Madhubanti Bagchi during a concert
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
In the last two years, chances are high that you have found yourself swaying to, or even breaking into a jig to a song sung by Madhubanti Bagchi.
2024 marked the beginnings of a dream run for the singer, when ‘Aaj Ki Raat’ from Stree 2, sung by her, went on to become a chartbuster. What followed in the next year were again, two big hits; ‘Uyi Amma’ from Azad and ‘Shararat’ from Dhurandhar.
On the heels of her success as a playback singer and her foray into indie music comes her debut national tour, This Is Who We Are. The tour will see her perform across the country, with stops in Hyderabad, Pune, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai, among other cities. The tour is scheduled to begin on November 14, in Hyderabad.
Madhubanti describes the debut tour as the culmination of everything she has worked towards. “Performing live is where music comes alive for me. For years, people have connected with my voice through movie screens and streaming playlists, but this concert tour is about breaking down that digital wall,” she says.
Classical connect
The West Bengal-born musician, grew up being rigorously trained in the Agra Gharana hindustani music tradition and acknowledges the strong foundation this has enabled through her music journey.
“There are so many things my voice is capable of doing now, and I know for a fact that it comes effortlessly because of all the work I had to put in at a young age. My voice now is also ready to receive new training, if I simply want to learn something new,” she says.
She says that the string of playback hits, she says, is a small but significant part of her story. “The bigger picture is still yet to unfold, something I did not have a vision for until these songs happened. I now feel like a door has opened for me and I understand myself better, and am finally feeling brave enough to take big career decisions; previously it was brave decisions in life, like how I moved to Mumbai to pursue my music dreams,” she explains. Among her bigger, and braver career decisions, she says, is giving independent music a shot, dabbling in composing and writing her own songs.
Madhubanti Bagchi
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
From ‘Nazariya Ki Maari’ in Heeramandi, ‘Ishq Hai’ in Mismatched or even ‘Shararat’ in Dhurandhar, Madhubanti details her process, and says how as a playback singer since one is practically playing a character while singing a song, it feels imperative to know the story or the character, and work on delivery. “It is rare that I actually get to be onscreen myself like it happened with Shararat,” she laughs. Madhubanti and her co-singer Jasmine Sandlas both appeared in the video of the song, playing singers onstage.
The upcoming concert tours will have a setlist spanning around 2 hours, and feature her biggest hits and blend her classical training as well as expertise in pop and film music onstage. For singers, the need to go beyond, and be a performer has become imperative, something that she acknowledges as well.
“I have memories of performing in a band in college, and I have done Bollywood shows as well. Stage shows are fascinating because every outing is different, and there is much to learn about the audience on that particular day. Every day is a new day,” she adds.
Tickets for the This Is Who We Are concert tour are priced at Rs 499 and available on BookMyShow
Published – September 24, 2026 06:52 am IST
