The Best of 2021 - What’s The Chakkar?
What’s The Chakkar? Episode 14: This special end-of-year episode features our favourites of 2021, including music by LIFAFA; novels by S. Hareesh and Yaa Gyasi; and a roundup of the year’s best film/TV, including Sardar Udham. Featuring Ady Manral, Shaista Vaishnav, and Prateek Santram. Hosted by Karan Madhok.
The Ballad of a Superpower Lost
Superpower 2020, the new album by Indian genre-bending artist Lifafa is an instant classic, a creative mishmash of techno and Bollywood classical, all packaged tightly in a musical vision of defiance, a satire of a national superpower gone wrong. - by Karan Madhok.
Pradeep Damodaran, Lifafa, and Cargo - What's The Chakkar?
What’s The Chakkar? Episode 3: We’re reading Pradeep Damodaran and Delia Owens; listening to Lifafa; watching Cargo. Featuring Shaista Vaishnav, Ady Manral, and Prateek Santram. Hosted by Karan Madhok.
FutureDesi IndieSounds
What will be the dominant sound of Indian Indie Music in the 20s? Karan Madhok spoke to a number of established and up-and-coming artists to predict our sonic future.
Wake Up and Listen
With ‘Jaago’, singer/producer Lifafa (Suryakant Sawhney) released a modern ‘folktronica’ classic. Here is The Blue Magpie’s track-by-track review of this 2019 album.
In its efforts to truly understand Bengali culture, the BJP government must accept that it will gain nothing by asserting its influence over Durga Puja pandals. Any attempt to politicise and constrain their artistic freedom diminishes the distinctive flavour of the spectacle. By Sujoy Sarkar