Dressed in similar outfits, Assamese sisters Ankita and Antara Nandy strum the ukulele as they render the 2017- hit Malayalam song ‘Jimikki Kammal’ from the balcony of their home in Pune. The video, which was uploaded on Facebook two days ago, has received over a million views thus far.
‘Balcony Concert’ is a project they embarked on to entertain their viewers and fans during the lockdown. According to the sisters, they were planning to visit Assam for Bihu. “But, unfortunately, we had to cancel our plans due to the Coronavirus outbreak. As we were feeling low about not being able to partake in the festivities, we decided to lift our spirits by holding a concert on our balcony. We sang ‘Phul Phulise’, an Assamese song. We had ukuleles in our hands and wore blue and black traditional mekhala chadors. When we watched the video later, we decided to upload it on social media. It crossed 3.4 million views on the very first day of its release on April 14,” says Antara.
The sisters went on to shoot songs in Bengali, Marathi, Hindi and, now, Malayalam on their balcony. “We have a few Malayali fans following us diligently on our social media pages and we wanted to do something to express our love and gratitude towards them. As ‘Jimikki Kammal’ is a popular song and we enjoy the catchy beat, we decided to pick that song. We had a few of our Malayali friends helping us with our pronunciation. Although we could have worked on it a little bit more, we didn’t want to keep bugging our friends. We have added a message in Malayalam asking our audience to forgive us if we have made any mistake. So far, we have been receiving positive comments for the video. We feel honoured that Shaan Rahman, the composer of the song, has shared the video on his Facebook page. We hope to render songs in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bhojpuri and Oriya too.”
Ankita Nandy and Antara Nandy | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
According to Ankita, some of their songs have percussive ukulele playing. “For instance, ‘Asom Deso Bagisare’, a Bihu song. Bihu music is heavy on rhythm. You have instruments like dhol, gogona, pepa... To bring the same flavour, but using just the ukulele, was a challenge. We decided that strumming the chords wasn’t enough, we had to incorporate beats and that could only happen if we played percussive ukulele, in which you play the melody section along with the beats, on the instrument. Likewise, ‘Jimikki Kammal’ is a rhythm-heavy song. However, we realised that just playing percussive ukulele wouldn’t be enough to bring out the feel of the track. We needed a lot more energy, rhythm, and beats to come in. And so when one of us played the chords, the other would use the ukulele like a cajon, just playing the beats. We would then keep reversing the roles,” says Antara.
The videos have been shot by their mother, Jui Nandy. “Apart from directing our videos, ma is our stylist. She is the one who comes up with ideas for our projects. Our father, Animesh Nandy, is our pillar of support too. He helps set up the balcony,” says Ankita.
A Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Li’l Champs-2009 finalist, Antara, who has trained under various gurus, has rendered AR Rahman’s single ‘Nis Din’ with Jonita Gandhi. “Rahman sir is my God of music,” says Antara, who has accompanied the maestro in a few shows. Ankita, who has completed her class 12, has lent her voice for title tracks of various television serials. The sisters have undergone training in Western classical vocals at KM Music Conservatory, Chennai.
Says Antara, who has just completed an undergraduate course in Mass Communication: “As both of us have been busy with our studies, we haven’t been able to create music videos together for quite some time now. The lockdown has been a blessing of sorts as we have been able to catch up and work on music. ‘Maa’, a song we composed for Mother’s Day, is one such piece. We hope to come out with more original scores soon.”
The Nandy Sisters have produced a number of videos using cups, chopsticks, tables... as percussion instruments. “We have also used body percussion. We wanted to spread the word that one could create music from just about anything and everything,” says Ankita. They started making music videos in 2016 and among those that have gone viral are ‘Pinga’ (with cups), ‘Humma Humma’ (table and claps) and ‘Piya Tose Naina Lage Re’ (cups and chopsticks).