The Tapi Project will perform this weekend in Mumbai at Mahalaxmi

A genre-fluid band from Surat will bring its compositions to an intimate performance at a Mahalaxmi venue

At a rock music festival in the city earlier this year, the crowd is expectedly dressed in all black, a longstanding ritual for most rock aficionados. Amidst this sea of headbangers, a four-member band makes their heads turn; and it’s not because they’re on stage. Yogendra Saniyawala, Swati Minaxi, Gaurav Kapadia and Biju Nambiar, AKA The Tapi Project are dressed in handcrafted bright Indian attire, sporting bold tribal-style accessories; possibly encompassing every hue in the colour spectrum. The band, formed in 2014 and best described in Saniyawala alias Yogi’s words as a “band that knows no genres”, makes its way to Mumbai for an intimate performance today.

“Beyond boundaries and infinity, formless and untouched; coloured in ink and etched in paper — such is my poetry,” Yogi reads out over a short call. You would expect such nuanced poetry coloured in metaphor from the songwriter who has traversed nearly 30 countries across the world with his band. The catch here is that the 44-year-old band member is actually reading his earliest poem; one he wrote when he was 15. “In hindsight, it reads like a forecast of how my life would eventually pan out. This is exactly how I would define the music we make,” he shares.

Yogendra Saniyawala

The band’s newest single, Mehsoos, sounds like the perfect embodiment of their vision of allowing thoughts to flow freely, much like the eponymous river. The song, which begins almost like a sweet lullaby, slowly builds up with layers of celestial synth plucks, a jazz brush pattern, and warm church organs. Right when you start getting used to the cinematic soundscape it creates, the song eases back into the stripped-down ballad with Minaxi’s mellifluous vocals shining through. “The song came about when I had an epiphany about how ungrateful we are for the little things such as the feeling of wind in your hair or the touch of fresh dew on grass. Hence, the title Mehsoos,” he explains.

The appreciation pouring in for the song online reflects the universal relatability of unfiltered compositions that come straight from the heart. Yogi agrees, “Around the world, there have been moments when the audience surprised us. We wrote our song Varsad as an ode to the rainy days of Gujarat while touring in Japan. We took the song to a music festival in Kamen Bryag, a small town in Bulgaria, in 2018. Call it serendipity or call it luck, but it started to pour at the open-air venue in the tiny village and surprisingly, the audience stayed till we finished the song. It has been one of the most memorable moments 
for us.”

With a successful nine-year run, sold-out venues, a sizeable fan base, and most importantly, a close proximity with Mumbai, this writer can’t help but wonder why the quartet hasn’t shifted base to Mumbai, the Mecca of the performing arts. “I think the city overwhelms us. Survival becomes the centre of your existence and an artiste who worries about survival cannot think and ideate freely. We like to be detached from material influences. Sometimes, it is when you don’t have access to everything, that you learn to make something,” he concludes.

ON Today; 7.30 pm
AT G5A Warehouse, Laxmi Mills Estate, Mahalaxmi West.
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ENTRY Rs 250 onwards

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