Four sonorous Kakar women have gotten together to release a song about mothers and daughters for Women’s Day
(From left) Prakriti, Nirmal, Akriti and Sukriti Kakar
That my mom is singing with me, on a track I have composed, is a sign that I have come full circle,” says Akriti Kakar of her song Mawaan Te Dhiyaan, which means “mothers and daughters” in Punjabi. “She is the source of music in our life, and this was my way of giving something in return.”
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Kakar, most known for her song Saturday Saturday from Humpty Sharma ki Dulhania, is joined by mom Nirmal, and twin sisters Sukriti (think Kar Gayi Chul from Kapoor & Sons) and Prakriti (who sang Katra Katra from Alone), for our chat. “It’s been too long coming,” says Akriti. “Every time we decided to do something, we would ask, ‘Is this the right zone? ‘Is this the one we want to do?’ We would talk about it so much that it wouldn’t happen. But then I did Big Band Theory season 1, which had only covers, and it did well. So we decided to do season two, which is a Punjabi compilation of six songs keeping folk music as the base. And finally it has happened! My mom had to be a part of this!”
It hasn’t been easy for the Kakar sisters to sing their tunes. That they were outsiders, who landed in Mumbai 15 years ago from Delhi, didn’t help. Nirmal was a music teacher in a school in the capital, and their father had a manufacturing business. But the girls were always meant to sing, even if it took a bit of time to get there. “Akriti has been performing since she was four,” says Nirmal. “Every night, after dinner, she was made to sit down and play the harmonium. That was her thing.” The twins, almost nine years younger than their sister, were told to concentrate on other ambitions such as being a pilot. “I think that was because my mom had seen the hard work, and the struggle that goes into it with me,” says Akriti, “We used to go meet people all the time, trying to squeeze through any opening—it was hard.” Once they shifted to Mumbai, it was pretty clear that the twins would also become singers.
By then, Akriti had already moved to the city with her father to give professional singing a shot. “People back home in Delhi were shocked,” she says. “They told my father that I can sing on the side. There was no need to pack up his business and move!” “Music was never seen as a serious job!” laughs Nirmal.
Soon the twins followed, and there has been no looking back. The girls remember the culture shock—one that included not having even a balcony in their tiny Mumbai house. But small inconveniences are part of the package when pursuing a larger dream. “At one point, we thought this may not work out for us,” says Sukriti, “only because the kind of voices that Bollywood was using were very traditional. Both Prakriti and I have different textures.” Prakriti nods and adds, “The industry used to like high-pitched, thin, feminine sounding voices, but that’s changing. Today, there are different genres, and different kinds of audiences.” However, they are also realistic enough to know that they are only as good as their next song. As Sukriti says, “Everyone is a singer now. It’s very cutthroat, and we still don’t know if the next song will be accepted, but we keep trying.”
For now, they are getting ready to launch Mawaan Te Dhiyaan on March 10. The song, written by Gurpreet Saini and composed by Akriti, is about the love between mothers and daughters. All future plans involve ensuring this song reaches as many people as it can. As Prakriti sings off, “It’s finally happened, so we are grateful for that. But yes, from now on, maybe many more songs!”
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