It is a universal fact that poetry is something that touches us. But sometimes, it becomes a little hard to understand the message the poem wants to convey. The Rickshaw Muse is a band that has a unique concept where they perform simple original poetry that is accompanied with western classical music. They are all set to perform at Lahe Lahe on March 2.
The Rickshaw Muse is made up of Pramod Shankar and sister — brother duo Maimoni Loreto Basumatary and Bar Hunka Leonard. Friends for along time, the trio came with idea for the band while jamming at home. Pramod shares, “We wanted to combine the two things that we love to do which is: poetry and music. The idea to start a band come out of an off-beat concept that we wanted to explore.”
Through this band, they wanted to take poetry to a larger audience. He adds, “All three of us love writing poetry. We wanted to take it out of books and make it an experience. We thought giving poetry the wings of music would be a effective thing as far as taking it more people is concerned. If you’re a listener, you don’t have to make a effort to understand the poetry we play. Poetry with western classical music connect with people on multiple levels and on a deeper level.”
A large part of the poetry that they write is on love. “One of our most successful acts is called Love Notes. We talk about the different aspects of love from passion, longing, separation, lust etc. But we also do poetry that people tend to call as dark poetry that addresses things like death, loss and moaning etc.We explore both the bright shiny things as well as the dark things,” he adds saying that that band admires the work of poets like Pablo Neruda, Leonard Cohen and many Indian poets as well.
On who they select the songs for the poems they write, Leo who plays the guitar in the band adds, “Music is selected based on the mood and content of the poem. If the poem is light, the music is lively and nice. And if the poem has dark tones, the music is usually somber.” The reaction that they have gotten he says was very uplifting. Pramod adds, “We are not a band that is appropriate for a huge audience. We have always had an intimate setting. We had a lot of laughter, some tears. We saw our expressions mirrored in the faces of people.”
On what one can expect from the their that is set to happen this weekend, he adds, “You can expect a warm and intimate evening. The poems are not hard to digest. You won’t have to try hard to understand the poetry. The poem accompanied with music will do the job.”
The band plans to records the poems and trying to build content where one can read, listen and watch them online.
