By Neha Kirpal
One of India’s favourite music festivals, Jodhpur RIFF is back with a bang after a two year hiatus. The Blue City’s magnificent Mehrangarh Fort play host to over 250 amazing performers from the 6th to 10th of October, 2022, showcasing the best of Rajasthani, Indian and global roots music as well as breathtaking collaborations between their creators.
In this exclusive interview, Divya Bhatia, Festival Director and Producer of Jodhpur RIFF, tells us more about the major highlights to look forward to this year, the festival’s journey since it started about 15 years ago, and how it has impacted the lives of Rajasthani musicians especially during the pandemic.
The Jodhpur RIFF is returning once again after a two years gap. What are some of the major highlights to look forward to this year?
In India, we oftentend to look upon indie music as western. At the same time, we have some very interesting indie work that is Indian. Previously, at the Jodhpur RIFF, we have presented international work that could be considered indie, but this is the first time we will be presenting indie music from India. This time, we have created a whole new slot called Indie Afternoons. The artists don’t belong to the typically rural parts of the country. They are urban artists but their music has elements that transcend the urban.
There are two very interesting young Indian artists—Harpreet Singh and Bawari Basanti— who have never before been on a platform such as the Jodhpur RIFF. Likewise, there is a band from Mumbai called Bombay Brass, an urban jazz band based completely on brass. SAZ, (named after the three band members—Sadiq Khan, Asin Khan and Zakir Khan), is another new band supported and produced by Jodhpur RIFF. The band came together post the lockdown as a band of three youngsters. They write new songs, which is very rare in the folk tradition.
What are the major international highlights at the festival this year?
One of the world’s finest oud players, Yurdal Tokcan, will be presenting a solo concert this year. An amazing DJ from Brazil, Mega Bo, will also be performing his own sets. Apart from this, there are two very unusual collaborations. One is between Irish and Rajasthani musicians that started in 2019 but developed online during the lockdown, and we will see its final outcome this year. The other is a new one with Welsh, Khasi and Rajasthani musicians coming together. It began in the lockdown, and the artists will be meeting for the first time at the festival.
What sets Jodhpur RIFF apart from some of the other music festivals out there?
We are quite different from some of the other popular music festivals. The core difference lies in our ethos.We don’t just claim to be about the artists, we are about the artists. We have a commitment to present a particular region of artists, which is Rajasthan. We also help impact their livelihood and future in a positive way, so we work with them constantly. During the lockdown, we did extensive relief work for the artists. Which other music festival has done such relief work for artists?
Kindly elaborate on how the festival impacted the lives of Rajasthani musicians over the years, especially during the pandemic?
From about June 2020 till about March/April 2021, we supported families in about 60 villages across Rajasthan and over 2000 families. We did this in terms of emergency food relief as well as medical and financial aid. We also video recorded two concerts—at dawn and dusk—for festivals overseas (in New York, Scotland and Wales), which were doing online versions. Apart from that, we also run training camps in which artists earn money by training youngsters.
Could you please give our readers some of the major highlights of Jodhpur RIFF since it started 15 years ago?
When we started, if you asked anyone the name of a folk musician from Rajasthan, they wouldn’t know. People were only interested in well-known, established musicians and big celebrities attending the festival. So, there has been a huge shift in people’s knowledge and awareness about some of these talented Rajasthani musicians.
Now, almost every festival has at least one Rajasthani folk musician, almost all of whom have emerged from Jodhpur RIFF. We are the only festival that has done collaborations for Rajasthani artists with some of the major music festivals across the world.
This is one of the evolutions that the Jodhpur RIFF is seeing over time. Initially, it was a meeting point for our audiences and traditional musicians. Then, it became a meeting point for international artists with our own. It’s now growing into becoming a meeting place for indie musicians. In the coming years, we plan to add more street, outdoorsy and children-oriented elements to the festival.
