Banker-turned-musician Ameya Dabli talks life, facets and music for peace in a freewheeling chat with Delhi Post.
What began as a natural inclination towards music from the age of five years owing to his family of music lovers soon inspired Ameya Dabli to quit his banking profession, and start using music as a peace-building tool.
The 38-year-old banker-turned- singer is a popular face at various corporate gigs, high profile weddings, celebrations and concerts among others and has now performed over 1500 concerts across 15 countries.
“Since, I don’t come from a music legacy, I had to establish and steady myself before taking the plunge into music,” Dabli, who went onto complete MBA after engineering and worked in CitiBank, HSBC and Tata Group, tells Delhi Post.
“Sharing that he has been influenced by a lot of saints, poets and spiritual orators and their emphasis on contributing back to society, he says he has tried to use his “singing talent to reach out to people”.”
This led him to launch an initiative, Ekam Satt, based on the ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: One World Family’ theme, three years ago. The initiative does pro bono curated concerts for the Indian Armed Forces as well as civilians for “propagating peace”.
“Considering that life is unpredictable, I wanted get across the point that there is a need for happy and stress-free living. There was a compelling need to communicate to people about this philosophy. We started out with jamming sessions for 6-8 months and now we have completed 60-70 shows across six countries. We have also performed 20 shows for the Indian Army,” Dabli tells Delhi Post, adding that they are now performing for the country’s Indian Air Force and Paramilitary Forces.
“My aim is to take music to every part of country,” gushes Dabli, who has been trained in Indian classical music and has rendered Western music forms. He used to actively participate in singing programmes at the school and college level but never sang professionally. While his debut album ‘Devadhideva’ released in 2012, was a runaway success with close to 25 million hits on YouTube, his second album launched by Times Music in 2017 ‘Ekam Satt: One Truth, One Humanity, World Music’ was hugely appreciated.
“I am happy to spread music through bhajans, sufi, contemporary, ghazals or any form. The idea is to reach out to people so that the true sense of music, which is for peace, can prevail,” says Dabli, who took up professional singing about 15 years ago.
While Dable’s compositions mainly focus on works of celebrated poets like Tukaram, Mirabai and Khwaja Garib Nawab, he also infuses Western forms like reggae and hip hop.
“Both Indian and Western forms of music are diverse and intrinsic. I love interacting with youngsters as well as doing ultra-luxurious baithaks for the elite crowd,” mentions an elated Dabli, ahead of his upcoming music concert, ‘Krishnnaa- Music, Bliss & Beyond’ on August 25 at Sophia Bhabha Auditorium, Breach Candy, in Mumbai.
“To me, Lord Krishna had a clever business acumen, was a caring brother, a good lover, a best friend, a complete package. He was a person who embodied everything and every emotion. That is how Krishnaa, as a new intellectual property was conceptualised for the public,” describes Dabli, adding that the concert, brought out by AD ventures and Bank of Baroda, is an ode to the spirit of Janmasthami or the birth of Krishna, which is celebrated across the country with much fanfare.
The concert is set to witness melodies composed and curated by Dabli, arranged by R.S. Mani from Hindi feature film ‘Veer Zara’ fame, and will be supported by maestros including Chintoo Singh on Guitar, Tejas Vinchurkar on Flute, Girish Vishwa on Dholak, Jayesh Dhargalkar on Tabla and Umashankar Shukla on Sitar, among others.
Ask Dabli about his dreams, and pat comes a reply, “Overall, I am quite contented. But there are still some challenging dreams. One of them is that I want to perform in iconic places including the Royal Albert Hall in London and the Sydney Opera House in Australia.”
