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1. Hi Shivani, welcome to VENTS! How have you been?
Good! Excited about my new single and all that’s coming 🙂
2. Your new single “Our Memories” has this incredibly intimate feel—what was going through your mind during that night when the song first came to life in your childhood bedroom?
I had just arrived in India after being away for 2 years and was seeing my city, my friends, and my parents for the first time in over 600 days. Lotas had changed, and I was just trying to process everything and situate myself in all of this while realising that the city and my friends and family were living their life an grooving and evolving without me. It was a new feeling. I remember writing this on my keyboard in my room while my parents were asleep in the next room, almost as if I wanted to say all of this to them but couldn’t, so I wrote it in song.
3. The song explores the emotional disorientation of returning home after time away—how did that experience reshape your sense of identity?
I think I realised that when you decide to leave home and move away, in your mind, time stands still and everyone you leave behind stays the same, almost like freezing things in memory. Its only when you come back you realise that’s not the case. There is a surrender which follows when you almost agree to let life move forward in its own way around the things and places and people you love, and you have to try and adjust to this new normal.
If anything, this experience solidified my sense of identity and belonging with home even more, and has inspired my writing from this new place of belongingness.
4. There’s a delicate balance between nostalgia and loss in the track—was it difficult to confront those feelings so directly in your songwriting?
It was difficult but it was also really cathartic! The song put the feelings into words and melody for me and that made everything a lot easier and gave all my confusion a voice
5. You blend Hindustani classical elements with indie pop—how do you approach merging those two worlds while staying authentic to both?
I don’t think I think about staying authentic particularly. Everything I make will come from an authentic place because that’s just how I create from memory, inspiration and training and being inspired by what I love and what moves me. I’ve spent so long in training, 22 years and more and also grown up listening to so much pop and indie from the West that all these sounds blend and merge as one in my mind. From this blended place,e all the music I make is created. It’s never a conscious decision to blend 2 genres. They are already merged when I hear and process music.
6. The idea of “belonging” is central to this release—do you feel more connected to London, New Delhi, or somewhere in between?
New Delhi definitely. I live in London and I am grateful for my life here but I will always have a connection to the city that raised me
7. You’ve described the song as a love letter to your family—have they heard it yet, and what was their reaction?
Yes they have and they loved it!
8. Your work spans music, poetry, and composition—how do those different creative outlets inform and influence each other?
My last track Ghar Se was a blend of all these elements. Ultimately its all truly just art and we’ve given it all these different names, but when I create, they’re all just one giant pot of inspiration from which my work flows and takes different forms.
9. You’ve performed at major venues like the Southbank Centre—how does performing live compare to creating something so personal in a private space?
I find that the best work I make has often been live. There is something about the intimacy of performing and the inspiration of the moment that a track can’t hold. The style of indian classical I am trained in also completely relies on melodic improvisations, so live is where I can showcase that best. Still, there’s something about going into the studio and immortalising your sound that is unparalleled.
10. With “Our Memories” marking such a reflective moment in your journey, what direction do you see your music taking next?
I am keen to delve more into Indian classical, almost flip my format and go very heavy on the Hindustani sound and very few elements of pop and indie. I recently did such a track, which was Highly Commended shortlisted, and played by BBC Radio 3 Tune Into Music Nature Prize, so I am taking that as a good sign!
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