You have clocked out of work and you are headed home. The sun is descending below the horizon with hues of orange, pink and purple taking over. Stuck in traffic with the rest of the city folk, you are looking forward to your alone time at home and the only thing that can elevate this unwinding experience is a mellow track.
It was in one such instance that we stumbled upon the ambient and acoustic offering, Ranjha, by Divyam Sodhi and Harshit Misra aka Hashbass. The mellow song tracks the tale of modern-day Ranjha, who, after losing Heer, wanders around town in search of the unknown. In the visuals conceptualized by Rahul Dutta, you find Ranjha going about the mundane tasks of the day like sipping on coffee, and in him, you find yourself.
As Divyam puts it perfectly, “the story will remind you of love, sadness, unity and separation, so it is open to any feeling that wants to be felt by the listener.” Further on the mellow melody, we speak exclusively to Hashbass and Divyam about their inspiration, the musical elements put in place and their plans for the year...
Tell us about your experience working on Ranjha together.
Divyam: It has been an absolute pleasure working with Hashbass. Creating Ranjha with him felt so effortless and fun! We are also planning to do more songs this year.
Hashbass: It has been the most honest and fruitful collaboration for me to make this song with Divyam and this is the start of an endless journey of creating good, honest music.
What emotions did you two wish to evoke with this track?
Divyam: The track is inspired by the famous Heer-Ranjha fable. The story reminds me of love, sadness, unity and separation, so the song is open to any feeling that wants to be felt by the listener.
Harshit, you are bringing this new vibe to the Punjabi music scene, if we take your last track Dreams in context. Tell us a little about what inspires the same.
I’m from West Delhi and I grew up in a Punjabi neighbourhood, so somehow I understood how that felt and I like Punjabi music as well. So, from Dreams to Ranjha and many other tracks I have made and been on and will continue to make, I do believe I bring in my flavour. I also feel when you spend time and you eat the food and have conversations, it impacts your creativity and thus I bring my Hashbass sound to it as well.
What can we look forward to in 2024?
Hashbass: Lots of music coming out from the Hashbass stable. I just had a hip-hop album Baccha Kisko Bol Raha Hai with two rappers, Saniya MQ and Kavikaar from the Dharavi Dream Project drop at the start of the year on Tiger Baby Records.
Divyam: To release more music! Which will happen for sure this year. I have several songs already lined up for this year and an EP with Hashbass too!
Ranjha streaming on all major audio platforms.
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