Irshad Kamil connects with words, creates poetry band

Remember Rockstar’s (2011) chartbuster song, ‘Jo bhi main kehna chahun barbaad karein alfaaz mere’ (my words destroy whatever I want to say)?’

Well, in real life, the song’s lyricist, Irshad Kamil is clearly in no mood to let words go waste. Probably that’s why he has started The INK band — considered to be India’s first poetry band. “The main focus behind it is to underline the importance of words and becoming a medium to express emotions with nicer and newer words. However, the idea is not to bedazzle with high-end poetry,” says Kamil, adding that the “basic thought was to connect the youth with music and giving importance to the lyrics and emotions.”

However, it is not just the youth Kamil wants to connect with.“90 per cent human beings have suffered from heartbreak, so they can connect with that emotion. The other reason is that bhookh mit ti nahi hai filmon mein likh ke (I don’t get satisfied by writing only for films). The lyricist admits that since he knows that “these words (besides what he writes for films) won’t make it,” to films, he has to find a way to reach out to the people, “whom my work belongs to”. “I am not a singer or music composer. So, I was like, ‘let’s create a poetry band’,” he says.

In his own “small, inimitable way”, Kamil has been doing poetry shows with his band for the last two years. “Surprisingly, most of the invites that I have got in the last two years have been from IITs, IIMs, colleges, theatre festivals, cultural or literary fests. So, most of the shows have had the youth connect and they can identify with it. They understand whatever I want to convey,” he says.

Now, two years later, Kamil has realised that his band’s novelty and popularity has caught on. “At first, I didn’t really pay a lot of attention to it but now, we realise that people like it and it has some kind of value,” he signs off.

The main focus of the poetry band is to underline the importance of words and becoming a medium to express emotions with nicer and newer words.

IRSHAD KAMIL LYRICIST