Finding her voice | Madhubanti Bagchi
As she gears up to release a self-composed single, Madhubanti Bagchi says creating her own music is the only way to carve an identity beyond her blockbuster hits
It’s been only two years since the success of the thumri ‘Nazariya Ki Maari’ from Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Netflix series Heermandi and the blockbuster item track ‘Aaj Ki Raat’ from Stree 2, but Madhubanti Bagchi has already positioned herself as the next big thing in Hindi female playback.
It’s been only two years since the success of the thumri ‘Nazariya Ki Maari’ from Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Netflix series Heermandi and the blockbuster item track ‘Aaj Ki Raat’ from Stree 2, but Madhubanti Bagchi has already positioned herself as the next big thing in Hindi female playback.
It’s been only two years since the success of the thumri ‘Nazariya Ki Maari’ from Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Netflix series Heermandi and the blockbuster item track ‘Aaj Ki Raat’ from Stree 2, but Madhubanti Bagchi has already positioned herself as the next big thing in Hindi female playback.
Snugly fitting in the space between Sunidhi Chauhan, Shilpa Rao and Shreya Ghoshal, the singer from mofussil Bengal is sought after in the recording booth by heavyweights such as Pritam, Vishal Bhardwaj and Sachin-Jigar. Last year’s Dhurandhar featured her in the superhit ‘Shararat’. “Playback singing pays the bills,” Bagchi explains. “When it comes to my own music, and expressing who I am, I will do what I want.”
Bagchi, trained in the Agra gharana, but is equally fond of heavy metal and hip-hop and will soon release an original composition she has sung. Ignoring streaming services and record labels demanding short songs in fear of losing the listener’s attention, Bagchi says her song is almost five minutes long. Bagchi wants to prove she isn’t just ‘Aaj Ki Raat’, whose Hindustani classical laced with club beats is now a formula. “Waiting for a song that showcases my talents to come to me is not an option,” Bagchi explains. “I have to make my kind of songs myself.”
She adds that contemporary Hindi films now rarely include female solo songs that are not item songs—especially ones a heroine can sing all by herself. “Not many films use music like Dhurandhar,” Bagchi notes. “Despite being such a macho film, most of the audio is carried by women singers.”
Among her non-film work, Bagchi recommends to fans ‘Ab Ke Sawan’, the ghazal ‘Labon Se Baat Karo’, and the self-composed ‘Kaise Hum’, which she created in memory of her cat Cheet (meaning ‘madness’ in Bengali) who passed away in 2024.
