‘Videos hardly get airspace on music channels’

How often do we come across musicians who get their muses to dance for them in their song videos? Not quite. But trust Indian Carnatic/folk rock wonder Raghu Dixit to be different. The video of the Bangalorean musician’s new love-dipped ballad, Khidki will feature a certain Mrs Dixit. Not Madhuri, but Raghu’s better half, Mayuri.

Muse matters
The powerhouse performer’s wife, a dance choreographer, will don the avatar of his on-screen muse in the video of the new track, which features on The Raghu Dixit Project’s soon-to-be-released DVD. But coaxing her was a daunting task, reveals Raghu. “The director of the video, Ruchi Bakshi, thought it would be perfect to get my real-life muse to enact the role of the muse on-screen,” he says adding, “Since the song is a lovely metaphorical representation of me thinking about my loved one while my room window is wide open one night, I asked Mayuri if she’d consider being a part of the plan. She was quite reluctant at first, but later gave in to my plea. I just had to be nice, that’s all,” he chortles.

Better half
That’s not all. Mayuri also performed at the Project’s recent concert in Bangalore and now adorns the reel as part of the group’s new set of live videos.

“We had never shot videos of our songs like Ambar, Mysore Se Aayi because videos hardly get airspace on music channels these days. But we recently decided to revisit them and include it on this DVD. The DVD will be out with the album in a few months. It would include live footage of Mayuri performing to our hit singles for the first time. I’m really excited about the whole thing,” he shares.

He also informs that while Khidki’s video is “earthy and kitschy”, the ones with Mayuri’s live performances are vivid.

Fusion route
“We plan to push the videos down the music channel route. If that doesn’t work out, we have plans of
launching it through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook,” says the singer. Dixit informs that he is planning to start working on a Carnatic rock/metal fusion album soon.