Entertainment

When Chai Met Toast’s new track, ‘Dreamland’, from their homecoming album, Small Town, Big Love, Little Homes, is a joyful tribute to Kerala. The video, directed by Anto Philip, which dropped on August 20, captures a sense of what home means to the quartet. It features their homes and families, Kerala’s picturesque landscapes, its life and its people. “In fact, the shirts we are wearing are based on the panchavarna (five colours) theme, repurposed from our mothers’ saris,” says Ashwin Gopakumar, the vocalist of the band.  

“‘Dreamland’ speaks of home, love and affection. To us, it feels like we have come full circle,” says Achyuth Jaigopal, the guitarist. The song also features singer and composer Job Kurian. “We have admired Job’s music for years and we felt his power-packed voice was perfect for the song,” he adds. The multilingual song has English and Hindi lyrics sung by Ashwin and Malayalam, by Job. 

when chai met toast
| Photo Credit:
sooryakiran

With a soul rooted in Kerala, the song includes sounds of the kombu, elathalam and chenda traditionally used in melams. “Instead of trumpets and trombones, we went with these instruments to give the song the energy. This, along with Job’s vocals, elevates the sonic experience,” says Palee.

Ever since When Chai Met Toast (WCMT) launched as a band in 2016, the quartet – Ashwin, guitarist Achyuth Jaigopal, keyboardist Palee Francis and drummer Pai Sailesh – have stuck together. Across these years, they continued to work on their craft and make authentic music. 

Though they don’t like to fully be confined to a genre, their music is indie-folk-alternative. 

From their debut EP Joy of Little Things in 2017, they have brought out over 25 originals, worked their way up music charts, found fans the world over and made music for Bollywood.

Being multilingual has always been the band’s USP, connecting to fans across the country and the diaspora. “Over the years, we have built a core community that has been with us through our journey and have been part of our growth. We are fortunate to have been able to sustain their interest,” says Achyuth. 

A few days ago, WCMT hosted intimate events with friends and community in Bengaluru and Wayanad, where they played the new album, shared stories, and spoke about the experiences of making the album. “It was the first time we were doing something like this as a band, but it was an amazing experience to organise this special listening session and get to meet the people who make us who we are,” says Achyuth.

The  band had also organised a Nature Tapes Music Festival – Edition 1 at Wayanad, earlier this month, which was for their core community, and including listening sessions, games, food and live performances of Nature Tape versions of their songs. 

Has working together for over 10 years made the process of music easier? “Let’s just say, we know one another’s strengths and weaknesses,” laughs Achyuth. 

Most of their songs are born while on their travels, says the band. However, they often have song-writing camps. For ‘Dreamland’, they went to different parts of Kerala for such camps, soaking in Nature while bouncing off ideas. 

WCMT will have an India tour from December. 

‘Dreamland’ is available on all streaming platforms.

Published – August 22, 2025 11:14 am IST

M.S. SUBBULAKSHMI
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Madras, music, and the month of Margazhi have become nearly inseparable. But did you know that Madras attracted musicians as early as the 18^th Century?

By the 1700s, the city had established a centre of music patronage and arts,” historian V. Sriram recounts in one of his talks.

Meanwhile, the city’s temples had been hosting music and dance performances, and by the end of the 1800s, many musicians began migrating to Madras. Talking to The Hindu, Mr. Sriram says, the 20^th Century saw the entry of gramophone records and microphones in the Carnatic music scene.

In the 1950s, legendary musicians, such as D.K. Pattammal, M.L. Vasanthakumari, M.S. Subbulakshmi, Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, Lalgudi S. Jayaraman, T.N. Krishnan, and Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman, popularised this art form in Madras and across the globe.

Carnatic music reached its peak in the 1990s. Mr. Sriram adds, “It was also a time when a flurry of NRIs began visiting the city consistently every December. This coincided with the emergence of a lot of extremely talented young musicians like Vijay Siva, T.M. Krishna, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Bombay Jayashri, Nithyashree Mahadevan, and S. Sowmya. They used to draw full houses.”

Nithyashree Mahadevan says, today, the Carnatic music ecosystem has undergone a sea change. “From a 3.5-hour concert in the 50s, it has been reduced to 1.5-hour concerts. The legends back then could explore a raga like Andolika or Malavi in great detail. But now, we can’t take as much time as the attention span is shrinking,” she says.

Moreover, drawing music lovers to the halls is tough, she says. “When they can listen to Carnatic music on YouTube, why will they venture out to the hall?”

Such problems began to arise in the late 2000s. The pandemic accelerated it and brought in a paradigm shift. “We are at a time when the artistes are under pressure to deliver something new. Only then can they draw youngsters to concert halls,” she says.

Technology has its good side, too: music is easily available, and people get inspired to learn it, Mr. Sriram adds.

Musician Sikkil Gurucharan says musicians are facing intense pressure on the repertoire and presentation styles. “The concept of staying relevant is measured by a new section of the audience who look at what’s trending and going viral on social media. Some of the musicians also have digital managers who keep track of what’s doing well. While we can keep up with the trend and understand what’s going on, we must use it only to draw people to the halls, and appreciate a live concert all the more, rather than drift away to online versions alone,” he adds.

Carnatic music has never been as popular as film music, but stands as a niche art form, and thrives amid stiff competition. “This city has nurtured Carnatic music, and will continue to do so. If a musician wants to make a mark in the field and prove their mettle, only Chennai can create that magic. If you have to savour the flavour of Carnatic music, you could go anywhere, yet nothing can come close to the experience that Madras gives you,” Ms. Mahadevan adds.

READ MORE

Paradha is a refreshing breather in a largely machismo-driven Telugu cinema. Imagine three women, hailing from different backgrounds, on a road trip to find a solution to a crisis that one of them is caught up in.

Director Praveen Kandregula’s film starring Anupama Parameswaran, Darshana Rajendran and Sangitha Krish, brims with warmth, joy, laughter, and tears.

The journey gives these women a much-needed getaway from their daily grind. As they soak in the vastness of the landscapes, they question their own understanding of the world and gender equations. Despite the heavy folklore that acts as a fulcrum to the narrative, considerable portions are handled with a lightness that makes it enjoyable.

Writers Poojitha Sreekanti and Prahaas Boppudi, and script doctor Krishna Prathyusha gently probe the fault lines of gender discourse and assert the need for mutual respect.

Remember the striking portrait of an Afghan girl (years later identified as Sharbat Gula) on the cover of National Geographic in the 1980s? Praveen Kandregula does not refer to this image but the inspiration is evident for anyone reading between the lines. He reimagines what could happen to a woman who is photographed without permission and finds her face on the cover of a magazine.

Subbalakshmi or Subbu (Anupama) lives in a fictional village in the Telugu States where all the women are veiled. The ‘paradha’ or the veil is mandatory, a practice tied to the story of the village deity. A woman seen in public without her veil supposedly brings bad luck to the village, and the punishment is nothing less than death.

An outsider might brush aside all of this as superstition, but the women themselves are conditioned to follow these rules in the belief that the veil is meant to protect them. The tagline ‘in the name of love’ refers to the veil and its manipulative use. Paradha narrates the folklore with deft use of puppetry.

The film comes to speed when momentarily, Subbu’s veil is blown away by the wind and unknown to her, a photographer clicks her portrait which then finds its way to a magazine cover, and eventually turns her life upside down.

Anupama plays this central character with grit and vulnerability. Her eyes convey the little joys of small town moorings, fear and guilt when she feels responsible for the havoc that her actions might cause to her village, and resolve when she does not apologise for an act that she never committed.

Her face in a veil, Anupama lets her body language do the talking — be it the longing for her childhood love (Rag Mayur as Rajesh) or sharing her thoughts at her mother’s memorial. When her veil is off and Mridul Sen’s camera frames her up close, we see the heightened freckles — almost as a hat tip to the Afghan cover girl. Anupama turns in her finest performance till date. Watch out for an episode when she crouches in fear and breaks down, only to rise stronger from it all. She portrays the transformation with grace and determination, making us root for her to win.

The layers of Paradha are revealed gradually, when Ratna (Sangitha), a homemaker who devotes all her time and energy to cater to the needs of her husband and two children, and Amisha (Darshana), a civil engineer toiling in a male-dominated surrounding hoping that one day she would shatter the glass ceiling, are brought into the picture.

Each of these women are written with empathy and complexity. As much as Ratna craves for some ‘me time’, she gently and persuasively makes her husband understand why a trip to the village is necessary. Sangitha is superb in her portrayal of a mature woman, almost being a referee to the sparring between the two younger women. In the scene where she brings the house down during a phone conversation with her husband, Sangitha is a revelation. Watching her in her element made me wonder why we do not see enough characters written for women in their 30s or 40s.

Darshana, making her debut in Telugu, is apt in the part of a Delhiite who speaks fluent Hindi and a clipped, accented Telugu. It is appreciable that she has dubbed her Telugu lines herself. We first see her at a construction site, toughened by her surroundings. So much so that when an associate wants menstrual leave, she strikes off the idea by asserting that female civil engineers cannot make such ‘excuses’. Details such as these, of how women take on additional stress so as to not be seen as the weaker sex, make the film shine.

Darshana, also featured sans make-up, is every bit relatable as a modern no-nonsense young woman who wears her single tag with pride. The actor makes her portrayal seem easier than it is, with the practiced casualness that makes her character seem very lived-in.

Once the rapport between these women is established, the narrative captures their bond as realistically as possible. They laugh, fret and fume like real-life women do, with all their strength and misgivings.

Apart from Subbu’s larger battle, the narrative highlights everyday patriarchy that is not just perpetrated by men, but also deeply ingrained within several women as a way of life that they rarely question. It also shows how women can inadvertently be judgemental of other women and their choices. A scene featuring a female officer, who is usually seen as a symbol of strength, is cleverly used to show how women of power may also love to shop, wear makeup or cook. The scene nudges women to be more accepting of each other.

Paradha also does not portray its men as incarnates of evil, even though it could have easily done so. The narrative encourages the female protagonists to question practices, thereby changing perceptions, rather than point fingers. That is a fine line to tread and this script does it rather well. Even in the case of the fiance Rajesh, he is portrayed as a man who doesn’t know any better. Rag Mayur is convincing in this brief part.

Harshavardhan fits in seamlessly into another brief part that reflects how men take women for granted. A minor moment focuses on the irony with which he refers to the village and its crude habits, while he is washing his hands on a plate, rather than walking to a sink.

The only portions where I felt the film’s tonal shift got a tad heavy and clunky was during the gender discussions between the three women in the later portions. This isn’t a sore thumb. Their frustrations are valid, so are the refrains of ‘why me when I’ve done everything right’ or ‘I will not apologise for retaliating to road rage’. But the tone could have been way smoother.

Paradha is easy on the eye, given that much of it has been filmed in real locations. The earthy rural setting with its deep reds and browns and the cooler tones of Dharamshala and the Himalayas are captured beautifully by Mridul Sen. The production design and the visual aesthetic also beautifully capture intimate settings; take for instance the homes in the village or the abandoned train compartment. Gopi Sunder’s music shifts between folk themes and Western-inspired beats, complementing the narrative.

Convenient coincidences such as the three women meeting mostly Telugu-speaking people at Dharamshala are just minor gripes.

On the whole, Paradha is a rare, brave film that breaks the monotony of mainstream Telugu cinema and deserves to be celebrated.

(Paradha is currently running in theatres)

Published – August 21, 2025 08:52 pm IST

The latest poster of ‘Love Insurance Kompany’.
| Photo Credit: @7screenstudio/X