Kalpana Patowary - "My intention is to make music I love".

Singer Kalpana Patowary tells about her new act and life beyond.

Your debut single "Maa-e-ri" is set for release this year,how would you describe the track?

Maa-e-ri is a song with a universal message in harmony with nature that’s fun and a great introduction of singer Kalpana and to the rest of the album.

How would you describe your new overall sound?

Beautiful melodies and honest lyrics.

The concept is very different/contrast, was that intentional?

I always experiment with my music but my intention was to make music that I love and it lead me to love Nature. I am excited about this new chapter of life. The album is done and being mixed and mastered so expect it early this year! I suggested the name of the album Maa-e-ri. It’s a name that lends itself to a cinematic audio and visual experience!

Do you have any other plans up your sleeve?

I promise I will be doing my best to give back to the world My Earth My Duty. 

Kalpana makes music for a cause.

Music has always tried been a great vehicle for a social message. And now, the latest in this well-intentioned lineage is singer Kalpana Patowary (who can forget her hit track Tere Ishq Se Meetha from film Aakrosh and Aila Re Aila from film Khatta Meetha) who is geared up for her new Hindi album Maa-e-Ri.

This is the first time in India, a music video album with nature depicted in it and releasing a full length album of 6 tracks. "There has been a cry for saving the enviornment, save the earth in the nation and worldwide. We have done a huge damage to the universe through pollution. Through this album, Kalpana is potraying herself as messenger of mankind and urging people  to come together and spread the message to love and save the Nature", explains Kalpana.

And there’s more, Kalpana intends donating a percent of the income from this album to the MUMBAI POLICE in order to aid the families of those who lost their lives while fighting for the nation. Now, if that isn’t a great cause, then what is?

Kalpana Patowary’s Maa-e-Ri - an effort for Mother Earth.

Secretary to save Nature.

To kick of the eco-friendly campaign this year, singer Kalpana is set to release her latest Hindi music video album Maa-e-Ri. Every year efforts are made to save Mother Earth with the help of several promotional campaigns. This time Kalpana has taken it a step further. To spread awareness about NATURE, and to promote tourism of North East. Says Kalpana, we all living and non living beings are dancing the Rhythm of Love and this will be the first music video in India where you get to see Kalpana portrayed in Harmony with Nature.We get to see Kalpana fly like a bird, sitting, conversing & playing  with the lion and more. In Maae-Ri , Kalpana transverses through the landscapes of Cherapunji. Says Kalpana,"to potray all of them were a big challenge for me and I am doing this to help and promote the assuage of a GREEN EARTH.

Kalpana Patowary - A still from Maa-e-Ri which brought the beauties of Mylongnong to Bollywood's notice.

Kalpana Patowary - how to handle criticism?

Says Kalpana: The more, the merrier! You have to believe in yourself. With self-belief comes the ability to deliver consistently. So, I have immense faith in my abilities and know full well what I am capable of. In fact, when any other artist does a good work, I try calling up that person and congratulate him or her. Unless you appreciate someone else’s from your heart, you are not a good artist yourself. Let me put it this way that – Mera bhi achha hai aur aapka bhi achha hai…aisa nahi hona chahiye ki sirf mera achha hai aur aapka kharab. This is hypocrisy done by some artists. I have no problems with anyone saying anything. I understand that just as it cannot always be roses. After reaching a particular point, you can only pull a person down. But I bounce back again. 

Kalpana Patowary - Looking ahead 2011.

Maa-e-Ri - a lyrical conversation with Mother Nature.

Singer - Kalpana

2010 was the best year for singer Kalpana. She struck gold with hits like Ishq se meetha (Aakrosh),Aila Re Aila (Khatta Meetha)Shakira se bhi jyada (No problem). And as the New Year rolls, she hopes that it’ll bring with it many more chartbusters and fulfill her dream with presentation of her latest Hindi music video album Maa-e-Ri. Kalpana symbolically attempts to play the human race in her video have been in news right from the time it was announced. The costumes and SFX of the video have already been talked about, likely to be one of Kalpana's biggest musical releases. Kalpana will tickle your funny bone in this video.This will be a music video that might well be peppered with Nature, slice of wild life and loads of blissful enlighten, music very dramatic and Kalpana's vocal-fusion of folk as Kalpana always liked it. Maa-e-ri has an interesting universal concept and is made by a singer who has shown depth & insight in this venture.

Kalpana Patowary - That’s the (green) spirit - Action for Green Care.

Nature favors those organisms which leave the environment in better shape for their progeny to survive...............JAMES LOVELOCK.

Nature has always been around. So instead of saving nature, would it not be better for us to alter our own nature? I totally agree. What is important is not the feeling of what "I did" but to work to restore to nature its prestine glory. This we could do by setting a personal, positive example.You can begin by minimizing consumerism. We need to follow the principle of "simple living and high thinking”. This is important to help us deal with manmade climate change.The unprecedented change in climate we see today is the result of human action -- so climate change is closely related to human values and how we regard the planet. Climate change is a collective issue that we need to solve together. Only mind consciousness cannot stop it. We need heart consciousness too. We need to use the language of the heart. We should not try to be bureaucrats and political leaders who play mind games instead Myself through this project working from the heart. This video potrays Kalpana as mankind and just asking people or spreading the message to plant trees or save the nature. I am very concerned about climate change. We should be ecologically conscious and live in an environment friendly way. We should know how to live with nature, respecting both animals and plants.It should be your karma and dharma to protect the Hindu philosophy of Panchatatva -- to protect the five elements of the universe. It is the primarily lack of awareness that has brought about this degradation of the environment.

Kalpana Patowary - Maa-e-Ri

Technically, the driest place on Earth is in the valleys of the Antarctic near Ross Island; it is reported that there's been no rainfall there for two million years.

Kalpana Patowary - My Earth My Duty campaign

My Earth My Duty campaign is an initiative by Bhojpuri singer Kalpana to sensitize people towards the effects of climate change. This video focuses on the preservation of Mother Nature i.e. plantations. Let us all volunteer actively and participate to preserve our nature and make it an unprecedented success and recognize this effort.

And we are grateful to everyone associated with this campaign. As a responsible artist,Kalpana will continue with her various campaigns in the future to come. Says Kalpana, " It’s really a nice thing to be acknowledge for doing something that you love to do, but in truth I don't consider it a body of work because I don't consider it work.

Kalpana Patowary - Nature Talk.

Kalpana Patowary, singer

For someone like me, who’s grown up in close proximity to nature? It’s disheartening to see the ecological damage in India. So when I got a chance to associate with Save the Nature campaign, I took it up. As a child, I used to think/hear fascinating stories about Mother Nature. We remember going for walks and hikes in the surrounding forests to see the beauties of nature and wild animals. The nature has a place in our folklore, art, religious iconography and so on. It’s sad to imagine without this beautiful Nature. The North east represents our heritage and needs to be conserved.

THE GREEN MOVEMENT AT 50: CAN THE WORLD BE SAVED?

Population growth and climate change are the big problems facing the earth in the next 50 years. But are there any solutions?

MANY of the issues the Environment Movement has faced over the last 50 years have been difficult, but none have been as formidable as the two challenges confronting it over the next half century, confronting the earth — population growth and climate change.

These two colossal problems, it is clear now, cannot be “ solved”; they can only be coped with, and the coping will have to be by governments. The task of the Green Movement will be to keep the pressure on governments, and companies, and individuals, to do what is necessary, however difficult that is.

Both issues are controversial. Some believe the rise in human numbers, from a world population of 7 billion to perhaps 9.3 billion in 2050 — that’s the UN’s medium estimate — will not be a problem, and certainly there is no plan to bring the estimated 2050 figure down.

But finding food for an extra two billion mouths in a mere 38 years, on top of those who are hungry today, is clearly going to be a Herculean task, and if we disaggregate the world figure into the projections for individual nations, the task seems more daunting still, especially with some of the “ high- growth” countries in Asia and Africa.

Bangladesh, with an estimated 148 million people in 2010, goes, according to the UN medium estimate, to 194 million in 2050; Pakistan goes from 189 million to 274 million. In some of the poorer parts of sub- Saharan Africa, the projections are quite remarkable, with doublings and even treblings expected in four decades — Kenya goes from 40 million people in 2010 to 96 million in 2050, while Niger, a country in the Sahel semi- desert belt where agriculture is difficult at best, will see its population go from 15 million to 55 million.

Yet the concern for the environment movement will be, can these extra billions be not only fed, but brought out of poverty through economic growth, without the planet being trashed? Can it be done without rainforests being torn down for agriculture, without the fish stocks of the oceans being exploited, without the atmosphere being swamped with climate- changing carbon from thousands of new power stations? The idea that grapples with this is sustainable development and this week the world community met in Rio de Janeiro to try to shape the first global sustainable development goals, which would probably concern food, water and energy, and run from 2015.

But even if they agreed, they could be destabilised by a changing climate. A great fear of far- sighted environmental thinkers is that global warming and its effects will combine with population growth, in interactions which will make things much worse. For example, Bangladesh will find it much harder to accommodate its extra 46 million people by 2050 if, as is expected, it begins to be affected by climate- change- induced sea level rise, with much of the nation below sea level already.

Yet climate change has slipped down the pubic agenda. There are three reasons for this, one being the recession, which affects us now, while global warming is a concern mainly of the future.

The second is that climate change sceptics, hardly any of whom are climate scientists, and many of whom are funded by the fossil fuel industry, have induced a certain amount of uncertainty in the public mind about the issue.

And this has been able to take root over the last few years because — and this is the third reason — the warming process appears to have paused.

Noone really knows why. A good guess is the gigantic cloud of sulphur emissions from Chinese power stations, which doubled their output of waste gases between 1996 and 2006 — the sulphur particles have the opposite effect of the carbon emissions, and reflect back the sun’s heat. But unless the laws of physics are altered, those global carbon emissions, now 33 billion tons annually and rising at six per cent a year, are going to make world temperatures rise considerably in the coming decades with potentially disastrous consequences.

What can the Green Movement do about this? Quite a lot, really, as was evinced by Friends of the Earth’s ( FoE) “ Big Ask” campaign for a climate change law, which would commit the UK Government to make legally- binding annual cuts in its carbon emissions. It succeeded, and in the Climate Change Act, 2008, Britain now has the toughest climate legislation in the world.

Tony Juniper, the FoE director who oversaw the campaign, is aware that climate change is the most difficult of all environmental problems. “ It’s bloody huge,” he says. “ It’s about everything — aviation policy, transport, energy, nuclear power, agriculture, recycling.

With the other issues we can get a tactical victory without all that baggage, but climate is different, and so is the timetable.” So he doesn’t think the Green Movement has failed? “ No,” he says. “ It’s work in progress.” There’s going to be an awful lot of that work needed by the greens over the next half century.

The Independent / The Interview People

Kalpana Patowary - Biography.

Kalpana Patowary is from Assam, darling of the North Indian belt and has carved herself a special niche in the Bhojpuri music world credited with reviving and promoting Bhojpuri music industry all over the world and bringing back traditional forms of music to the International stage. Indian folk music particularly of Northern India has been showcased and revived by her in a big way. “She gave Bhojpuri Music a new twist”. As Kalpana says, I don’t want my folk music to be trapped in our villages. Yes it’s safe there in its original form, but of no use unless we make the world hear our very soulful and meditative music. So to make it global I am trying to blend the music of my homeland with world music and other genres.

A graduate in English literature from Cotton College, Assam and Visharad in Indian Classical Music (vocal) under Bhatkhande Sangeet Vidyapeeth, Lucknow in 1996, a regular artist Doordarshan Kendra, Guwahati, Assam as well as All India Radio (yuba bani) Guwahati, Assam since 1992 her goal was set on furthering a career in music. Kalpana is the worthy torchbearer of a rich legacy of vocals, being the daughter of Assam’s folk singer Bipin Chandra Nath and disciple of the legendary Ustad Gulam Mustafa Khan.

In 2001, with endless aspirations and immense confidence, Kalpana moved towards Mumbai the dream city of India. In spite of her mother tongue being Assamese, Kalpana easily adapted different languages. She has already sung in around 7000 songs for round 22 languages.

Her debut on Bhojpuri album “ Gawanwa Leja Rajaji ” raised a storm which heralded the dawn of new era in the realm of Bhojpuri folk music. Released in 2003, Gawanwa Leja Rajaji strongly resonated with audiences, becoming that year's best-selling album in India and selling more than 1 crore units nationwide to date. Kalpana broke milestones with the album which opened the Bhojpuri music industry in India. She has given more than 10/15 Bhojpuri hit albums in Northern India.

In a very short span of time she has playbacked in more than 400 Bhojpuri films like Sasura Bada Paisawala, Saiya Se Karda Milanwa Hey Ram, Ganga Jaisan Mai Hamar,Niruhwa Riksha Wala, Saath Sahelia,Ajay Devgan’s–Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke, Chalat Musafir Moh Lio Re, Panditji Batiee Na Biha Kab Hoi, ,Purab Amitabh Bachchan – Hema Malini starrer Ganga, Gangotri, Ganga Devi to name a few. She have given many a hit Bhojpuri film songs like ‘Man ke Sawaria’, ‘Dil ke Dhardkan’, ‘Balamji’, “Suna Pardes Balam”,”Rasgulla”,”Pani Bhare Gaine Rama”,etc. She has also provided the playback for multiple generations of the actresses in Bhojpuri cinema.From that time till now Bhojpuri film industry has evolved so much that now it has become a global industry. The best-selling female artist of all time - Kalpana has made an indelible impact on the Bhojpuri music industry and audiences everywhere. Bhojpuri folk music has been showcased and revived by Kalpana in a big way.

Major Albums Out

The Legacy of Bhikhari Thakur (2012) (Virgin Records/EMI Music),

TajMahal (T-series),

Nirgun (T-series),

Kajree (T-series),

MASSICAL released from BIRD JAM label  in Germany & Times Music in India with world class India’s vitreous percussionist and bandleader Trilok Gurtu and collaborated with international unique musicians like Carlo Cantini, Jan Garbarek, Phil Drummy, Roland Cabezas, Stefano Dall’Ora.

Major Nominations & Recognisations.

BEST BENGALI PLAYBACK SINGER FEMALE - hit item song “Koka Kola” - film Faande Poriya Boga Kanande - 12^th TELE CINE AWARDS  – Kolkata 2012 - SCIENCE CITY AUDITORIUM, KOLKATA - 7th APRIL 2012.

BEST SONG IN FOLK CATEGORY - Bhojpuri chhath song "Saiya Chali Aawa Karat Bani Chhath" – Chhath album "Aage  Bilaiyya  Peechhe  Chhati  Maiya" - BIG STAR IMA AWARDS - 11th March 2011, Mumbai.

BEST ITEM SONG CATEGORY OF THE YEAR - song “Aila Re Aila” - hindi film Khatta Meetha - Radio Mirchi’s 98.3 FM’s - 3^rd Uninor Mirchi Music Awards –- 27^th of January 2011, Mumbai.

MOST POPULAR MARATHI SINGER - ZEE  TALKIES  - Maharashtra Cha  Favourite  Kaun - People’s Choice  Award – 2010 - song "Sarkar Aahoo Sarkar" - film Gallit Gondhal  Dillit Mujra - 29th October 2010, Grand Hayatt, Santacruse in Mumbai.

She has been recognized with Bhikhari Thakur Samman in Calcutta, Bhikhari Thakur Samman in Jamshedpur, Swar Samragee , Bhojpuri Swar Mallika, Bhojpuri Sewa Samman, Bhojpuri Sangam Samman, Panchamrit Samman, Atkrista Gayak Samman, The Bhojpuri Queen to name a few. She was entitled with “Bhojpuri Samragee” and “Swar Kokila” for popularity contribution to folk music of Bihar by Uttar Pradesh and Bihar government.

She had many opportunities to sing for Hindi films and has already playblacked in more than 100 Hindi feature films. Her numbers in the Hindi block buster’s  Anil  Kapoor’s -  NO  PROBLEM,  Ajay Devgan’s- AAKROSH, Akshay Kumar’s - KHATTA MEETHA, WELCOME, DE DANA DAN, Shah Rukh Khan’s - BILLU BARBER, ANTARDWAND &  Monty Sharma’s - CHAMKU & MIRCHH have further endeared her countless people in India and abroad.

Kalpana Patowary”s popularity is as tremendous as a performing artist that for the last 6 years she has been the biggest crowd puller. During her cultural tours sponsored by I C C R (Govt. of India ) of Scotland, Suriname, Trinard & Tobogo, Mascut, Oman, Dubai, Australia, Germany, Holland with her subtle artistry and mellifluous voice, the Bhojpuri Queen charmed the millions of rural folk and city-bred elites alike.

She is deeply rooted in Nirgun, Purvi, Kajree, Pachra(devi geet), Bihu, Goalporia folk forms. Some of these forms which have become extinct were presented by Kalpana in different stages.

This powerhouse vocalist set the stage on fire when she hit some orotund notes on the sets of NDTV Imagine’s Junoon Kuch Kar Dikhane Ka. Kalpana had been taking Assamese and Bhojpuri folk songs to various corners of India for more than a decade and Junoon Kuch Kar Dikhane Ka was simply the perfect platform for her to attain nationwide recognition.

She also gave a vocal performance in Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010 for theme-Celebration track-Assamese with music by Ranjit Barot and produced by BHARAT BALA PRODUCTIONS.

She was the anchor for FOLK JALWA, Etv Bihar. After Mahua Channels SUR SANGRAM -1 & 2 Kalpana as judge proved once again to become one of the most popular female singers breaking through into the big time Bhojpuri Music World.  She was as one of the judges on Mahua Tv’s childrens music reality show NEHLE PE DEHLA – “Nanhe Suron Ka Maha Sangram”.  In 2012 Kalpana was the Judge in  Bhojpuri Channel,  Mahua Tv  for the new musical reality show –“ Suron Ka Maha Sangram” with Bhojpuri Superstar Manoj Tiwari.

Maa-e-Ri - a lyrical conversation with Mother Nature is her latest music video album to be released this year 2012 by London based music label Virgin Records/EMI Music is going places with screenings and nominations to prestigious short Film Festivals like –

The 2nd  Guwahati International Short Film Festival (GISFF)

Nominated in the Northeast Shorts Competition open only for filmmakers from Northeast, Assam - May 4th to 6th 2012,

1st Imphal International Short Film Festival 2012.

Selected as the OFFICIAL SONG - Screened to International audiences as the OPENING THEME - 15th April to 18th April 2012 at Imphal, Manipur, North Eastern India.

CMS VATAVARAN: Environment & Wildlife Film Festival and Forum 2011.

Screened & awarded the CERTIFICATE OF PARTICIPATION - 6th competitive CMS VATAVARAN: Environment & Wildlife Film Festival and Forum in the “BIODIVERSITY CATEGORY” 2011 - 06^th to 10th December 2011 in New Delhi.

Shaan-e-Awadh International Film Festival 2011.

Nominated & screened in  BEST FILM CATEGORY - 18th November to 20th October 2011 at Lucknow.

Kalpana has enthralled music lovers with her flawless singing and even the most multiple generations of the Bhojpuri population have grown up listening to her. There are hundreds of thousands of her fans all around the world conveys their deep appreciation for Kalpana Patowary’s contributions to the genre of folk music of the province of Bihar and making an urbane, suave and contemporary presentation of the same to the society at large.

In 2009, after a lengthy hiatus Kalpana build her own dream home studio MUSIC BOX STUDIOS in Mumbai.

To know more about Kalpana Patowary checkout Official Blog http://singerkalpana.blogspot.com/