The world is polarised and Soumik Datta wants to document it through his music. The British Asian artiste, has come back to the city for his second residency with G5a at Mahalaxmi this week.

Datta is not just a sarod player but also a composer, and wants to make music an experience and not just “background activity”, he opines. The show that was presented on Friday and Saturday was the culmination of a five-day residency, but it is an experiment that only those with a palate for something unusual should 
chew on. 

The show, named Travellers, is about displacement, the immigrant experience and the polarisation that has been seen around the world right from the United Kingdom, Gaza and the United States. “The show is the six of us sitting on the stage with our respective instruments, but we are experimenting with sound design as well. So we weave in a pre-recorded audio to transport the audience into the shoes of someone being interrogated at the customs office or someone who is at an American border crossing, so the experience of being detained question feels visceral for the audience,” he says. Datta’s lived experience as a minority in Britain reflects as he brings in quotes from artists like Bob Dylan, and Robert Oppenheimer’s famous lines from the Bhagavad Gita, “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”. Tanks and gunfire feature as a nod to Gaza. “The show is a bit about the experience, it does not have a typical beginning or an end either and is supposed to be beyond the usual concerts etc,” he adds.