Raghu Dixit: Open-ended soul

The recent MTV Lycra Awards in Mumbai saw a huge gamut of musical stars making their presence felt on the starry starry stage. Perhaps the least known but the most lauded musician on stage was Raghupathy Dixit and his Raghu Dixit Project. A post-graduate gold medalist in microbiology and a proficient Bharatanatyam dancer, Raghu is a self-taught guitarist working out of Bangalore.

“You might not have heard my name but I am quite popular in Bangalore and I have been performing for the last nine years now,” says Raghu, a veteran of over 250 concerts. Ask him to define his music and Raghu does his explaining act. “I would call it Indian world folk-rock music. At the core, it’s very Indian folk music but we do borrow sounds from different parts of the world, from different folk traditions and there’s also an element of rock.”

Raghu is very particular in maintaining that The Raghu Dixit Project is not a band. “We call it a project because it’s not a constant band as such,” he clarifies. “It’s an open house project where people can walk in and walk out any time they want. I work with musicians who love to work with me. So each show is a different project. It’s the same set of songs but performed with different sets of musicians making the interpretations very different. The collaborations could be with dancers, film-makers, graphic artists, poets… just about anybody.”

Besides concerts, Raghu is also into producing music. “I did music for a Girish Karnad play Hayavadana four or five years back — it was an English play but I had to do Indian folk music for the play,” he recalls. “I have recently done music for a commercial Kannada film. I am also open to doing music for Hindi films.”

Up next, though, is the first album of The Raghu Dixit Project. “My sound changes depending on what kind of musicians I am playing with so I won’t be able to tell you how each song sounds since different musicians have collaborated with me on the tracks,” he laughs. “But I just hope people will wake up to the album and know that a person named Raghu Dixit exists.”