Sep 15, 2026 5:30pm IST
Ankur Tewari: ‘Honest Songs Don’t Chase Trends, They Outlive Them’ (EXCLUSIVE)
In a world where being busy has become an annoying but unavoidable personality trait, Ankur Tewari is making a case for the act of doing nothing. His new album, “Mr. Faarigh,” began as an uncomfortable encounter with idleness that slowly turned into an album about procrastination, patience and the freedom of having time on your hands. From “Dil Beparvah” and his “The Ghalat Family” days to “Gehraiyaan,” “Gully Boy” and “Kho Gaye Hum Kahan,” Ankur Tewari’s music has an unhurried quality that now seems to be a philosophy he has woven into “Mr. Faarigh.” The album also serves as a reminder that sometimes music needs time to find its shape and space. In a conversation with Variety India, Tewari opens up about the making of “Mr. Faarigh,” his relationship with procrastination and why, in an age of instant consumption, he believes honest songs can still outlive trends.
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The word “Faarigh” means being unoccupied or at leisure, but being busy is often spoken of almost as a badge of honor now. What made you want to build an entire album around the idea of doing nothing?
I’d just wrapped major projects - Coke Studio Bharat and Bandwaale for Amazon Prime - and suddenly, time became the one thing I had too much of. A rare, dangerous surplus. You’d think idle hands would feel like a holiday. Mine felt like an accusation. The silence wasn’t peaceful. I wondered why this stillness felt like sin. And why doing nothing came with a sense of guilt attached to it.
I began interrogating my own relationship with idleness, poking at the discomfort. And somewhere between the boredom and the bewilderment, ‘faarigh’ stopped being a state I was avoiding and became a character I needed to meet. That’s the moment “Mr. Faarigh” was born.
You’ve described ‘Mr. Faarigh” as an “investigation into procrastination.” Do you think taking your time has actually helped your work age better?
Time forces you to turn your work over, again and again, until you catch angles you’d have sprinted past in a rush to deliver. Detail can betray you or it can be the friend that saves the song. For me, it was the latter. Time didn’t just polish the work, it gave it layers. It let the project breathe until it became something whole.
Some songs on this album have been with you for years, including ‘Yakeen,’ which has reportedly been part of your live set for more than a decade. What happens to a song when you live with it for that long and perform it over and over?
A song on its own has a completely different meaning from what it has when it becomes part of the project. I have been singing “Yakeen” for over 12 years with my band, “The Ghalat Family.”
For the closing note of “Mr. Faarigh,” I wanted something hopeful. But hopeful in a mellow, groovy, half-smiling way. “Yakeen” already had hope baked into its poetry; live, we’d play it upbeat, almost celebratory. But the album needed a different kind of hope… quieter, more like an exhale.
One evening, guitar in hand, I was doodling; the way you doodle when you’re not trying to write anything. I found a new chord pattern for the same song, slowed the BPM down, gave it a slight swagger. And just like that, the mood shifted. It stopped being upbeat and started being unhurried. It fit the album’s ending like a glove. Now, live, we play a hybrid; one foot in the old version, one in the new. Same song, two heartbeats.
You began releasing music at a time when there was no pressure to feed an algorithm. Today, artists are expected to remain visible and prolific. Do you think music can still have longevity in an ecosystem that rewards speed and instant consumption?
Exactly. Honest songs don’t chase trends; they outlive them. They find their own homes, quietly, while the trends move on to the next shiny thing.
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