There was a time when the songwriter came first, just the quiet triumph of a song that could stand on its own. The Troubadour Sessions, which held its inaugural show at Oddbird Theatre in Delhi on February 27, is built around that.
Led by Aanchal Bordoloi and Leonardo Varghese, it attempted to revive the hootenanny tradition, a format that emerged from the Appalachian folk scene and was popularised by Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie in the early 1940s. Originally used to describe informal musical gatherings in New York City, the hootenanny became synonymous with performers playing and singing for one another in an open, communal exchange.
The tradition reached its height in the 1960s, when the Gaslight Cafe, Gerde's Folk City, and Cafe Wha? in New York, along with the Troubadour in Los Angeles, became proving grounds and launching pads for artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell. They offered a listening room where songs had to earn attention through craft alone. The format was freewheeling, improvised, and collaborative. Musicians didn't just perform for audiences; they performed for each other, testing ideas, swapping songs, and refining their work in real time.
India's live music circuit has never had that. Jazz and rock venues have carved out dedicated spaces, but folk and singer-songwriter music have struggled to find institutional support or infrastructure. It exists in the margins, house concerts, small festivals, and online releases, but it rarely gets the same treatment. The Troubadour Sessions pushes back against that and carves out room for folk as a form of narrative and reflection. Six songwriters took the stage, each bringing original work rooted in different traditions but united by craft.
Aanchal Bordoloi, from Assam and now based in Bangalore, opened the night. Describing her music as "a lot of laughing and a lot of crying," she performed three originals, "Revolutions in Cracked Feet," "Energy," and "Ruins." What stands out most is watching her have fun on stage alongside her unique vocal texture.
Arpan Kumar, part of the Delhi-based band Green Park, followed, opening with "Everything's Changed," then "Aura Farming," a song written just four days earlier and built around a solid bridge, before closing with "Newly Aged".
Poorvi Naithani, originally from Lucknow and now based in Delhi, brought a contemporary sensibility to her set. She performed “Time Won’t Tell,” “Table for 1,” and “Mimosas for Breakfast,” accompanied by Gandhi on guitar. Her debut music is set to release this April.
Leonardo Varghese performed “Gates of Jerusalem” and “Rosalie” from his debut album Leonardo, alongside the unreleased “You’ll Know Better Someday.” His songwriting leans on storytelling, with strong folk influences running through his work.
Imon/Prabahan Shakya performed "Empathy" and "Ziyaan", his first bilingual track, set for release on March 28, and shared that while he thinks in English, he emotes in his mother tongue, a contrast that shapes the song’s hopeful Assamese verses and playfully sarcastic lines in English. His signature vocal-centric style lends the performance a soundscape that feels both grand and ethereal.
Jaimin closed the evening with four songs, two from his debut album Cutting Loose, “One More Night” and “Bucket of Pain,” and two from his upcoming album, set for release later this year. He describes himself as more of a songwriter than a singer, and the distinction shows.
The night also featured covers, "Big Yellow Taxi," "It Ain't Me," "Little Green," "Hallelujah," "Like a Rolling Stone", woven between originals as homage to the lineage these artists draw from.
While the night was fantastic and I applaud the initiative, especially Oddbird Theatre’s willingness to host and extend their support for it, I left the evening thinking: are we starting to feel a lot less as life becomes too convenient and experiences turn increasingly superficial in the age of quick delivery and dating apps? What once worked was the depth that came from profound life experience. Now there seems to be a steep decline in maturity, rootedness, and resonance, which I feel is, to a large extent, driven by vanity and the urge to appear wise. All in all, there is an absence of otherworldliness in most of the songs. It becomes difficult to come across art that will truly change you for the rest of your life.
My two cents: get inspired, but don't become your idols. Find your own voice, your own sound, rather than emulating.
Written by Manisha Maity | Email
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