Maed in India

We’ve hit the big 1-0, baby! And we’ve gone full circle (and slightly off the rails). Over the past few weeks, we’ve been rewinding through the years, bringing you our Best Of specials circa 2015. And now, we’ve gone COMPLETE inception with a ‘Best of Best Of’ special.

Yep, you heard that right. Ten years, 300+ episodes, and countless bad jokes, Mae’s back behind the mic, joined by Shaun, her partner, our COO, and head of all things punny. Together, they take turns picking their favourite tracks from across Maed in India history - breaking a few rules, trying (and failing) to be funny, and getting very sentimental along the way.

Also known in-house as BOBO (because it’s adorbs). It’s big. It’s loud. It’s emotional. It's our own block party down the road. 10 years on and still going strong.

WARNING: Please know the songs picked were very arbitrary and very dependent on our mood, work load, life drama, and bodily functions that day. Any other day and we might have picked a completely different bunch. OKChaloBye.

Song List:

Maed in India is 10 YEARS OLD and this episode we are spinning back to 2019! This year was a medley of emotions: righteous anger, spontaneous joy, extreme chaos, much yearning, an urge to leave parties early to go to sleep – it was also the year before we knew how bad the world could get.

In this episode, we celebrate songs that reminisce about the time (almost) everyone left the band, and spontaneously jammed about a long lost off-white sari with a gold zari border. 2019 was also made extra special by our very first Ladies Special, a now-annual tradition where we spotlight indie women on that oh-so-auspicious occasions of International Women's Day.  

The voice you hear at the top of this episode is, our very own Audio Engineer, Nihar Temkar, who goes back to being 10 and when his curious mind was fascinated by his grandfather’s cassette recorder, wondering, “how on earth does this little ribbon of tape hold music?”

Song List:

Maed in India is 10 YEARS OLD and we’re going back to 2018. It was a year of hip hop, prog rock, pop, RnB and some unforgettable Maed moments: we hit our 150th episode (!!), got roasted by Benny Dayal’s band Funktuation, and chatted with the gals from Ladies Compartment about feminism and constipation in the same breath. Essentials, I tell you.

We also heard Smalltalk and Enkore jam on a song nobody can agree on the name of, had a band vanish from social media, and discovered how one drunk best friend’s wild interpretation of a riff ended up inspiring a whole music video.

The intro voice over this week is by Agent Q (aka Quoyina), talking about her experiments with ink and orange juice as a kid to channel her inner detective.

This week we’re rewinding to 2020: a year that needs no introduction. Grief, loss, anxiety, chaos – it was heavy. And somehow, the music we featured that year mirrored all those messy, chaotic emotions of helplessness, of isolation, and loneliness - all of which came spilling out uncontrollably. This episode is about taking a pause and taking stock of the tiniest things. The good, the bad, the ugly. Basically, it's a much needed therapy session. 

Yet, even though the world shut down, we got to record some true gems including our #RunTheWorld Ladies Special and our 200th episode!!! – with our very own “Reserve Bank of Indie” 200-rupee note in circulation (if only it were legal tender…)

This is a snapshot of a year we’d rather forget, told through music we can't help but love.

PS: This episode features an Intro VO by Head of HR & Admin, and Mother Hen to all at Maed in India, Natasha, who managed to sneak in 10 horse puns in honour of our 10th birthday. Brownie points if you can spot them all!

Song List:

10 years of Maed in India and this week we’re rewinding to 2017: a year of big firsts, bittersweet moments, and a whole lot of goosebumps. It was the year Maed in India went LIVE (!!) with Blackstratblues, celebrated our 100th episode with legends Indian Ocean in their Delhi studio, and even had Apache Indian drop by to sing acapella while on tour in India.

We had tracks that gave us Goa vibes, deep dives, bandmates roasting each other, stripped down punk rock, and a whole lot of unreleased gems. 

But the year wasn’t all highs. We tragically lost the profoundly talented keys player Karan Joseph aka Madfingers, who had featured on an episode with drummer Lindsay D’Mello aka DCF. His loss was felt deeply in the indie scene.

This Best Of is a time capsule of where indie music was at in 2017: raw, experimental, emotional, and unforgettable. 

PS: You absolutely can NOT miss the intro by Lakshman, our sound engineer, who talks about a hilarious case of Chinese whispers that made him board the wrong bus after school way back when he was 10. Press play, reminisce, and relive with us.

Song List: