Thaikkudam Bridge is a few days away from releasing their new music video, ‘Navarasam’. The video, which is the title song from their album, Navarasam, is an ode to Kathakali. The song celebrates the power of the dance-drama even as it reflects upon how Kathakali artistes struggle to keep it alive. “In my growing-up years Kathakali was an integral part of my life. I was saddened to see this profound art form getting reduced to a capsule format for commercial purposes. The song depicts the intrinsic majesty of Kathakali and also its present status today. Lyrics, written by my sister Dhanya Suresh, is in Manipravalam, the language in which Kathakali padams were written. The track has a fine blend of poetry, Kathakali Sangeetham and rock music,” says Govind Menon, the frontman of the band. The video features Kathakali artistes and members of the band. Sung by Vipin Lal, it is the fourth music video of the band, the others being ‘One’, ‘Aarachar’ and ‘Sultan’. Directed by Littil Swayamp, who also shot the immensely popular ‘One’, ‘Navarasam’ appears to be another potential winner. In fact, the video has many distinctive features that make Thaikkudam Bridge stand out from the herd: folk arts, folk music, Malayalam lyrics and classical notes. Their packed itinerary speaks for their success. The multi-genre, multi-lingual band is getting ready for an exciting journey. The team is fresh from a string of performances at prestigious venues, including NH 7 Weekender in Pune and in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai. Up next are gigs in Muscat and Singapore. Since it hit the music scene in 2013, Thaikkudam Bridge has had a phenomenal growth, which has even taken the band members by surprise. “I would call it a happy accident!” says Govind, who put together the band for an episode of ‘Music Mojo’ on Kappa TV. The band was christened Thaikkudam Bridge on the eve of the recording for the show because they used to jam at a house near Thaikkudam Bridge in Kochi. That one programme changed their lives with 12 songs from the episode going viral on social media. ‘Fish Rock’, soaked in the flavours of the Kerala kitchen and popular kitsch imagery, climbed the charts and there has been no looking back. “Siddharth [Siddharth Menon, his cousin and vocalist of the band] and I brought together our friends for a one-off show. It was never meant to go forward after that because we all had our respective careers. But before we knew it, Thaikkudam Bridge became a part of our lives. We have evolved with the years. It was all fun in the beginning, but now we can’t afford to take it lightly,” says Govind. Especially now when the band is slowly going pan-Indian. “After NH 7 we are getting bookings from North India. The organisers said that it was one of the best performances of the festival,” recalls Govind. This is their second outing in NH 7 and they have already been booked for this year’s NH 7 edition at Shillong. Mithun Raju, former member of Motherjane and the lead guitarist of Thaikkudam, says that they owe it all to the audience. “When we started jamming, we hardly knew each other. Had not our performance on ‘Music Mojo’ gone viral on YouTube, Thaikkudam Bridge wouldn’t have come this far,” he says. The band members reiterate that success came with a lot of hard work. “We established our presence through covers and everybody said it was old wine in new bottle. We never refuted that statement, because ultimately nothing can beat the popularity of film music. But we banked on that success to launch Navarasam and now when people ask for our original compositions, we are only too happy to oblige. We are proud that we could inspire a lot of bands and musicians,” Govind says. The journey has had its ups and downs. “We didn’t have a good outing at Mojo Rising in Kochi and that disappointed us all. But NH 7 Weekender at Bengaluru followed and it was a thumping success. That was a turning point,” Govind adds. The band has gone international with concerts in the West Asia, Singapore, Malaysia, Bangkok, the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. It is not easy to keep a 16-member team (the band prefers to include their three sound engineers in the list always) together. And with eight of its singers (including Govind) handling different genres, there are chances of discordant notes. Sixty-year-old Peethambaran Menon, Govind’s father (Peetz uncle for the rest of the members), is equally popular with the audience as irrepressible Vian Fernandez, the bass guitarist-cum-vocalist, or Hindustani vocalists Nila Madhav Mohapatra and Krishna Bongane, both disciples of Ustad Rashid Khan. “Our strength is that we have musicians who can satisfy all kinds of audience. Each band has a politics and in our case we have a politics that keeps us together,” Govind explains. To which Mithun adds, “Diversity makes Thaikkudam dynamic.” Meanwhile Nila Madhav feels that the experience was heart-warming. “For me rock music was all about making a loud noise, but working with Thaikkudam changed that perception. Each musician gets his own space and freedom, which is very important,” he says. And the most memorable moment? Pat comes Govind’s reply: “When we paid a 10-minute tribute to Ilaiyaraaja sir and he appreciated us saying, ‘Nannaayittundu...’ (good) leaving us speechless.” Thaikkudam line-up Vipin Lal, Christin Jose, Peethambaran, Siddharth Menon, Krishna Bongane, Anish Krishnan, and Nila Madhav Mohapatra (vocalists), Govind Menon (violin and vocals), Mithun Raju (lead guitars), Ashok Nelson (rhythm guitars), Vian Fernandez (bass guitars, vocals), Anish T. N. (drums) and Ruthin Thej (keyboard).

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