Double The Decibels

For someone who has been doing theatre since he was nine or 10 years old, Ritwik Bhowmik never thought his acting debut would be as a classical musician in a series about two dominant genres in the country. And that too with music by the famed trio, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy.

But the boy who tried to play the guitar before veering towards dance in school dived into the world of Hindustani classical music when he was cast in Bandish Bandits.

“Anand sir (Tiwari, creator of the show) said, ‘There’s no point in swimming in this world, you have to drown in it.’ Which is what I’ve done,” Ritwik tells us over a call.

Anand had different advice for debutante Shreya Chaudhry, the other half of the show.

“He told me, go live your childhood dream of being a popstar,” Shreya says. Having been on a healthy diet of Britney Spears and Sunidhi Chauhan’s music, both icons of confidence, Shreya was a tad better prepared for her role than Ritwik.

“Tamanna (my character) is self-assured and her eyes are fixed on her goal. Which is true about both Britney and Sunidhi,” Shreya says. “We attended a lot of music workshops before we started filming the show as I didn’t have any formal training to fall back on,” adds the Mumbai girl, who got an audition call after she met Anand at another production house.

Jokes apart

For Ritwik, it started off as a joke with a friend at a party. “She told me she was writing a show which was a musical and was set in Rajasthan. We laughed about how she could refer to me while writing about the character. Two years later, I got a call for an audition for a Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy musical series for Amazon Prime Video!” he recalls.

Playing Radhe didn’t come easy – everything was contradictory when it came to habits, type of families and ideologies. The key was to find common ground. “But I feel fortunate to get to play a character like Radhe, who’s so alien to me. It was exciting to be on stage and lip sync to music. And I learnt a new form of art,” observes Ritwik.

“And we got paid for it,” laughs Shreya, quickly sobering up to tell us that as they filmed, she found it difficult to agree with Tamanna’s decisions. “Then Anand told me I needed to be Tamanna’s best defence lawyer. I had to do it with utmost conviction. I listened and slowly found myself enjoying the role,” she adds. 

Classical calling

Shreya has her mother to thank for making her listen to Kaushiki Chakraborty’s music. “Music uplifts my mood. But it’s only now that I realise what goes into making music from scratch,” Shreya reasons. So music as a career? “I love acting a little too much. But you should never say never!” she laughs, as Ritwik, a Sonu Nigam, Jagjit Singh and Divine fan, chimes in with, “I’m not sure I can build a career in it, though.”

Both agree that the show hopes to revive and reflect the increasing popularity of classical music among youngsters. “That’s one of the main motives of this show. One thing I want to do through Radhe is to help the youth to find adulation for classical music,” Ritwik adds. 

“And classical music evokes so many emotions. So there’s a song for everyone,” says Shreya.

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From HT Brunch, August 23, 2020

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