SUCCESS IS LIKE A BONUS: ANURAAG
Musician Anuraag Dhondeyal talks about his latest projects The Anuraag Collective and Sounds of the Sufis, and the driving force behind his music
It’s been 15 years since Anuraag Dhondeyal has been playing music but for the 33year-old singer-songwriter following the Bhagavad Gita’s philosophy of karma is what life is all about.
“Success,” Anuraag says, “Is like a bonus. I keep contributing... If my work gets noticed, it’s great. But, if it does not, I am not going to stop what I am doing right now.”
He goes on, “I learnt a long time ago to be free from insecurities. You worry about things like success or failure when you are insecure. The moment you get rid of those insecurities, these things stop being so important.”
At present, Anuraag is part of two projects — The Anuraag Collective, and Sounds of the Sufis. While the former project gives the Mumbai-based musician the chance to “collaborate with people of different musical sensibilities”, the latter is his “passion”.
“With Anuraag Collective, I get to collaborate with different kind of musicians... such as a jazz artist, a blues artist, or anyone else.”
He adds, “This collective gives me that space where I can sort of explore different avenues of music, which is why I wanted to be a musician on the first place,” he tells us.
About Sounds of the Sufis, the musician who is considered by his peers as one of the rising names in the world of fusion music, says, “I have always been spiritually inclined, and Jiddu Krishnamurti (Indian philosopher, speaker, and writer) has been one of biggest inspirations. As a child, I remember reading couplets by saint Kabir, the poetry of Rumi, and being exposed to the spiritual side. That’s why I think Sufi comes naturally to me, and it’s more of a passion now.”
While Anuraag admits that Sufi music is not the “most popular” music genre that millennial listen to, but there are “a lot of youngsters, who are into exploring this genre in depth.”
Anuraag shares, “I know it’s not as easily adaptable in pop culture as other genres can be, but things are now changing.”