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<\/picture><\/div>\nOne part introspection coupled with two parts each of retrospection and bereavement make for a heady lyrical concoction served in Mumbai-based musician Tejas Menon\u2019s new EP, Museum<\/i>. The lingering sense of nostalgia, articulated with the harmonic timbre of the sarangi, sets the tonality of the four-track EP, which takes off on a meditative note in the prelude, \u2018Exspiravit in Machina\u2019, where the words \u201cI remember\u201d reverberate on a loop. The voice belongs to the singer-songwriter\u2019s father, who passed away in 2021, and the audio is extracted from the last of his videos. \u201cThis one is from when my father was addressing my sister on her 50th birthday. I couldn\u2019t help but reflect on those words. So, I cleaned up the audio with AI and added it to the EP. It\u2019s reminiscent of Mufasa in The Lion King<\/i> or the ghost of Hamlet\u2019s father\u2026 like he\u2019s there with us, in spirit,\u201d Tejas says.<\/p>\n
Though Tejas pegs the progression of the EP\u2019s emotional moodboard on the universality of losing one\u2019s parents, making it relatable to his listeners, there is a personal curve to it \u2014 the one that is rooted in the complicated relationship with his father. <\/p>\n
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<\/div>\n\nTejas Menon
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\nSpecial arrangement\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n \u201cMuseum<\/i> has been an attempt at not just reconciliation with my memory of my father, but also an exploration into my identity on a more literal level. Who I am as an Indian, as an immigrant, and to study my own history,\u201d he shares. As Tejas takes us through his father\u2019s last years, he talks about nursing him at the hospital as his condition deteriorated from renal failure and other subsequent ailments. <\/p>\n He elaborates on his father\u2019s absence from his life for nearly seven years, his separation from his mother, and how he sets sail to the UAE in 1973. \u201cTowards the end, I tried to be a responsible son and be there for him, but in the earlier times I just didn\u2019t have it in me to do so. I still have regrets about the type of son I was. My music, or what I dwell and write about, is not an atonement but some form of penance or meditation on what it means to lose something that I thought I didn\u2019t care about, but there was no choice really. When he died, I was a mess. I guess you always try to chase your parent\u2019s acknowledgement, and I am no different,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n