There are rivers, and then there are dreams disguised as rivers. Tapi, which winds its ancient body through the dust and glimmer of Gujarat, seems to belong to the second kind: a murmuring creature carrying stories, secrets, and songs to places beyond its banks. It is no accident that The Tapi Project — a band that refuses to be fenced in by geography, genre, or language — chose to take its name from such a river.
When ETV Bharat spoke to them, The Tapi Project seem less like a group of musicians and more like travellers who have made a pact with the invisible cartographers of sound. It has Yogendra Saniyawala on acoustic guitar and Greek bouzouki, vocalist Swati Minaxi, Gaurav Kapadia on drums, and Biju Nambiar on keyboard and bass. “The name arrived organically,” says Biju, describing how a song composed from the river’s 21 ancient names gave birth to the band's identity. The members spoke of jumping into the river of sound itself, of swimming when the waters are kind, surrendering when the currents are stronger.
The Tapi Flows Again
On May 9, the river flows once more — this time into Mumbai’s Royal Opera House. Presented by Avid Learning and Royal Opera House Mumbai, 'The Tapi Project: A Blend of Folk and Contemporary Sounds from India & Beyond' will offer the city a rare experience: jazz, rock, funk, folk, and spoken word woven together with the fine patience of river sediment layering over centuries. Tickets are available on Insider. The lineup will debut a new song and revisit others that have taken root in audiences across continents. The venue Royal Opera House (a remnant of colonial grandeur with its velvet seats and high arches) will no doubt rise to meet the sounds.
From performing at Trunchonbury Festival in the UK, to JazzNaCalo in Bulgaria, Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, Everness Festival in Hungary, Awaji Festival in Japan, and the Mahindra Kabira Festival in India, The Tapi Project manifests the idea that music, like rivers, transcends borders.
Rooted in Surat, a city bustling with diamond traders and silk merchants, modernity and memory jostling shoulder-to-shoulder, The Tapi Project have long outgrown their physical birthplace. Surat is their Earth, their root, but the idea of 'home,' they muse, has now “evolved into another dimension.” It exists somewhere in the hushed space between two beats, in the shimmering pause between two notes on a bouzouki.
Genre? What genre?
Ask The Tapi Project to categorise their music and they look amused. Folk, jazz, rock, ambient, spoken word... all these labels flutter about them like impatient butterflies. “Mostly the song decides,” says Swati. They are merely vehicles, tuned instruments through which unseen forces sing. If the metaphysical feels heavy in conversation, it becomes weightless in their music, which is as likely to tug at your heartstrings as it is to lift you into a sky stitched with a thousand musical possibilities.
It is perhaps this willingness to listen that gives their songs their visual, cinematic heft. Some songs feel like caravans crossing deserts; others like raindrops slipping off ancient windowpanes. Songwriting, for them, is neither wholly visual nor emotional. It is, according to Yogendra, “a journey where we are constantly learning about ourselves and the song.” His belief that music is “the most profound language after silence” echoes like a wisdom much older than their years.
Language too is Liquid
Gujarati, Hindi, English are vessels that arrive when summoned. Words, they say, have their limitations, but they also offer doors to new dimensions. The Tapi Project resists pinning down specific literary influences, preferring instead the idea of abstraction and non-conformity as guiding stars. A song may begin in Gujarati, swell into a roar in Hindi, and dissolve into a murmur in English.
When they travelled to Europe for their second international tour in 2017, the river within them overflowed its banks. “Fantasies and nostalgia gave way to absolutely alive present reality,” recalls Gaurav. No longer were they carriers of exotic sounds for foreign ears; they were travelers among travelers, musicians among musicians. In London, they jammed by the Thames, sending Tapi's waters (metaphorically) into joyful eddies alongside an ancient European sibling.
Yet, while the world obsesses over trends, virality, and the pyrotechnics of fame, The Tapi Project have remained beautifully rooted. “There is no other way for us,” insists Yogendra. Total immersion in the music is the only way to stay alive. Everything else (applause, recognition, invitations to international festivals) is just a by-product.
Before we part, we ask one last question: if they could jam with other rivers, which would they choose? Ganga, Amazon, Danube, Thames? Their answer is unhesitating: “Each one of them. We already did Tapi at Thames back in 2017,” grins Swati.
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