Indus Creed’s lead vocalist Uday  Benegal and guitarist Mahesh Tinaikar assembled this five-piece  acoustic rock band in 2010. Two  years later, after a successful  reboot of Indus Creed, Kalapas  bassist Kenneth Rebello and  drummer Jai Row Kavi are no  longer part of the ensemble. The  third surviving member is multiinstrumentalist  Sankarshan Kini  aka Shanky who will join Benegal  and Tinaikar on stage to play  songs about peace, love and  understanding like “Looking For  The Mahatma”, “Varanasi Trail”  and “Fireflies”, which has become  an Indus Creed song. 

This isn’t the first time Benegal  has explored acoustic forms of  music. After the first iteration of  rock band Indus Creed dissolved  in the mid-1990s, he and guitarist  Jayesh Gandhi formed Alms  for Shanti to dabble in Indian  classical sounds, teaming up with  percussionist Taufiq Qureshi,  flautist Rakesh Chaurasia and  kanjeera- and mridangam-player  Sridar Parthasarthy to name a  few musicians. After releasing a  couple of albums, that band was  wrapped up in the early 2000s. 

Lately, with Indus Creed getting  all the attention, the Kalapas had  taken a back seat. Now that IC  has toured extensively, it’s a good  time for Benegal to return to his  experimental side. The Kalapas  have already performed in Delhi  and Bangalore and last month  played a small set that was part of  the Amit Saigal tribute gig at Blue  Frog. This fortnight’s gig will be  their first full performance. 

When we spoke to Benegal,  their plan for this gig was still  nebulous, but he did say that there  will be guest musicians including  percussionist and producer  Ranjit Barot. “We’re looking for  instrumentalists that can bring in  a new tonality, some new textures  to our sound,” said Benegal.  At the time of going to print,  singer-songwriter and harpist  Nush Lewis – who, apart from  her original songs, also does a  sparse cover of “Billie Jean” – was  being considered.   

Whirling Kalapas perform at the Blue Frog on Tue Aug 14.