The Nandy Sisters, comprising Antara and Ankita Nandy, are part of Cadbury Dairy Milk Gaane Mishti Season 4, the signature campaign organised in association with Anandabazar Patrika and The Telegraph that celebrates the magical combination of music and mishti, two things that folks from Bengal are crazy about. Ankita chats with t2 about collaborating with composer Joy Sarkar and reprising a difficult folk song like Dhaan bhani. The Nandy sisters will perform live this weekend at City Centre Rajarhat during the finale of the campaign.
How does it feel to be part of Cadbury Dairy Milk Gaane Mishti?
We are extremely excited. Since we grew up in Calcutta we have seen the previous seasons and it was a dream and I think it was manifested. I remember having this conversation at home with Ma while watching one of the shows that one day we could be a part of it. And then getting to collaborate and share the screen with Joy sir is unreal for us.
The experience has been enriching. We have always enjoyed Joy da’s music. He tried to explain the essence of the song first and then we started working on this traditional folk song. Initially, we worked remotely; we worked from Pune while Joy da worked from here, so that was a very different experience, and that made it a bit complicated but it was fun. Joy da had specific instructions about how the song should be, so when you have someone with a clear vision, the project becomes easy.
Dhaan bhani is an old Bengali folk song. How was the experience of reprising it?
We started singing Bangla folk very recently. When we started working in Calcutta that is when we ventured into Bangla folk. We have not done hardcore Bangla folk and this was very new to us. There is an amazing blend of Indian classical, which is my forte, with folk. I was kind of worried about how this blend would have an effect on listeners but Joy da was very confident. He also came up with a sitar piece and we did a little jugalbandi with it. After the song was finally done we could all see how everything fitted perfectly. It proves why the masters are the masters.
The campaign is about sweets as well. How crazy are you two about mishti?
We have a big sweet tooth. I cannot recall having a meal and not ending with a mishti. Our sweet cravings are crazy and I think this is very common in Bengal. Balaram Mullick is closer to our place so we would get mishti from there very often. Now, obviously, we have put some sense of control over our sweet tooth but it doesn’t work all the time.
What are your future plans?
We are working on a few originals and a slew of collaborations are happening on Instagram. The series is named Gunguna Le and has a few Bollywood artistes as well. We are planning on working with some new artistes for the same. We are also soon going to be part of one of the biggest plays happening in NMAAC and some playback singing is also lined up.