin hain. Those gems will come alive if someone will hum their tunes. I want to keep the poets’ words alive through music,” says she.

Though Kavita has given hits such as Iktara, Tumhi Ho Bandhu (Cocktail), Jeete Hain Chal (Neerja), etc in Bollywood, she sings only if she gets something good. “I’m extremely busy with my concerts and happy that I get to do what I’ve always wanted — to heal with music along with being the bridge between people and good poetry,” she explains. About Sufi songs in films, she observes, “They were there to a large extent until some time back but have now dwindled. These tracks  grow on people gradually. Filmmakers and composers need to realise that Sufi has a long shelf life.” 

She points out that composers are taking bits from Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s songs and remixing them. “No one’s thinking about what legacy we will leave behind for the listeners 20-25 years from now. People will just say, ‘Uss time toh remix chalte thhe’. I don’t want that to happen. We need to leave something good behind. Original music will always work better no matter how many remixes you make,” says the crooner who recently sang Khalipan Sore Karain in Paharganj this year and released Bulle Shah’s song Mahi with electronic project Lost Stories.