When Music Meets Monuments: Inkpot India's New Way of Experiencing Heritage

When Inkpot India was conceived as an idea, it had a straightforward premise: heritage becomes relevant when people participate in it. And today, it has created platforms across music, art, literature, design, fashion and heritage, with a focus on bringing contemporary audiences closer to India's cultural traditions.

Staying true to its premise, Inkpot India's latest initiative, 'Songs of the Stone' is placing contemporary artists inside India's historic monuments and allowing music, storytelling and architecture to meet in real time. The series began at the Qutub Minar, where its first two chapters brought together more than 850 attendees across two concerts. The inaugural edition featured sarangi virtuoso Mehtab Ali Niazi and welcomed more than 450 guests. The second featured Grammy Award-winning flautist Rakesh Chaurasia and his ensemble, with more than 400 attendees.

But what work and thoughts go behind executing such nuanced concepts? We sit with Inkpot India's founder Simar Malhotra to find out, as she explains the heart of her upcoming project: Dusk to Dawn,  a first for the series, stretching a single concert across an evening and a morning, and bringing music into conversation with craft, food and storytelling. 

What can a monument reveal through sound that it cannot through sight?

We tend to experience monuments through what we can see – the architecture, the carvings, the history that we’ve been told about them. But sound changes the relationship completely.

When music fills a historic space, you start experiencing the monument rather than simply looking at it. And I think there is something very special about hearing music in a space that has existed for centuries. For a moment, history doesn't feel quite so distant.

Sometimes music can also be the pull that brings people into monument spaces who may not otherwise be interested in visiting them. They come for the music, but hopefully leave having discovered the space as well.

Why does the same piece of music feel different at dusk than at dawn?

Because you are different at dusk than you are at dawn.

Dusk carries the energy of a day coming to an end – there is movement, conversation, anticipation. Dawn has a very different quality. There is a stillness to it, and perhaps a greater sense of intimacy.

The surroundings, the light, the temperature, even the people listening change the way we receive music. So the same song can become a completely different experience simply because of when and where you hear it.

Can heritage be experienced more deeply through listening than looking?

I don't think one is necessarily deeper than the other. But listening can make heritage feel more immersive.

When you're looking at a monument, you're observing it. When music is playing within it, you're inhabiting it. You become conscious of the space around you. And suddenly the monument is not just an object from the past; it becomes part of something happening in the present.

What happens when a historic space becomes part of the performance rather than its backdrop?

In a regular concert, the music and the artist are the heroes. But in a heritage space, the architecture and the venue are as much of a hero.

That's what makes these experiences so interesting. The monument isn't just providing a beautiful backdrop for the performance. It has its own presence, its own history and its own character, and that becomes part of what the audience is experiencing.

With Songs of the Stone, we aren't trying to put a concert in front of a monument. The idea is to create an experience where the music and the space belong to one another.

What is Inkpot India trying to change about the way we experience India’s heritage through contemporary culture?

I think we need to move from thinking about heritage only as something we protect to also thinking about it as something we participate in.

India has an extraordinary wealth of culture and heritage, but preservation ultimately comes from connection. If people feel connected to a monument, a tradition, a form of music or a story, they are far more likely to care about it.

That is what we are trying to do at Inkpot – create contemporary experiences around India's culture that allow people to encounter it in ways that feel relevant to their lives today.

For me, heritage should not feel like something that belongs only to the past. It should feel alive, accessible and ours.

And I think this is also India's soft power. Nations are built on stories, culture and a sense of identity. We are incredibly fortunate to have such extraordinary cultural wealth, we just need to start recognising its value, experiencing it, and sharing it with the world.