Boy and the band

(Above) Two albums old, Anand Bhaskar Collective is also working on an EP, called Ufaq; (Right) Anand first noticed his wife Nidhi, when they were working late at work one day next to her, for her to finally recognise me,” he recalls, chuckling. But she didn’t respond to his messages and so, he stopped trying.

But one day, when his boss asked Anand to get his guitar and he was forced to sing in office (Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here), Nidhi first noticed him.

When they accidentally met in the elevator soon after, Anand was determined not to ‘give her bhaav (attention)’, so when she complimented his singing, he replied with: “You don’t check your FB messages.” Quick wit and a golden voice worked, and soon they were texting on Hangouts and then they SMS-ED for two months as Anand didn’t have a smartphone in 2011.

“That hardwork was worth every second. It took me 59 days to ask her out. Even now I feel she’s way out of my league.”

They’d discuss music and Bhaskar discovered that Nidhi loves Bollywood music. So, he invited her to listen to an original (Hey Ram) and that day she started pushing him to do music. “Today, I’ve been doing music exclusively for six years and don’t feel bored or burnt out! That’s insane compared to the fact that I changed my job seven times in 10 years of being in advertising and BPOS,” he exhales!

Not that he didn’t take up all household chores after he quit his job – he learnt how to make perfectly round chapatis, besides cooking. “My wife would come from work (she’s currently the head of development at Window Seat Films LLP) and ask me how I’d managed to make them so round!” laughs the musician who’s now sung in Baaghi 2, Mission Mangal and has also worked with Amit Trivedi.

His band, Anand Bhaskar Collective, too grew by leaps and bounds in the five years. Like Ankur Tewari from Ankur & The Ghalat Family, who is the one to have recommended Anand for Mirzapur. Anand, in turn, got his entire band on to play for one track as well as indie musician Isheeta Chakravarty to sing the track Tittar Bittar.

Season 2 was also distinctively different than season 1, complete with a rap song, Munna. “My first draft got rejected,” he confesses. Then, he turned his composition process around – getting the lyrics from Ginny Diwan for Tittar Bittar. The line ‘ho jaaye saare tittar bittar’ sparked a melody and the song was done in an hour. “It’s an ‘item