This website is a selective online archive of literary and musical material by Poet and Hindustani Khayal singer Pandit Anand Thakore ‘ Sabadpiya’.
It includes work in the form of Poems, Essays, audio and video recordings of live concerts and readings; as well as reviews, interviews and articles about Thakore’s work as a musician and a writer.
Please feel free to browse through this content at your leisure.
Born in Mumbai in 1971, Poet and Hindustani classical vocalist Anand Thakore spent a part of his childhood in Britain and has lived in India since then. 'In Praise of Bone', ' Seven Deaths and Four Scrolls', 'Mughal Sequence', 'Elephant Bathing', ' Selected Poems' and ' Waking in December' are his six published collections of verse. His poems, as well as his critical essays on poetry and music have appeared in leading national and international journals and anthologies. He is the founder of Harbour Line, a Mumbai-based publishing collective, and of Kshitij, a group devoted to the creation of interactive performance spaces for musicians. Thakore describes his work as poet and musician, as having arisen ‘ from a fortuitous confluence of cultural histories’. He gives concerts regularly at ‘mehfil-s’ and music festivals in various parts of the country and lives in Mumbai, where he teaches Hindustani music in the guru-shishya tradition.
Anand Thakore reads 'Glacier'
(Kitabkhana, Mumbai, 2012)
Pt. Anand Thakore, Raga Jaijaivanti
(PL Deshpande Auditorium, Mumbai 2007)
His musical training began in early childhood under the guidance of Ustad Aslam Khan and of his father Sandip Thakore, a sitar-enthusiast and a disciple of Ustad Mohammed Khan ‘ Beenkaar’. Anand Thakore trained for many years with Pandit Satyasheel Desphande, foremost disciple of Pandit Kumar gandharva; and with Pandit Baban Haldankar of the Agra Gharana. During his years as a student of Pandit Satyasheel Deshpande, he played an active role in musicological research and documentation projects at the Samvaad Foundation run by his guru in Mumbai. A composer of music with lyrics in Hindi, he has a number of Khayal compositions to his credit and composes under the pseudonym Sabadpiya. Guldasta-e-Khayal, his latest Hindustani Classical CD appeared in 2011; Sabadpiya Ki Khoj, a pamphlet of khayal lyrics composed by him, in 2009.
Pt Anand Thakore, Raga Multani
( Live 'mehfil' in Bandra, Mumbai 2009)
Anand Thakore reads 'Chandri Villa', '1942'
( Kitabkhana, mumbai 2012)
Thakore is the recipient of a national scholarship for music from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, a grant from the Charles Wallace India Trust for experimental work in the UK and The Svar-mani award for excellence in musical performance. He earned a BA in English Literature from the University of Mumbai - where he also studied Sanskrit Literature -and holds an MA in English Literature from the University of Pune. He was recently on the editorial board for the Montreal Prize Global Anthology (2012) and is currently working - between teaching music and concerts - on his fourth book of verse.
Some Responses To Thakore’s work:
‘The control of movement and the tightness of language in these poems would be remarkable anywhere…….. What is also remarkable, is that Thakore’s main profession is that of a singer, in Hindi.’
-Dom Moraes, Mid-day, 1995
‘Both cultures animate his work: his verse has a line and weight reminiscent of mid-twentieth century British verse; his music reaches out to antiquity
- Jeet Thayil, Sixty Indian Poets, 2008
'That Thakore is a Hindustani Classical singer shows in his imagery and complex patterns of sound, and in the texture of his verse. There is a song-like quality about his verse and I am reminded at times of Caroline songs and German Lieder……. I cannot imagine such delicate and musical poems being written in London or New York'
- Bruce King, on Waking in December, World Literature today, 2001
Anand Thakore reads 'The Kohinoor'
( Kitabkhana, Mumbai 2012)
Pt. Anand Thakore Raga Basant
( TV Concert, Sahyadri Channel)
'There is a meditative streak about much of Anand Thakore’s poetry. Whether it his personal past or the last sad days of a widower grandfather floating on ‘the oarless raft of his grief’, or Karna ruminating on giving up his armour, the contemplative mode is ever present. And he is in the habit of ‘wading through the deepening swamp of the self’. This also necessarily brings in more strands than one, so that a poem turns complex and becomes a ‘knotted cord.’ A poem on a wind chime (‘this swirling welter of splintered thoughts’)will end up by talking of space. A glacier moving down river will make you think of destiny.The imagery is startling and sharp, as it should be in good poetry. This poetry is beyond the ephemeral. For genuine lovers of the muse, Elephant Bathing is a very rewarding book. I am privileged to have read it.'
- Keki N. Daruwalla on Elephant Bathing
“Anand Thakore's Mughal Sequence is glowing verse, illuminated by inner fire. It is also incredibly supple, capable of conveying to us Humayun's introspections with as much immediacy as Babur's incandescent visions. Thakore's historical fictions are beautifully crafted internalised narrations.”
- Gieve Patel on Mughal Sequence
' Here is a gifted poet, of the caliber of Dom Moraes, who paints landscapes and seascapes with their flora and fauna in memorable lines while strictly observing rules of metre and rhyme which most modern poets tend to ignore. I cannot claim to have understood all his poems but mean to read them again and again till I have got a hang of them'
- Khushwant Singh - Hindustan Times, 2005
Gieve Patel speaks at the Launch of Anand Thakore's Two Collections of Verse. ( Kitabkhana, Mumbai, April 2012)
Anand Thakore in conversation with Arundhathi Subramaniam- Kitabkana
