Tushar Lall is a music composer/producer from Mumbai, who is attempting to knit Indian Classical Textures with Western Classical Orchestration through his original music. The centralized disposition of Indian Classical compositions weaved with artifacts of western classical music unlocks new possibilities on how we see the collision of cultures.
Tushar believes that every song should be looked at like a background score since it helps you dive a little deeper and highlights the equalizing power of all elements within a piece of art. Tushar’s vision is to develop a palette where the difference between the two cultures can’t be made out while they merge seamlessly into one another. He has collaborated with Hansika Pareek on the track “Bano” and that’s what we are reviewing here.
Bano, is a song that has been approached like a film score. The score encapsulates the innocence of a child and the grief of the parent who lost them. It is inspired by the case of Asifa Bano – a child of a nomadic community, who was abducted, physically abused, and killed by eight men. The motive of this horrific crime was communal, a monstrosity much bigger than her little mind could comprehend.
The score is sung from her mother’s perspective and depicts a slice of time from the day of the incident; the day she went out looking for her horses and never came back. The score unfolds as they follow Asifa walking through the mountains. The tone of the video continues to darken as the hour of dread approaches and the point of view is that of a predator on the prowl. The video ends with a last shot that is a cinematic parallel to the trauma the tragedy symbolizes.
“Bano” isn’t just a beautifully written score. It’s mystical, expansive and full of the miniature drama that separates great ambient music from the rest. Hansika Pareek mines through the depth of her soul and regales us with a vocal performance that is extremely scintillating. “Bano” isn’t just a piece of music that is content with being ethereal and space-y, it is meant to narrate the horror of a gruesome incident that took place in the unmapped terrain of a cruel, windswept world. May we never forget the terror, lest we let it repeat itself.
Verdict: Haunting.
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