MUMBAI: US-based singer-composer and creative director of the world famous project Indian Raga, Vinod Krishnan recently chose to work on Subramania Bharathi's poem ‘Ninnaye Rathi Endru’.

Bharathi is an independence activist, poet, writer and social activist from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He is a name to reckon with for his diverse literary work. Though one of the front liners of independence, the poem Vinod is working on is about love.

“Ninnaye Rathi Endru is a love poem with a contemporary score and harmonic arrangements. Bharathi expresses his love for his wife, Kannama and elevates her to a celestial angel in the poem. Dancer Sophia Salingaros has performed Bharatanatyam to depict Bharathi's expressions, and ballet to depict the the abstract subject of his poem - the mystical angel, his wife,” explains Krishnan a merit certified musician from the Trinity College Of Music

This is election time in India and even artistes are making their political thoughts loud and clear. Vinod, however, has chosen something that is nothing to do with elections, “It's a love poem by a poet praising his wife. I think we could all use some man-praises-his-wife examples today.”

Vinod further expresses that artistes sharing their thoughts on the socio-political state in the nation is required given the election scenario, “India is a secular country. The artists are just, again, reminding people of our secularism. It's enshrined in our constitution, so whoever comes to power; it's their responsibility towards the people to uphold every citizen's right. I am for any government that upholds every citizen's rights in the country and works for the nation's wellbeing. A democratic government should reflect inclusion and diversity.”

He also re-instates the role of art and artistes in the nation, “Absolutely! art and society reflect each other in many ways. Art reflects, exaggerates, questions and reforms, all at the same time. I've always felt our classical arts are several planes higher than our current existence. They are a gold standard that society should strive for. It only depends on how much and how fast we as a society want to evolve. A simple example could be - mainstream arts like films have always shown how women are mistreated. The intention might have been to remind us to treat them better, but instead, we ended up normalizing that mistreatment for a long time now because we saw it on screen. The question should be whether society has the ability to see the change that art is offering us and imbibe it. At some level, society is art's child, but a stubborn one I guess.”

Apart from his new work on the love poem, he also shares his other projects, “I continue to closely collaborate with Indian Raga and their fellows. I have three projects with Indian Raga that we've finished this year so far. They are all in post-production now and should release in the coming weeks. I am also producing my first Tamil independent single that I expect to release this summer. We've finished the script and casting. Pre-production is on now, and I will announce these on my social media handles soon.”