SINJINI GHOSH
A force to reckon with in every way, Madame Gandhi is as cool off stage as on. Glasses off, she’ s all warm smiles and powerful positive vibes, and we were lucky to catch her right in the middle of her India Tour at a special performance at The Humming Tree.
Starting off, you happen to be touring India for the first time right now! How has this been going for you?
As an artist, one thing I have been really working on this year is to be able to be comfortable in all sorts of really different environments. When I first started performing two years ago, I would find it difficult to perform in very stripped down settings, say its day time for example, or to be opening for someone else, or if I were to be performing on a huge stage with say a barrier between me and the audience because I need to be really connected to my audience. In India, I have been figuring out how to do that in all settings and still perform, deliver joy to my audience- and I can say I’ m really proud, because all the shows have been going so so well.
Delhi, Kolkata and Pune later, you are halfway through your run. Out of all your shows, which one do you think was your favourite?
Honestly, all three of those shows went so well, and were all so different from each other!
Does being on the road whilst on tour offer a lot of inspiration to you as an artist? Has it not been really tiring?
Oh yeah there’ s so much inspiration on the road. I have also found ways to manage my energy, as in if there’ s a party at 3 in the morning, I’ m not interested in that- I’ m interested in going to bed at 11, so that when I get on a plane the next day and meet the people of that city in a great energetic mood, I always find that those extra hours of sleep were worth it. You learn that really, to get sleep, honour your body, eat right and clean, drink water- I really like to bring this joyful energy to the spaces I am in. Especially when people expect you to pull up moody, tired or jetlagged, and I am out here like“ Oh great! This is amazing!” genuinely, I am glad I have learnt how to manage my vibe, and how to operate at my highest vibration of self on this tour.
So at Weekender and your other shows in India, the response has been wild with the crowd roaring The Future is Female right with you. That kind of positive response, energy, from the crowd- does that alter how you perform the next time?
That’ s a great question, because as a performer it’ s actually a mistake to make to assume that if you have had one good show you are at your prime and you’ re going to do better the next. If I have one good show I’ m actually a little apprehensive about the next one. I have been reading a lot about this as well- detachmentand whatever happens in one good show, what made it good, belongs to that moment and that group of people, and that sound team, and outfit and that vibe. So that’ s what you take from that one show. I can’ t assume that India loves me because they sang along to that one song, or the next show is going to be great. For example in Calcutta, I was performing in a big open ground and no one was listening initially, I had to pull
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