Mumbai-based musician Maqta on rediscovering his love for Hindi music and finding the right audience

Maqta released his latest EP ‘Kahin Tu Azaad Toh Nahin’ (right) on January 5. Photo Courtesy: Abhishek Gupta/Sarthak Karkare

Growing up, Mumbai-based musician Sarthak Karkare was surrounded by music all around him. In all these years, it has been a journey for the musician who goes by the name of his most recent project, Maqta. It is the result of him rediscovering his love for Hindi music, along the way, after playing English music for most part of his life. Today, he releases his latest EP ‘Kahin Tu Azaad Toh Nahin' with four melodious songs, months after he released his previous EP in September 2023 and a few singles before that.

The songs are ‘Woh Geet'. ‘Yaadon Ka Nishaan', ‘Kar Yakeen' and ‘Kahin Tu Azaad Toh Nahin' and ask the question, ‘what if you are really free but just don't know it yet?'. "There are a lot of cinematic and orchestral elements, which is very different from contemporary Bollywood music, but it is also different from independent Hindi music." The music to come out of Maqta, he says, is not just the singer-songwriter and guitar because it has all these other elements with instruments like harmonium and tabla, guitar and bass and drums.

Interestingly, to launch his latest release, the singer-songwriter and musician is hosting people on January 7 for a unique intimate experience with his Hindi music, for all those who would like to lend a ear and listen to him. While he has performed at a variety of venues in the last two years since he launched the project Maqta, Karkare believes his kind of music is not one for the popular venues in the city. He says it is simply because "this kind of music requires attentive listening" and that is how he performed at Sofar Sounds in Mumbai in November.

He shares, "Then I decided that I would just pack everything into car and go to homes and dipping into the network of hosts and reach people who haven't heard this but will potentially like listening to music in a very controlled setting where it is only 30 people at a time, so it is an exclusive setting." Karkare has only been doing house shows since March this year and In that time, he's performed at venues in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Goa and even Kolhapur, and has loved them for their intimacy.

Ever since, Karkare has gone to homes and played for audiences who have interacted with him. "It is extremely cathartic, a lot of them are crying and it is extremely intimate, and the house concert setting has enhanced that experience," adds the city musician who aims to use the medium to take his music to people in the near future.

The EP is an extension of his rediscovery of Hindi music through constant reading and writing. "When the pandemic struck, and put a pause to everything we were trying to do as a band, and we weren't able to meet. It was at this time, I started rediscovering my love for Hindi music because my mum's side of the family is from Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh," adds the city-based musician.

It was a change for him because he was always proficient in Hindi but English was always his medium of music. "It took me another two years to take it live because my writing was so sporadic and niche and I also didn't know how I wanted to go ahead with it. This was the first time I was writing entirely by myself." The pandemic was a resurgence in many ways for the city artist and he came out of it with the new project that he has been performing ever since, as he tells the story of his family and their roots.

In fact, Karkare gives credit to his family's contribution to his music, along with others musicians who have helped him create the music through the name Maqta, which is the name for the last couplet in a ghazal where the writer reveals their name. "The reason I named the project Maqta is because I don't like to associate my name to the music because I personally believe that any artist creates is generally bigger than who they are. Like for example, my brother contributes to sections on drums, there are other people who are putting it together, and they are all a part of Maqta, and that's why I don't like to put my name to it. In some sense, it has been all the music I have heard and all that my grandparents have given me and the language they have given me."