The camaraderie between Antara and Ankita is unmissable. Maam Di and Tuk Tuk to each other, the young achievers are not only viral sensations, but also household names courtesy their melodious voice and pleasing personality. My Kolkata caught up with them backstage, right before hitting the stage for their Meet and Greet at Mani Square on July 16. The siblings talked about their journey so far, Antara’s big break with A.R. Rahman in Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan: I and Ponniyin Selvan: II, the debut of the duo with Shiboprosad Mukherjee and Nandita Roy’s Raktabeej, their sibling dynamics, what’s new in the brew and more. Edited excerpts follow…
My Kolkata: How did music come into your lives and what does music mean to the both of you?
Antara Nandy: Music is our whole life. It runs in the family. In a Bengali household, you know how it is – the practice of music has always been there. My granddad used to play the violin, although not professionally.
Ankita Nandy: Our parents know how to play musical instruments or sing. My father, who has never had any formal training in music, can play string instruments like the guitar, violin and probably the mouth organ too. No one took it up professionally though.
Antara: I was really young and had just learnt to speak and used to hum songs. My aunt, who had a knack for singing, had come to visit and heard me. She told my mum, “Tor meye shure gaichhe, okey gaan shekhatey hobe” (Your daughter is singing in tune, she should be taught music). Although we are Bengalis, we were from Assam. My parents decided to shift to Kolkata when I was four. Ankita was very little then. We moved to Kolkata so that I could get formal training in music. I started learning music at the age of four and a half under Ustad Rashid Khan ji in Naktala. That’s how the journey began for me. And from a very young age, I don’t recall thinking of anything else as my calling. I always knew I would be singing and would become a musician.
Ankita: For me, music just happened. Since Didi (Antara) was into music from when she was four, she used to wake up at 5am in the morning and go Sa Re Ga…. She was my alarm clock. It came naturally. My Didi is my guru.
Antara, tell us something about your experience of working with A.R. Rahman in PS: 1 and PS: 2. How did that happen?
Antara: I think I was 14 when I had my first interaction with Rahman sir. I was at his academy in Chennai and I performed in the annual function. I was not even supposed to perform, it was a surprise one. He watched the performance. After the performance, when sir was coming out of the auditorium, he said “Hey Calcutta girl, come here!” I ran towards him. “You were very good on stage,” he said. But I had to wait for five years to finally get the opportunity. I was 19 and took part in a reality show called ARRived and sir was the judge.
We had shifted to Pune for my education by then. A week before the finale, I was given a break from the show to sit for my exams and return. I was going for my exam when I got a call from sir’s office in Chennai, informing I had a flight in two hours and we were doing a song together. I had to make a choice. I called Ma and she said ‘yes’. It was my first project with him and the song was called Nis Din, which I sang with Jonita Gandhi.
After that, I sang many jingles and scratches for sir. I did not really hope to sing in Ponniyin Selvan. It happened as a surprise. I had recorded the song in 2019 and there was the lockdown soon after. I got a call a week before PS: 1’s audio launch from sir’s office saying one of the songs had been confirmed for the film. Then I learnt I had to also dub the song (Alaikadal) in three other languages and for that I had to be in Mumbai. And that’s how PS: 1 happened. PS: 2 was also a surprise. With sir, it is always a surprise! I got a call a week ahead of the audio release of PS: 2 saying I would be singing Megha re megha. This time, the bonus was that it was a song written by Gulzar Sahab.
What about Raktabeej. How did that opportunity come? Any other Tollywood projects in the pipeline?
Antara: This is a huge deal for us! We lived in Kolkata for 13 years. It had always been a dream to work in Kolkata. But that never happened and then we moved out. When Rahman sir gave us the break, we were very happy.
Ankita: But, there was always a sadness in the heart that it did not happen in the Kolkata industry. But that dream came true with Raktabeej.
Antara: We never expected our Bengali industry debut to be this big or any better. Shibu sir (Shiboprosad Mukherjee) and Nandita ma’am’s (Nandita Roy) film, Anindya sir’s (Anindya Chatterjee) music, Windows Productions — it really is a dream come true and, most importantly, we are making our debut together! What can be better than that!
Antara: About Tollywood projects, we hope to have a few more, but as of now, none yet. I would like to tell all the music directors or anyone working in the industry, we are very approachable, please approach us! We would love to work with you!
The Nandy Sisters sing in various languages with equal ease. In how many languages have both of you sung so far?
Ankita: 26.
Antara: Foreign languages include Korean, Japanese, Spanish, English, Italian…
Tell us about Golemale and if you are releasing any other songs in Bengali?
Antara: Golemale is one of our most loved projects. We have always believed in promoting what is our own — our own culture, traditional and folk music. Everyone loves KPop, but what about what is ours? People our age hardly know about our own culture. We believe in promoting folk forms of India. We wanted to do that in Bengal as well. Golemale is definitely a step forward towards that.
How has Instagram extended the reach of your content?
Ankita: Instagram is literally everything. That is how our career started! Social media on the whole.
Antara: It is our own platform. Whatever we are doing today is because of social media. Balcony concerts took off during lockdown. Honestly, 80% of the work that we are both doing right now is because of social media. I got to work with Rahman sir, Anindya sir, Salim-Sulaiman sirs and all the other work that we are doing. The Balcony Concert worked very well for us.
Ankita: We have recently started another series called Gunguna Le where we are collaborating with celebrities.
Antara: We have done it with Mithila Palkar, Sudhanshu Pandey, Manasi Parekh, Adah Sharma. We are also doing a Bengal chapter in which Paoli Dam, Rwitobroto Mukherjee, Parambrata Chattopadhay, Abir Chatterjee and many other celebrities are there, singing with us. You know what is really amazing? They were all so warm with us! They agreed and some of them reached out to us on their own. And that happened because of Balcony Concerts. So, all thanks to social media!
How do you choose which songs to post?
Antara: Initially it used to be whatever was requested the most. Now, I think, whatever we vibe with most of the time. See there’s two ways to go with it — either you follow the trend or you create your own trend. So, once in a while to keep your account going, you do follow the trend. But when we follow a trend, we think what can we add that will make us stand apart.
Antara: Yes! When you make your own trend, you have to think out of the box, think what nobody else is doing. Like, once in a while we go back to what was done really long back. We tap into nostalgia. We did Nilanjana. So, things like that. Sometimes we make our own content. We come up with our originals and post stuff like that on Instagram. It’s a balance.
You lived in Kolkata for about 13 years. Any special memories? How is it coming back to Kolkata?
Ankita: Since our childhood was spent here and we grew up here, if you say Kolkata, it is half of our lives. First is Durga Puja. No other place has Durga Puja quite like Kolkata. The food here is really amazing and we miss Kolkata food. The people here are warm, hospitable and approachable.
Antara: The Bengali-to-Bengali connect, you miss that when you move out. Another big thing that I personally think is when you walk through any street in Kolkata or in front of any house, you hear somebody doing riyaz . This does not happen anywhere else. When we initially moved to Pune, we got complaints because of our morning riyaz.
Ankita: Here, just the opposite happened.
Antara: The day we did not do riyaz the neighbours called and asked about our well-being!
Antara, you trained under Ustad Rashid Khan while you were in Kolkata. Are you still in touch? How was that experience for you?
Antara: My formal talim began under Rashid Guruji in his academy. I was four-and-a-half. My first riyaz was under his guidance. And I don’t think there could have been a better beginning to my talim. As they say, if the root is firm, the tree stands strong.
I am extremely grateful and thankful to my parents for relocating from Assam to Kolkata so that they could put me in a place like this where I could be groomed and trained well. I learnt under Guruji for the initial couple of years of my life and then I became a scholar in ITC Sangeet Research Academy. What more should I say, once a student, always a student. Guruji is Guruji!
From singing competitions to playback in films, how do you see your journey?
Antara: It has come full circle. But it definitely has not been easy. And it’s not supposed to be easy. We have both faced more downs than ups and I think that is what makes it a lot more cherishable. There were more people who told us “hobe na” (won’t happen). We didn’t listen to them, we rebelled and said “hobe na maaney? (Why won’t it happen?).
Ankita: Basically when all doors were shutting in front of us, we opened our own doors.
