The Dewarists
A creative platform featuring a spectrum of talented musicians from Grammy award winner Imogen Heap to Vishal Dadlani and Monica Dogra to Mohit Chauhan, Shilpa Rao and Shantanu Moitra, The Dewarists is where artists from across the nation come together to collaborate and create. We catch up with the person responsible for making the series with Bacardi’s Dewars – Samira Kanwar of Babble Fish Productions.
Samira Kanwar
Born and brought up in Oman, Muscat, she moved to Mumbai when she was 16. Upon graduation, she experimented in advertising for about four years and then switched to television. Passionate about music, she eventually decided to quit her job and start her own company, Babble Fish Productions. ‘I didn’t see myself working anywhere else in the industry. My interests are music and film, and this was the best way I could combine the two.’
Babble Fish Productions
Babble Fish Productions was conceptualized in 2008 to visually represent the unheard voice of independent music artists mushrooming across the sub-continent. Over just three years, it has built an impressive repertoire with Pentagram, Raghu Dixit Project and Shaa’ir n Func. Independent of clichés that swarm the circuit, this production house steers away from mainstream Bollywood and focuses more on artists who offer a distinct, personal identity to music in the country.
The Dewarists
‘In a country like India right now, musicians are still not given their due, and they really have to struggle in order to be successful. There isn’t a support structure built for musicians as yet.’ In August 2010, Samira and Dewars decided to produce a show that would tap into the independent Indian music scene. A telescopic journey into the heart of India, The Dewarists takes on a documentary-travelogue format, ‘We didn’t only want to showcase the artists. We didn’t want to say that, “this is Vishal Dadlani or this is Imogen Heap” – we wanted the show to be about the artists’ experiences in a particular location, which in turn inspired them to create music. So we decided we would always travel with the show. The idea through Dewarists is to inspire people to pick up a guitar or start playing the piano again, because a lot of us get lost in the rut of work and forget to do something just for ourselves. The show is just there for to remind people that there is more to life.’
The Dewarists premieres on 16th October on Star World._
By: Radhika Iyengar
