This Is My Music: Aabha Hanjura

Our latest episode of This Is My Music features singer and composer Aabha Hanjura. The Bengaluru-based Kashmiri artist talks to us about her rendition of the Punjabi track “Kale Rang Da Paranda,” wedding songs and her EP Sufistication Folk Sessions. 

Following the video Q&A, Hanjura has gone on to release her latest Hindi/Kashmiri song “Madano,” supplemented with a music video directed by the artist herself. It’s a collaboration with composer-guitarist Kalyan Baruah, and Hanjura says they first met while working on a project involving music director duo Sachin-Jigar.  

Baruah adds a cozy, soft-rock edge to “Madano,” which is told from Hanjura’s perspective of newfound love. For her part, Hanjura infuses ghazal influences to the song, featuring lyrics written by Neeraj Rajawat. She says about teaming up with Baruah, “I have worked with a bunch of producers, but with him [Baruah] it was like a breeze – it was just easy and that’s the best thing about how it all came together. He really played to my strengths and pushed me in a new direction with this song.”  

Hanjura terms the blend of rock and ghazal styles in “Madano” as the “sweet spot” of genres she loves. “Actually, the song started in a different direction, in Kashmiri, and then I wanted to bring Hindi into it. But I was sure the soul of the song has to stay ‘Madano,’ which means ‘beloved’ in Kashmiri. Also, in Hindi, ‘Madan’ is also a name for Krishna, the quintessential lover,” she says.  

As the dreamy, uplifting sound and words of “Madano” took shape, Hanjura had already pictured “a really large landscape in its video.” That came to fruition even before the pandemic, when she performed at the Reth Festival in Jaisalmer in early 2020 as part of her India tour. She adds, “K.P. Singh, who organizes the Reth Festival, helped me to get this beautiful location [resort hotel The Bordi] and I absolutely fell in love when I saw it and I knew it was where I’d shoot ‘Madano.’”  

Helming the production, concept and styling of the music video, she called on filmmaker Sujish Das from production house Imagine Buddha in Bengaluru to work on editing and animation. All in all, Hanjura says she always enjoys leading music videos as an independent artist. “I just love the whole process, I really enjoyed it and I hope people will like this video. It’s very different from my other videos,” she adds.  

Watch the video for “Madano” below.