Tajdar Junaid on why making music—for concerts or Oscar-bound films—is about marrying minds

The multi-instrumentalist and producer has completed a decade in music, but refuses to let his success weigh him down

It’s been less than a year since Coke Studio India—the popular live music show broadcast on MTV, now rebranded as Coke Studio Bharat—made a comeback, after what fans said was a wait that was eight years too long. Among the much anticipated and celebrated line-up of 10 original songs—curated by singer-songwriter Ankur Tewari—Das Main Ki Pyaar Vichon Khatteya continues to rake in an audience, with 6.9 million views on YouTube since its release in May. Performed by artistes Amira Gill, Deveshi Sahgal and Kanwal Grewal, the song has been composed by Tajdar Junaid, who has only just officially completed a decade in the industry.

The 42-year-old multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter and producer hails from Kolkata, a city in which he still has a foot, while the other rests in Mumbai, where he is often found by the beach, soaking in the sun or reading a book, as new music forms in his head. There’s nothing the artiste hasn’t done in his realm, ever since he first heard Led Zeppelin’s No Quarter as a class-seven kid. “I very vividly remember—my cousin who had come from America brought the Houses of the Holy album cassette with her, and I was immediately baptised,” says Junaid. Thereafter, “much like the story goes for thousands of other musicians,” Junaid, too, picked up his first instrument—a guitar—to be able to play Stairway to Heaven.

In his debut album What Colour is Your Raindrop (2013), Junaid single-handedly played five instruments—the guitar, ukulele, charango, mandolin and glockenspiel—besides featuring 18 artists along with his own voice in some tracks. It earned him a spot on the coveted Rolling Stones magazine’s list of the top 10 albums of the year. Less than a year later, his album song Dastaan was featured in the film The President (2014), directed by Iranian auteur Mohsen Makhmalbāf, an influential figure in the country’s new wave movement in cinema. Junaid’s debut music even stirred director Jeffrey D. Brown, who featured songs from the maiden album in his feature drama Sold (2014), executive produced by Emma Thompson, and starring David Arquette, Gillian Anderson, Tillotama Shome and Parambrata Chattopadhyay. In common parlance, one would say the artist had “arrived.”

On not carrying the weight of success

However, such success, especially in the incipient years of one’s career, could encourage a sense of complacency that Junaid refused to succumb to. Instead, he wore his milestones lightly so as not to get weighed down by them. “I think I am more bothered about being in harmony with my instrument than I am about recognition,” he says. “If that happens, I will be able to make music. And if I can make music that way, I think I will be able to move someone, and that is when I know I am doing what I want to do,” he further explains.

One would imagine that success can be definitively quantified with the number of  awards, titles, magazine covers or these days, even YouTube views. Junaid’s definition, however, rests on a quieter note, much like his music. He remembers every time someone slipped him a message that said his songs helped them deal with anxiety, or the death of a loved one. It’s a measure that is intensely personal and perceptive. “It baffles me to think that what I created while sitting in my bedroom has made someone remember a person they missed, while in a remote corner that I have never heard of, and may never even visit,” the artiste says with a hint of wonder in his voice.

Junaid’s oeuvre is a much too accurate representation of his creative influences that never fail to marry Western and Indian strains of the various instruments he has picked up through the years—over eight, he counts, almost entirely sure that he might have missed a few. Junaid arranges his music in layers, with each component adding a texture that isn’t replaceable by another—a skill he heavily attributes to his mentor—veteran guitarist Amyt Datta from Kolkata—who performed with Shiva, which was among India’s foremost rock bands, founded in Kolkata (then Calcutta) in the 1980s.

“I went to him [Datta] after playing the guitar for two years on my own, and realised there is just so much to learn and absorb from just one instrument,” he says, adding that besides the guitar, he has taught himself to play almost every other instrument he knows.

Building community through collaboration

There’s a generosity in Junaid’s craft that widens the horizons not just for him, but others too. His projects are almost always collaborative; whether in a concert or in a studio, Junaid’s art is akin to an exercise in building communities. It enhances his music, he claims, and the key to doing that is to really care about his collaborators, of whom he has had many. From Karsh Kale, Swanand Kirkire, Warren Mendonsa’s Blackstratblues, to English jazz band Acoustic Alchemy’s Fred White, folk singers Moushumi Bhowmik and Anusheh Anadil, to name just a few—Junaid wants to know everything about them, and then some more.

“I am a curious person at heart, so when I was doing Coke Studio with Kanwal Grewal, who is from Punjab, I wanted to know what he thought about the farmers’ protests. I want to know how Moushumi di bakes her brownies. I need to know what colours my collaborators like—it’s a way of getting into their minds so I can play better with them,” he says about his process, while underlining the word “support” repeatedly. “I have to be supportive of my collaborators,” adds Junaid, “instead of worrying about hitting the right notes. That’s why we use the word ‘play’ with music, because we are playing with each other while performing together.”

The music Junaid makes with fellow musicians is drawn from the films they watch and the food they eat; the books they read and the philosophies they subscribe to, all of which is imperative for him to learn about to whet his own craft.

Why films open a unique door

For Junaid, the method is similar when journeying into the minds of filmmakers, of which his latest laurel has been scoring the music for the Oscar-nominated film Writing With Fire (2021), directed by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh. In the past, Junaid has worked with the likes of the late Rituparno Ghosh, Aparna Sen and Anurag Kashyap Productions. He even bagged a Filmfare nomination for best background score for Mukti Bhawan (2018), the National Award-winning film by Shubhashish Bhutiani.

Cinema, however, opens a different door for Junaid. “It helps me tap into a side that I can’t during concerts,” he explains. “It’s a vis-a-vis situation. When I am performing in a live concert, I can’t tap into the side where I can respond to a scene while composing. Both have their own merits, so while I am composing for films, I put myself in the shoes of an instrument and imagine how the instrument might be thinking.”

When he worked with Achal Mishra for the film Dhuin (2022), Junaid picked up the cello, an instrument he can’t play. He wondered how a cellist would think. “I sang the parts of the cello in order to respond to that scene where the instrument was used. So for me, the thrill was in getting inside the head of a cellist, and also observing how the character on the screen resonates with the cello,” he elaborates.

He has also been mentoring promising names in the field for years now, among which are Ronodeep Bose of the band Ganesh Talkies, and Nishchay Parekh of Parekh & Singh. Currently, he’s a visiting faculty for music at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, as well.

However, what’s keeping Junaid on his toes right now is his next studio album to mark a decade in music, slated to release in the middle of 2024. “Expect more honest music,” he says, the kind someone would return to in their most vulnerable moments, sitting in a remote corner of the world that Junaid has never heard of, or may never even visit.

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