An Intimate Musical Evening With Vishal Bhardwaj
Over forty-something years ago, a prominent 19th-century textile factory in Colaba caught fire leaving behind ruins that still haunt of a past lost. At the very Mukesh Mills, as if calling the ghosts of memory and its traditions, filmmaker and composer Vishal Bhardwaj sat among a small gathering of old schoolers to spend an evening of mehfil singing and sharing anecdotes.
They say certain stories cannot travel across distances. They must be shared within a room where artist and listener become a collective. At IBTIDA- Ek Mehfil's third season of the cultural format Archival, the 60-year-old filmmaker transfixed everyone closely listening to him and his band of tabla player, guitarist, sitarist and flutist sat only a few feet away from the audience at the baithak to transport everyone into a time that was once a mainstream way of consuming music.
With the soft glow of lamps flickering against worn walls and scent of jasmine and ittr lingering in the air, the intimate
musical evening with Bhardwaj curated an experience that saw an exchange of stories, of silences, of shared emotion. Songs including Paani Paani re and Chappa Chappa from the film Maachis, Dil to Baccha Hai from Ishqiya, Ool Jalool Ishq from Gustaakh Ishq and more made the ruins at Mukesh Mills porous and like qissa that are as much remembered as shared.
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What IBTIDA is building through Archival feels almost like resistance in an age of excess—an insistence that not everything needs amplification, that some experiences deepen in quiet. As co-founder Anubhav Jain reflects, “India is remembering itself.”
"We spent a decade chasing everything external — the festival, the international act. And somewhere in that pursuit, we forgot that we were sitting on the most extraordinary cultural archive in the world," he adds.
And perhaps that is what lingered most as the evening progressed. It was as much about listening to Bhardwaj and the band bring the much loved compositions close to the audiences and the anecdotes attached to it as the feeling of having been part of something that is culturally timeless and shared. Away from the modern bustle of life. A space where strangers arrive as individuals, melodies and Qissa intertwined and leave as bridges connecting the lost traditions to the present.