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It is the beginning of 2020, and a global pandemic has not only jeopardized our economy but has also driven us into an unanticipated quarantine, rupturing the very structure of our daily routines. Waking up in the late hours of the morning only to cast a guilty glance at the clock has become the new norm for most of us. The anticipation of the quarantine being a time for stepping up one’s game has not held true for a majority of people. One cannot deny that at first however, it seemed like a caper and almost a prolonged holiday in which you could rejuvenate yourself. However, as days rolled into weeks, the quarantine excitement also began waning and now, it suddenly doesn’t seem so fun anymore. The quarantine is, in fact, taking a toll on us both emotionally and financially.
Freelance artist Tapasi Bhattacharya feels the same way. For her, the quarantine had been pretty enjoyable for a while, but not so much of late. Fears of an impending monetary crunch and not landing adequate work have become a nagging concern. She is a singer-songwriter-percussionist and sound engineer from Kolkata who had moved to Mumbai in 2018 to pursue her studies in Sound Engineering from The True School of Music. She currently lives with three of her bandmates in the city who had also shifted base along with her. No, she isn’t bored, nor has she been squandering her time. Instead, she has been pre-occupied with looking after the daily necessities like cooking and cleaning along with her flatmates, and is enjoying doing so. She calls herself and her roommates a “natural in cooking” and not something they struggle with. In fact, a clean house and food on the table has been the “new normal” for her since the lockdown. Before the lockdown, she had been working long hours every day, which barely left her with enough time to cook, clean or look after herself.
She confides, “The lockdown has made room for self-care which I really, really needed for the past 6 months,” and rightly so. Most of us indeed felt that way when the lockdown was first called. However, not so much after nearly three weeks of it. Both financially and emotionally, it has been a frightening stupor, especially for freelancers who do not have the comfort of a stable job to fall back on when the going gets tough. In the wake of a nation-wide lockdown, they have been struggling to make ends meet. Estimates based on National Sample Survey (NSS) and Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS) data have suggested that about 136 million non-agricultural jobs are at immediate risk. Stalled operations in the organised sector might lead to extensive layoffs in other unrelated sectors such as the creative industries. At the fag end of the unemployment crisis are freelance artists and performers, and especially those who have shifted base from their own cities.
Tapasi is in her final year of college right now, and at the moment, her basic expenses like rent, bills, food are being taken care of by her family. However, that is not all when you are a striving artist. She adds, “Regular gigs, sessions work helped me have some wiggle room in my budget for investing in gear which is one of the biggest expenses when you are a sound engineer/working musician.”
“We had big plans of releasing our first EP ‘Personal Objects’ in October and touring the country, playing at festivals/corporate gigs later this year, which right now seems impossible given how fast this virus is spreading. I was due to start my internship with a live sound company in July and I was looking forward to being somewhat financially independent again by September, but now even that seems like a distant dream.”
“These payments from gigs also helped us pay for vet bills and food for our cats which is something that has us worried right now because all of our prospective gigs got cancelled and payments from previous gigs have been stalled. With no certainty of when the lockdown will end, the future of the live music industry looks bleaker than ever.”
Tapasi has been coping emotionally by regularly staying in touch with her family back in Kolkata via phone calls and video chat. She says, “As long as my family is safe, I can deal with distance. However, the uncertainty of when I will be able to travel to my hometown next is definitely a looming dark cloud that I am trying to look past as best as I can.”
The team is also planning to monetize online live-stream gigs during the lockdown. Once things settle down, she plans to resume recording her EP ‘Personal Objects’ along with her bandmates. She also wants to start a crowdfunding campaign for their EP on account of not having the financial resources to afford the costs involved in making it a sellable piece of work.
“Right now, the EP seems to be the only way to make some money for ourselves. We have some band funds saved up but it is nearly not enough to even last us a week. In order to save up, we need to be able to go out and play gigs to earn enough money to cover expenses and have surplus enough to save. I do not see that happening anytime soon.”
Tapasi feels that live musicians are going to be one of the worst-hit professionals from this pandemic, so she urges people to buy their albums, back crowdfunding campaigns and share their work on social media as much as they could, so that their music can reach a wider audience, and garner subsequent financial support. She highly recommends that people head over to qrated.in and other streaming platforms and donate heartily to support local artists.
You can check out her Instagram here.
Tapasi Bhattacharya is a 25-year-old singer-songwriter-percussionist from Kolkata, currently based out of Mumbai. Currently she performs with her band, Rejected Cartoons and works as a recording/mix engineer both for her band and as a freelancer. She aspires to be a Live Sound Engineer if COVID-19 doesn’t kill her first. She also handles PR/Marketing/Content for Rejected Cartoons and has an undying need to hoard cats.
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