Editor : Few bands in India have managed to weave together poetry, politics, playfulness, and purpose quite like Swarathma. For over 15 years, they’ve stood out not just for their sound but for their soul. In a landscape where independent music often struggles for space, Swarathma has remained true to their ethos, creating songs that speak to rivers and revolutions as easily as they do to heartbreak and hope.

In this conversation with Vasu Dixit, frontman and co-founder of Swarathma, we journey through the band’s beginnings in a Mysore college corridor, their collective creative struggles and sparks, the inspiration behind some of their most powerful songs, and their continuing push towards sustainability in live performance. What emerges is a portrait of artists deeply rooted in their soil, yet always reaching outward to connect with the world.

Segment 1: Roots, Beginnings & Language

1.Swarathma has always stood out for its rootedness. Could you share how the band came together and what space you were in, personally and musically, at that time?

‘Swar’ means ‘the note’, and ‘Athma’ means ‘the soul’. So it means the soul of the note or the note of the soul. The band was started in 2002 with me and two other friends of mine from Mysore. Abhinand Kumar and Pawan Kumar. Both of them are musically inclined, and we were just jamming as young college-going kids.

Abhinand was from a different college, and we met through musically inclined common friends. And that’s how we started jamming. In one of the shows that we were playing, I played some of my original stuff after the show. Anand really liked it and said, ‘Why are we playing other cover songs when you are very good with your songs?’ That’s how we started playing.

I was personally and musically very juvenile at that time and was doing it for the fun of it. And we were not thinking like, ‘Someday we will be a professional’ or anything close to that. So we were just having fun, and slowly I met some other musicians through common friends. They were inclined towards making original music. That’s how we started, like a small-time band in Mysore. Then I went to NID for a couple of years to study, and I came back. By that time, many of my friends had finished their education and started working.

So to take the band to the next level of semi-professional or even professional was really not in the scope of things. So we looked for other musicians, and then they joined in. Around 2008 is when we made it a little more serious. In 2009 we became like a professional band, and from then on, it’s been like that. I used to work in a production house as an assistant film director, and once the band took a little serious shape, I thought I should take a chance that it deserves.

So that’s when I quit the job. And since 2009 we’ve been doing this. A few members have changed, especially the drummer. We had a drummer for quite a long time, and once he quit, we played with many other drummers on and off. Now it’s been like three years, and we have a drummer who is there. But not a member of the band. The rest of the four members are permanent members.

2. What keeps you together as a band after all these years, what’s the glue?

Music first. Music is what keeps this band going. We all believe in the music that we do. Because as creative people there will be differences. There are things that we like and don’t like about each other musically also. It’s not always that we all like each other’s musical tastes. And that’s what brings out the best in each one. Each one’s different taste comes in together, and that’s what makes it the Swarathma music. We have respected and understood that there will be differences. But for the creative process of the band, it is also very important for each of us to challenge. The baseline is that music is what keeps us going.

3. Have you ever faced a language barrier, in reaching audiences who don’t understand all of your lyrics? How do you work with or around that barrier?

Not always. We have people who do not understand Kannada and Hindi. But still we try to explain what the meaning of the song is, and we all know that music is beyond all languages. It’s a universal language. People connect to it, and of course if you know the language, you get into the depth of the lyrics, and then you get closer to the song. But I would say only a very small percentage of people who are really stuck and very conventional are like, “Oh, you have to sing in our language, and it’s only then we will like your music,” and stuff like that.

But that’s just a small group of people, and as musicians we don’t really believe so. We also try to experiment with different languages. We’ve been working on some songs in Tamil; we are also looking at songs in Malayalam. I personally, with my collective, sing songs in different languages. For me it doesn’t matter. Of course, when I sing in Kannada, that’s where I find myself the truest. That doesn’t mean that when I sing Hindi or Malvi, I don’t connect to it. For me, I connect to the music first. And language becomes a medium to convey the message.

Segment 2: Creative Process & Meaningful Messages

4. When you write lyrics, how do you balance personal stories vs social or political messages? What triggers a song to be more introspective vs outward-looking?

As artists, we are very sensitive and vulnerable towards the things that are happening around us. So if you do not let that affect you, it will not reflect in your work. And if it doesn’t affect you and then you try to portray it, it will look fake. And the audience is sharp enough to catch that. Only if you are truly inspired and truly connected to the subject matter, let’s say, for example, if it’s about a war that’s happening across the world.

If you are not affected, if you think that war is happening somewhere outside my country, outside my house, it doesn’t really matter; it will not affect you. Only on a humanity level if you look at it, and if it affects you, it will reflect in the work too. So, it is not outward-inward; whatever happens outside, if it affects you, then everything is actually outward only.

Nothing is inward; it is only when you imbibe it and then let that affect you. Like, for example, if there is a breakup, so many people write breakup songs, but only a few really feel true about it. And because the person who has created it would have felt that, even if that is not something that he has gone through. But again, a breakup actually happens outside; you let it affect you, right? If there is a breakup, you are letting it affect you; that is why you are able to create music out of it.

Similarly, let’s say it is about politics or about nature; if it is affecting you inside, that is when you are able to connect it in the work that you do. So what triggers it is when you start breaking down that wall, so even for whatever emotion is happening within you, for that to come out of the wall from within you also. So it is, first, to be able to open up yourself to things that are happening outside you, and then you let that inside you and express that through the work that you do.

5. How do you name your tracks? Are names part of the message, or more about aesthetics / feel / symbolism?

It is a bit of both. For example, we have a song, and it’s not always that the title of the song is the first word of the song. Like, for example, we have a song called ‘Topiwalleh’, which is about a politician and the political system of the country. The song doesn’t start with the word ‘Topiwalleh’. It’s actually “sir pe haath daale, khaali pet maare, topiwalleh”. That’s when it comes into the songs. The main theme of the song becomes the name of the song.

We have a song called ‘Pyaasi’ about the river Kaveri. It starts with “Pyaasi hoon main tumko pilaake”; that’s why we thought we would name it Pyaasi. Many people call it that ‘Nadi song, Nadi song’. So for people who do not know how we name what we name, we can’t keep correcting. I think naming a song comes more with an organic and a natural process after we make this song.

 6. Which Swarathma album do you feel is underrated? Why do you think that is?

We have released four albums. And each one is underrated. Because we are not a mainstream band, and I don’t know what is underrated and what is overrated. We are an Indie band who don’t try to cater to the audience or what they like or listen to. So there are only a few people that are musically inclined and into the subject matter that we talk about. So only those audiences listen to us. As it is, we have a very niche audience who listen to us. So if you think our music is underrated, it is because we don’t cater to the mass. I think that’s about it.

So liking and disliking is something subjective. You cant cater it to everyone you can just be real towards yourself. 

I am doing this interview now after being 15 years in the band. So maybe there can be at least ten or fifteen people who might get to know about the band through this interview. So it’s okay; we are not worried that they should be top stars and become famous overnight. It’s okay.

Segment 3: Individual & Album Perspectives

7. What are the major inspirations behind your music?

From outside and from inside, like I said in the earlier question that you asked about how you balance personal stories and social messages, it’s the same. We are both inside and outside. The things that are happening around us can affect the inside. We don’t get too personal about our songs. And that’s why we hardly have any love songs. We don’t have, like, rosey love songs. We talk about love in a universal sense, like, for example, when we spoke about when the whole covid happened and people were finding the times very difficult, we came up with this song called ‘Mushkil Mein Jeena’, which is to remember to live in spite of all the difficulties.

So things that are happening around us are the inspiration. I am not saying it’s only about things that are happening wrong. Even things that are good, like, for example, there is this song called ‘Ee Bhoomi’ that we have. Which actually talks about the world becoming a better place. Like the earth becoming a paradise. So, we also get inspired by the positiveness that is happening around us. So yeah, it’s not always that we look for things that are going wrong and then take inspiration from them.

8. Among all the songs you’ve made, which are your personal favourites (from band members), and which ones are emotionally hardest or most meaningful for you to perform?

There are quite a few. I mean, it’s very difficult to say which is my personal favourite because it’s like asking a mother who is your favourite child if she has like four or five children. Everyone is the same. So similarly for us it’s the same, but just to, you know, kind of put it across, like right now, like I said, ‘Mushkil maein jeena’ is something that I personally really like. I like ‘Pyaasi’ also because it is the story of where I come from, the river Kaveri.

I come from Mysore, and it is something I have always been surrounded with, and I have always been blessed to be around nature in abundance. So when there is a problem around it, I just feel I should do that, and also with my collective I have written a song called ‘Mysuru’, which is actually telling Mysore to not change. So yeah, there are quite a few that are my favourites and also meaningful for me personally. And every time I sing, I also do mean whatever I sing.

9. Could you tell us about Pyaasi — its origin story, how it came together, what makes it special for you?

So I was travelling on the train from Bangalore to Mysore, and there was a conversation between an old lady and a young group of men who were from an agricultural background, and they were talking about why we should not…this was at the time when the Kaveri conflict was at its peak. Like the governments are fighting, people are actually rioting, and then people are fighting about who should have how much water and all that.

So the young people were like, ‘We should have water for ourselves.’ The old lady was like, ‘But the water is mother.’ You should never stop her; she should flow and all of that. So the discussion went on for a while, and then she was getting down. She said, ‘You know what, you keep fighting about it, but can you for a minute think about what a river…what the mother river is thinking?’ What she is feeling while her children are fighting about her.

So that very thought from that old lady gave the idea for this song. And in fact, just as I got down from the train, I had these two lines ready, which go like, “Pyaasi hoon mein tumko pila ke thak gayi hoon modon pe ruk ke, Ashk toh behne do paani hoon paani rehne do.” I have jammed with another friend of mine from NID, one of my seniors, Sithesh Kevalya. He is a film director now, and I jammed with him, and I said, “Why don’t you help me write?” so that’s how he came up with the next two lines, which are “Ashk toh behne do paani hoon paani rehne do.” So that is the thought.

Because, like I said, I come from the land of Kaveri and where Kaveri flows. From childhood, we had gone to lakes and the temples where the river flows, and so for us nature is mother, and if you look at any Mysorian, they are always like, very relaxed and very chill. We feel that there are so many things in abundance, and time is also going slow. People have a slow life; people are relaxed and not in a hurry to achieve, to do, or to compete, unlike any urban town or urban city. So people are very chilled out.

That’s how we are, and we think, ‘Why are people even fighting about it when there is so much in abundance?’ So that was the thought I came from, and then I couldn’t see that people are actually making it a big issue while nature is in abundance. And I feel this even in the second line of the song “Thak gayi hoon Modon pe ruk ke”, which actually means how we change the course of the river by building dams and building canals. I know it is all made for whatever agriculture; we need it for power and all that. But we have to flow with the way nature flows and try to modulate her, and that’s when nature also starts showing its power.

So I think it’s not just about the river, but it’s also about nature itself, and what we keep forgetting is that we are separate from nature. We forget that we are nature. There is another song in my collective that I sing. It’s a poem written by Mamta Sagar, and it’s called “Nadiyolage”, which means “inside the river”. In that song we talk about how we are connected to nature and how we are part of nature. It questions how we are. Are we part of nature, or is nature part of us? What is it… kind of a thing? So, I always believe that I am nature, and nature is inside me. So this ‘Pyaasi’ is just an expression through the story of the mother river.

Segment 4: Vasu Dixit Collective

10. For Vasu, how has the journey with Vasu Dixit Collective influenced what you do with Swarathma? Do experiments or ideas sometimes begin in the collective and then migrate to the band (or vice versa)?

It’s a bit of both. Whatever experience I have had with Swarathma, some things I try to bring that into VDC. Some things that I am unable to explore in Swarathma. Like, for example, there is a very high spiritual side that I have on my personal level. That is something that I can’t impose on the band because spirituality is a very personal journey. When I say spiritual, I am not talking about religion at all. Though in my collective I do sing songs of Purandara Dasa, Kanaka Dasa and Kabir and all of them. But I don’t really believe in the religious sides of whatever they sing. Even in Purandara Dasa, whateverhe says, I try to take the socially and politically inclined songs that he has written.

But the spiritual part of it is what I wanted to explore for my own self, and I had these songs, and I have been listening to Prahlad Panya Ji, Mooralala, Kalu Ram and all these people who have inspired me, and I feel there are so many songs, even Kumar Gandharva songs of Kabir. These are songs that I have been inspired by, but these are not the songs I would probably explore it with Swarathma because it’s a very personal side for me. And that I had to bring them out in some form or the other, and that’s actually how my collective started. In fact, one of my friends, he wanted to have a remembrance, you know, a gathering for her husband who passed away.

And she said, ‘Can you sing some songs which are of that name and of a spiritual nature?’ And that’s how I kind of dug into my own old songs and songs that I have been inspired by and touched by. And I started; I did one show for her, and that’s how I thought, ‘Hey, there are so many songs that I have which I have not explored.’ And that’s how the Vasu Dixit Collective started. and I specifically named it as Vasu Dixit Collective; I already have a band as a band name.

Then again, I don’t want to have a band name but to keep it more flexible and open, where maybe Today I will play with three musicians; tomorrow I might play with six musicians. Maybe another time I might play with twenty musicians, so keeping it open and flexible for me also to explore, like right now, I am exploring with electronic music in my collective, and also there are a lot of organic musicians who have also joined in.

We have a violinist, we have a saxophone player, and we have a mandolin player. For a long time I used to have a harmonium player, so I keep changing; I keep exploring for my own evolution as a musician. So a bit of what I learnt from Swarathma I bring into VDC. There are bits that I learnt while I was with VDC that I bring into Swarathma because, I mean, at the end of the day, I am a performer, and I need to keep evolving. So it doesn’t matter where the learning comes from.

11. How do you keep your creative spark alive outside of Swarathma? Name them.

I think, I mean, for me, creativity is not just in music; it is in everyday life. You know creativity is also about how differently or what new dish can I make, or how differently can I plan my day today to creatively make it interesting for myself. Can I commute better? How do I commute differently today? How do I comment creatively? Even just gardening is a creative process. So there is inspiration in everything that I do. I like doodling sometimes. That’s an inspiration. So there is inspiration coming from every day. Like, I also do one series of things which is called ‘Untitled’ and put those things on my Facebook and Instagram, which is like when you are sitting in the bathroom and you see the tiles and there are different patterns. Then I start seeing images, and I start seeing stuff there.

I have a bunch of marker pens in my bathroom also. Whenever I come up with something, I draw it on the tiles, you know. So inspiration is not just when you hold the instrument or when you are singing or making music. In fact, it is actually the other things that help my music to keep the creativity going and keep it fresh. So it’s not always that only when you sit with an instrument that’s when you compose. Composition happens mostly when I am not with my instrument actually.

I have also started to realise that I am not the one who is doing it; I am just a medium through which creativity flows. So how do you keep the vessel clean? How do you keep the vessel ready for something to be filled in it and keep it flowing? You know, it’s like in the olden times, when the milkman comes to get the milk from the cow, you have to keep the vessel ready. So I am always trying to keep my vessel clean and ready for anything to be filled in it.

Segment 5: Sustainability, Eco-Tour & The Future 

12. The recent eco-tour initiative (powering shows via solar / clean energy rigs, e.g. with  SUNNY, etc.) is a big move. What inspired this?

We have been placing this thing of how much power and diesel are used in a live show. We, as a band, Swarathma, are environmentally conscious and trying to do things which are more sustainable. For example, for a very long time, I was the one who used to tell the band members to not use plastic bottles on stage. I used to carry one, and then slowly others have also picked up on it, and they also carry their own bottles. We ask the organisers not to give us plastic bottles on stage. We ask them to give us refilling canisters backstage, so we take our own bottles and refill them so that even onstage and offstage, we are the same. So that translated into saying, ‘Why don’t we take this initiative to a larger extent?’

And we did a show with one organisation called the Rain Matter Foundation, and through them, we came up with this idea that why don’t we have this battery-operated power system which is charged by solar energy? And that’s how we kind of started, and it was successful to a large extent, but yeah, we are still in the process of figuring out how to make it more accessible in every city. Because the first tour that we did, the bus also had to travel from place to place actually using fuel only, but somewhere we had to make the start right. We just made it possible that something like this can happen. Now we have to figure out how we make it even more sustainable where it is available in every city that we travel.

13. How do you think such sustainability-efforts change the way you plan performances / tours (setups, equipment, logistics)? Does it influence how you write music now?

No. It is the other way around. It is music that helps us come up with tours which are different and meaningful. So it is the music that inspires us to come to a different kind of tour, whether it’s sustainable or anything else. So it is not that we plan the tour and then we make songs. We write songs which help us come up with how to execute them.

14. Where do you see Swarathma in the next 10 years?

I think we will still be together making music like how we have been doing. It is nothing, having not much more change. But I would still probably be very underrated and die underrated, and it’s okay. We will probably make, like, a few more albums. We would love to collaborate with more musicians, and we would love to travel around and make more meaningful music with musicians across the world. So that’s where I see Swarathma going from being a local band to a global band.

Segment 6: Sound & Space 

15. How does a space influence your creative process when composing or rehearsing?

It is very different, and also space really does matter to me. When I come into my studio, how my studio is and how this space is are very important. How I keep my things, how they look, and how they make me feel are important. But having said that, it’s not always that the creative process happens in my room. So my room helps me create a better space inside; the creative space is actually in the head. It’s not in the physical space actually. So when that space is clean, then the creativity also flows. So like I said, I might be just walking on the road, and there might be a tune that will come.

I might be travelling in a bus; that will help. When the mind is free, when the mind is not thinking too much, and when the mind is open, that is when the real creativity actually happens. So you have to let that happen. You have to actually let go of the thinking process and kind of rely more on the subconscious. That’s where the creativity happens. You have to be conscious for the subconscious to let it flow. I don’t know how else to say it. So for that to happen, you need to, like I said, keep the channel clean, and that is the real space for creativity to flow.

16. Is there a performance where the audience and the space created something magical  that still stays with you?

I think one of my recent performances that, in fact, I did in Sabha itself, which was sometime in June if I am not wrong, or July. I think it was July 26. So that’s when we did one show with my collective. Yeah, it was July 26th, and that was a very special show for me because we tried something different. The audience was waiting outside, and when I came and sang a couple of lines of the song acoustically, then I let the audience inside.

The audience walked with me, and then the rest of the band had already started playing music. So the audience enters while the music is still playing. So it was a different experience. A lot of people who really like my kind of music had come. So it was almost like a festival for me, and people really enjoyed it, and also, after a long time, I did a ticket-in show where the tickets got sold in a couple of weeks. So was very happy about that also. To see that kind of a response.That still remains in my memory in the recent past.

17. If you could design a dream performance space that captures the spirit of Swarathma,  what would it look like?

I would like to have a 360-degree stage where the audience is all around us and the stage keeps moving, rotating and revolving. The Beatles did something like that very long back. So something like that I would really love, where we are surrounded by an audience. I always like being amongst people and performing; that’s why even in my performances I go down into the audience’s space and perform with them to make it feel like they are also part of the performance and it’s not like I am on stage and we are separated and they are in a different space and stuff like that. I want the whole space to be one.

18. Finally, what does Sound & Space mean to you—not just as musicians, but as  storytellers and human beings?

I think each space has its own sound and ambience to it. So how does the artist let that affect the space within and then bring or create a different space? For example, another month back we played a show with this organisation called “In My Dream”, and we played, and we had these sign language interpreters as part of the show, and because there were also some people in the audience who could not hear, they had hearing disabilities, so that place actually was just an ordinary, small auditorium which can accommodate one hundred and ten or one hundred and two people.

So, but the minute we started playing and the kind of atmosphere it created, space itself suddenly changed. Initially it looked like a very big space, but because of how people were vibing and enjoying it, it became so cosy, and it became a very small space, but small not in terms of space but in terms of the closeness of people who have come together. I think place changes the kind of space that you create around it. A very big house with just two people just sometimes might feel very small. A very small house with so many people might still feel very big, and there is more space to move around.

So it’s all about the mind, and that for us as musicians and storytellers is very important because that is the space that we live in and that’s what we want to create through our songs. There are songs where we want to create a bit of a chaotic or claustrophobic feel. There are songs where we want to create vastness and wideness in the song. Through the songs that we create, a space is created. The physical space inspires, but also this music inspires us to create the space. So we’ve seen that is what the audience also feels at the end of it. So I think just like how architects use bricks and iron and concrete to create spaces, we use our music, our rhythm, and our lyrics to create this space for the audience.

Editor: Speaking with Vasu Dixit is a reminder that music is never just about melody it is about memory, message, and meaning. Swarathma’s journey is proof that staying true to one’s voice, however niche or “underrated,” can create ripples that touch lives in the most unexpected ways. Whether it is singing to heal divisions, honouring the river as mother, or reimagining what a performance space can be, their work is a constant act of building bridges between people, between art forms, and between humanity and nature. Perhaps that is why Swarathma continues to endure: because their music does not just entertain, it invites us to belong.