What began as a lockdown collaboration between Bharat Chandore and Jayesh Malani evolved into 'Guru Gyaan', the song that sparked the creation of NIMAD. Recorded in a makeshift studio inside an ancestral mud house in Chichli, the track preserves the spontaneity of live jams and first takes while drawing from the rich folk traditions of Nimad.
'Guru Gyaan', the latest release from NIMAD, emerged from a series of chance encounters and places coming together. The song's journey began during the lockdown, when musician Bharat Chandore reached out to saxophonist Jayesh Malani to contribute to an early version of a Kabir Bhajan.
What started as a simple collaboration soon grew into something much larger, eventually becoming the foundation for NIMAD, an ongoing project dedicated to documenting and reimagining the folk traditions of the Nimad region in Madhya Pradesh through contemporary sonic textures.
Much of Guru Gyaan was shaped during the artists' stay in Chichli, a small village in Nimad situated along the banks of the Narmada. There, Bharat's ancestral mud house was transformed into an improvised recording studio. Musicians from across the region travelled to the village each day, bringing with them songs, stories and musical traditions that had been passed down through generations. The resulting environment became a communal gathering where ideas emerged organically through conversation, improvisation, and shared experience.
Rather than aiming for perfection, the artists chose to preserve the immediacy and spontaneity of the recording process. Several sections of the track were built from first takes and live jams, capturing moments that could not have been recreated later. Even the saxophone solo that threads through the composition is the very first take that was recorded, lending the song an unfiltered quality that reflects the atmosphere in which it was made.
The accompanying music video returns to the place where the project first took shape. Conceived as an homage to Bharat's ancestral home, the film unfolds across the landscapes of Nimad, moving through forests, roads and riverbanks while blurring the boundaries between documentary and folklore. Fleeting portraits of people, rituals, fires, and everyday life create a visual meditation on memory, belonging, and the transmission of knowledge across generations.
At its centre is Bichoonath Baba, whose presence anchors the film's emotional journey. As he moves through the region carrying stories, songs, and lived wisdom, he becomes a symbol of the kind of knowledge that cannot be taught through instruction alone but must also be experienced, inherited, and shared.
Originally sung by Bichoonath Baba and rooted in the poetry of Kabir, Guru Gyaan is both a song and a living document of the place it inhabits. Through NIMAD's mix of folk traditions and contemporary sounds, it offers a glimpse into music that serves as a carrier of memories, histories, and ways of knowing across time.
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