Singer-songwriter Nikhil D’Souza has been thinking about the message behind his second EP, ‘People’, for a while now. The 38-year-old musician was living in London at the time and was signed to East West Records, a label owned by Warner Music UK.

“I was in the process of writing ballads and love songs. But on that one occasion, I wanted to write something a bit more current. It felt like instead of the world becoming more tolerant and accepting, it was on a downward spiral,” he says.

With lyrics that go, “We’re only people, why can’t we live together/ We all gotta breathe the same air, underneath the skin that we wear,” the intent behind the twin-track EP, released this month in English and Hindi, is clear.

Says Nikhil, “When we were children, we were innocent. We didn’t think about the differences between us. (It was) adults who imposed their own insecurities and cynicism on us. The song is about telling each other let’s go back in time, when things were innocent. It’s about looking at children as an example of how we should treat one another.”

While Nikhil wrote the English track with Johnathan Quarmby and Neil Ormandy, he roped in Pinky Poonawala who also helped write ‘Sitaare’, released independently last year.

Stating that it is not a word-for-word translation, Nikhil, who recorded the Hindi vocals in his house during the lockdown, says that the relevance of the message made him translate it to Hindi, as well.

Bridging through music

“Actually, the plan was to release an English EP with three songs. But, following the lockdown it suddenly felt like a lot of these differences started coming to the surface again. Instead of being more tolerant , people have been turning on each other.”

The video for the Hindi track, released last week, captures an elderly lady under lockdown, watching and engaging with two boys in her apartment who are busy playing. Says Nikhil, “The concept is by Ruhi More (who also directed the video) who has been staying with her grandmother during the lockdown. The video shot during lockdown, incidentally, features her own grandmother and the two boys who live in her building.

Regarding whether his voice will feature in a Bollywood film, anytime soon, Nikhil, who is also known for songs such as ‘Shaam’ from Aisha and ‘Mere Bina’ from Crook, says: “I haven't done a film song in a while. But I also see that a lot of films have stalled; very few are releasing on digital platforms. As a consequence, a lot of Bollywood music is not coming out. So, there is a lot of space on streaming platforms, which indie musicians are trying to fill up. It’s a good time to put out indie music because people are starved of good music.”