A Musical For Our Times

Eight years in development, #SingIndiaSing, Rahul Dacunhas ambitious new musical which opens in Mumbai this month promises to be a spectacle: reality TV story, 29 songs, energetic dancing, live singing by the city's biggest rockers, audience interactivity

- Amit Gurbaxani

Mumbai vocalist Siddharth Basrur is looking me straight in the eye. There’s anguish and desperation in his voice. 'How do I win the race' he asks repeatedly. Or rather sings. You’ve won it in my book, I think.

We’re inside Sitara Studio in central Mumbai, and I’m the only non-cast or crew member at a run through of #SingIndiaSing, a new musical conceived and written by the veteran director and playwright Rahul DaCunha with adman and actor ‘Bugs’ Bhargava Krishna and directed by Nadir Khan. The fourth and final production in Aadyam’s 2018 season of plays, it will premiere this month at Mumbai’s National Centre For the Performing Arts.

Basrur and company have been rehearsing for months, and it shows. We could very well be at one of his gigs, watching any of his several bands over the years, the most recent of which is Runt.

However, he’s not Siddharth Basrur right now. He’s rocker Vishnu Saigal, one of the four contestants vying to win the reality show Sing India Sing. “If you’ve seen me perform, I usually shut my eyes when I’m singing, and I tend to move around a lot,” he said. “But as Vishnu, I’m more rooted, and my eyes are always locking with someone else’s.

It’s given me much confidence.”

Vishnu’s competition is Carnatic classical-trained rapper Jazzy aka Jayashankar Iyer, played by theatre actor and director Tavish Bhattacharyya; former bar dancer Kitty, portrayed by singer Kamakshi Rai; and mysterious masked girl Shweta played by vocalist Sarosh Nanavaty. Rai and Nanavaty, incidentally, were both contestants on different seasons of English reality TV singing talent series The Stage.