Singer Tanmaya Bhatnagar delves into her heartwarming journey of early motherhood as she releases her debut EP

It all began very quietly, just me sitting at my piano, humming what eventually became the melody for the title track, Phoolon Sa Dil. My songwriting usually starts like that. It’s deeply personal, almost like I’m writing straight out of my journal. For me, making music is how I make sense of what I’m feeling. It’s how I process life, love, grief, and everything in between. While working on this EP, something very big and beautiful was also happening, I found out I was pregnant. Suddenly, the songs I had already started writing took on new meaning. I was on this parallel journey, creating a life, and creating this EP. Both processes were transforming me from the inside out. I was no longer the same person, and these songs started becoming little reflections of that transformation. The EP explores many emotions, but at the heart of it is softness, sometimes joyful, sometimes painful, but always honest. There’s love, the kind you feel when you find your person (Kinaare), and the kind that overwhelms you when you imagine holding your child for the first time (Noor). There’s vulnerability (Phoolon Sa Dil), and grief too, especially in Supriya/ Ma, where I write about my mother, who has lived with mental illness for most of my life. It’s a song about loss, even though she is still here. That kind of grief is complicated. It’s quiet and lifelong. But more than anything, this EP is about the human experience, how layered, fragile, and beautiful it can be. It's about the way we carry so many emotions at once. How we break, heal, and begin again. It's a soft place to land, for anyone who needs to feel seen in their joy and in their sorrow.

I never sit down to write with the thought of how it will be received. It’s always a very personal process, like opening a window just enough to let something out. When I was writing the songs for this EP, I wasn’t thinking of an audience. I was just trying to listen to myself, to understand what was happening inside me as my life was shifting in such a big way. But I do believe that when something is created from a place of truth, from a place that’s raw and full of feeling, it carries a kind of frequency. It holds something real. And that realness, when shared, naturally connects. It finds the people who are feeling similar things, even if they don’t have the words for it yet. So while Phoolon Sa Dil came from a very intimate place, I hope that in being so personal, it can also be universal. That someone might hear it and feel like they’ve been understood, even for a moment.

Working on this EP with Dhruv was a very tender, evolving experience. He’s not just a producer I admire, but someone I really trust with my most personal work. There were so many phases we went through together while making Phoolon Sa Dil. Dhruv was also working on music with Peter Cat Recording Co. at the time and preparing to go on a very long tour, so there were moments when we had to pause, especially when I was very close to giving birth, and then again in early postpartum. But the thing is, we always came back to the songs with fresh energy. Nothing was rushed. I still remember traveling to Goa when I was around 5–6 months pregnant to record vocals with him. That trip was such a unique experience. My body was changing, I was navigating a flood of emotions, but we were in this peaceful bubble of creativity and care. On days when my legs felt heavy, Dhruv would fill a bucket with hot water so I could soak my feet and relax before stepping into the vocal booth. It was such a gentle, thoughtful process. We weren’t just making music, we were taking care of each other in the middle of everything life was handing us. Then came postpartum, one of the most sensitive times in my life. I had just become a mother, everything felt so fragile and intense, but I was determined to finish this project. That’s when my best friend, bandmate, and producer Amar Pandey stepped in. He helped finesse the songs before mixing, but more than that, he showed up. He spent time with me and my newborn daughter, held space for both the music and the transition I was going through. I don’t think he’s done anything quite like that before, and it made this part of the journey really sacred. So yes, it was an unconventional process, but one that shaped the sound and feeling of the EP in the most meaningful ways. The softness, the depth, the emotional clarity, it all came from living these moments fully, in real time, while letting the music grow alongside us.

Yes, I was back in the studio just three weeks postpartum, and looking back, I’m not sure how I did it, but I just knew I had to. Everything in my life had shifted. My body, my mind, my identity, I had just brought a life into the world, and I was still figuring out who I was becoming in the process. But there was something in me that really needed to return to the music. I think it was my way of holding on to myself in the middle of so much change. Zindagi especially holds a very special place in that phase. It was one of the last songs we worked on, and I remember feeling like I was finally seeing the whole journey, like I had walked through all the other rooms and had arrived at a place of reflection. I had lived every emotion I had written about, and now, holding my daughter in my arms, I could feel everything from a different place, softer, clearer, more accepting. Motherhood made the songs feel more real to me. It made the grief in Supriya feel deeper, the joy in Kinaare feel lighter, and the delicacy of Phoolon Sa Dil even more tender. I didn’t go back to the studio to perfect anything. (okay maybe I did, I am unfortunately sometimes a real perfectionist) but I went back to honour what I had created, to stay close to it, and to let my new self meet it with fresh eyes. It wasn’t easy, but it was deeply grounding. Making this EP while becoming a mother will always be one of the most transformative things I’ve experienced.

Noor was the first song I wrote after finding out I was pregnant. It came out almost like a whisper, like something I was writing in the dark just for her. At that time, I had no idea who she would be, what our journey would look like, but I already loved her deeply. It was this overwhelming, pure kind of love that didn’t need a reason or history. Just knowing that she existed was enough. Motherhood has completely shifted how I understand love. Before, a lot of my songwriting came from romantic love, longing, grief, or healing. But this kind of love, it’s instinctive, steady. It’s not dramatic. It’s just always there. Writing from that place made me realise how soft love can be, how gentle and expansive. It doesn’t need to prove anything. Since becoming a mother, I think I write with more patience and more trust. I’m less afraid to sit with the stillness. I don’t always look for answers, I just try to stay honest to the feeling. Noor carries that energy. It’s my way of telling my daughter: “I’m here. I see you. You’re loved, exactly as you are.”

For me, vulnerability isn’t weakness, it’s one of the bravest things we can do. In a society that often tells us to be strong, to hold it together, showing up with your true feelings can feel risky. But that’s exactly why I try to bring vulnerability into my music. It’s a way of saying: it’s okay not to be okay. It’s okay to feel deeply, to break, to heal, and to keep going. When I embrace vulnerability in my songs, I’m inviting listeners to do the same, not just to hear my story, but to feel safe enough to acknowledge their own. I hope it creates a gentle and genuine connection, a reminder that none of us are alone in our struggles or our joys. We all carry softness and strength together. Ultimately, I want my music to be a space where people can rest with their feelings without judgement. Where vulnerability becomes a bridge, not a barrier. That kind of connection, I believe, is healing in itself.

I think I’ll continue creating music that is honest and soft, music that feels real to me. People might tell me to stop writing sad songs all the time, but I love organic, folksy music and I want to stay close to that space because it resonates with me deeply. I miss the beauty and rawness of originality, and I want to keep creating from that place.