The Capital musician.

[Picture and text by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Next time your hear Rag Pahari while crossing the N-Block subway at Connaught Place, sit down on the stairs and let your heart be moved by Balbir Kumar’s melancholic melodies.

Mr. Kumar is an extraordinary bansuri player, maker and seller. He plays best when drunk with Johnny Walker Red Label. He is a kind person and is usually ready to play your favroite tunes.

Apart from his T-series and Tips albums, Mr. Kumar has performed, for a fee, in cities like Munich and Amsterdam. Luckily, this CP subway remains his favorite where he sits all day long playing for free. Often surrounded by closet flutists– IT engineers, doctors and CAs – trying to learn musical tricks from him, Balbir’s bansuri tunes waft around like a true whiff of joy in this humdrum of chores and chaos. And the otherwise grim underpass turns to a musical underworld.