Latest news with #Balani
Indian Express
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Musician Tarun Balani's latest album is a meditation on memory and loss
Thirty-eight-year-old Tarun Balani has never been to Sindh, his ancestral homeland that was lost to Partition. Named after river Sindhu, meaning Indus, he has never felt the soil of the land between his fingers or visited the revered Jhulelal shrine in Pakistan's Odero Lal, where Sindhi Hindus and Muslims worship together. But through the stories that the Delhi-based musician heard about his grandfather, who came from Sindh and lived in Delhi's Lajpat Nagar — the refugee colony created post-Partition and where many displaced Sindhis and Multanis were accommodated — Balani would often conjure a place, which was never going to be straightforward to go back to, even sonically. Home was a loss he had inherited. 'I feel with Sindhis, the diaspora stories are still missing. It is understandable, probably because Sindh completely went to Pakistan. But there was, and is, so much palpable grief that no one really speaks about. And that's also what I wanted to explore,' says Balani, who wanted to portray this feeling through sonic narratives. Another major reason was that he sorely missed his grandfather, whom he had never met. He only had a bunch of photos and his Yashica 635 since he was very young. 'Since my grandfather passed away in a car accident when he was 40, my family didn't speak much about him,' says Balani, who began poring over whatever was left behind. He found that KS Balani was a postmodern Sindhi writer, photographer and painter in the Delhi of the 1960s. 'It is only now that I have discovered his manuscripts, his writing. I started to explore his journey of migration and that is when I wanted to find my Sindhi identity as well,' says Balani. The longing for his grandfather also turned into a longing for the homeland that his community lost. The result of the emotional turmoil is a seven-track, deeply personal album that is a meditation on memory and loss. 'The album is a metaphor for my grandfather as much as it is for the lost homeland,' says Balani, who was inspired by famed Sindhi poet Sheikh Ayaz's poem Tiri Pawanda about the pain of separation and reuniting someday. Balani flipped one of the lines — Tadahen milandaaseen (We will meet then) to Kadahin Milandaasin (When will we meet again?), which is the title of the album. He adds that as people, we don't talk about grief enough and he wanted to honour the feeling he felt for his grandfather. His father's death last year in November amplified the pain. He wondered about two photographs his father gave him last February. One is a black-and-white shot of his grandparents and other a self-portrait of his grandfather — both are now part of the album cover. With Adam O'Farrill on trumpet, Sharik Hasan on piano, Olli Hirvonen on guitar and electronics and Balani on drums and vocals, the album was recorded by Grammy-winning sound engineer and producer John Davis. There are no Sindhi stringed instruments or field recordings from Pakistan that have been layered with jazz sounds. Instead, Balani has stayed true to his sound and that of his band and delineated loss as a feeling. He has represented his heritage through what he identifies with most and not reproduced what he's heard and even loved from his culture. While the elegant Lajpat Nagar Sometimes comes from Balani's fascination with the idea that his studio space is also the one where his grandfather wrote and painted, the title track is where he's sung for the first time, an ode to his father, who sang Hindustani classical, and always wanted his son to sing. The haunting Sailaab plays out the 2020 floods in Sindh while Every Man Saved A Victim Will Be Found is an interpretation of Balani's most-streamed track from his EP In Song (2021), inspired by a line in Viktor Frankl's 1946 book Man's Search for Meaning based on his time living in concentration camps. In the music video of the title track, Balani has attempted to recreate the parties from his childhood; with typical Sindhi motifs — the Ajrakh shawl, Sindhi topi and Sindhi roti make an appearance. But such an album was likely to come at an emotional cost, and if he was lucky, with an emotional reward as well. Does Balani understand his place better? 'Absolutely. I went in with a simple quest to understand my roots and legacy, but it was still a borrowed experience; the grief was through the lens of other people, but after losing my dad, I understood it more deeply. In the end, I was tracing my granddad and his lineage but I found a version of myself that I didn't know existed,' says Balani. Recently, some Sindhi literature teachers have written to Balani telling him that they teach his grandfather's stories to their students. 'Life has come full circle,' he says.
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Business Standard
09-05-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Bitcoin holds strong above $100k: New record ahead or brewing pullback?
Cryptocurrency markets were rejoicing with renewed optimism as Bitcoin (BTC), the flagship digital asset, successfully held above the $100,000 mark after scaling it on Thursday, May 8. Breaking out of a prolonged consolidation phase, Bitcoin reached the six-figure milestone for the first time since February 2025, fueled by a broad shift in global market sentiment. Analysts attribute the momentum to easing geopolitical tensions—particularly following US President Donald Trump's signing of a trade agreement with the United Kingdom, his first such deal since the imposition of reciprocal tariffs. The upward move in the flagship currency, Pankaj Balani, co-founder and CEO, Delta Exchange, said, has been driven by positive developments on the regulatory front in the US and by a wave of corporate buyers looking to follow in the footsteps of MicroStrategy. This has been coupled with strong ETF flows which are expected to continue. At 1:34 PM on Friday, May 9, Bitcoin was quoted trading at around $103,764.69, up by 4.50 per cent, according to data from CoinMarketCap. The world's most popular cryptocurrency had a 24-hour trading volume of $66.76 billion. Bitcoin's market capitalisation stood at $2.06 trillion, the highest among all cryptocurrencies. The last 24-hour trading range for Bitcoin was between $99,122.68 and $103,969.54. Notably, Bitcoin is 5.23 per cent lower than its all-time high of $109,114.88, scaled nearly four months ago on Jan 20, 2025. ALSO READ | Will Bitcoin scale a fresh high? Bitcoin, at this stage, seems unstoppable, said Paras Malhotra, SVP - Trade, Custody and BizOps at CoinDCX, as the token appears to be clearing the final barrier ahead of its All-time high (ATH). In such a scenario, while bearish possibilities may haunt the rally, Malhotra believes the technicals have reached levels seen before the October 2024 breakout. 'The RSI & MACD flash a massive bullish signal for the BTC price, which suggests a new ATH above $110K is imminent,' said Malhotra. In the short term, Balani also believes that Bitcoin looks set to challenge the previous ATH, where he expects some profit booking. 'The overall sentiment for Bitcoin remains bullish given the positivity around the sector,' said Balani. Echoing similar views, Edul Patel, co-founder and CEO of Mudrex, said that if Bitcoin holds above $98,600, the momentum is set to continue, paving the way toward a new all-time high. Notably, the Fear-Greed Index representing investor sentiment has moved to 'Greed,' indicating sustained buying activity. 'Additionally, the steady spike in daily Bitcoin blockchain activity to $12.5 billion in transactions shows that this rally is not just news-driven but an early sign of a new bull run,' said Patel. That said, Malhotra remains a bit cautious and noted that, as seen before, bulls are expected to face massive exhaustion, which may result in rejection. With this, the Bitcoin price may slip back to the $100K range or slightly lower, forming the bottom of a corrective phase. 'Hence, the token is primed to surge to new highs but also carries the risk of plunging below $100K,' said Malhotra. Ethereum (ETH) leads among altcoins The positive sentiment is extending to other altcoins, with Ethereum (ETH), the world's second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, reclaiming the $2,300 mark and continuing to trade above it. Last seen, it was trading higher by 23.17 per cent at $2,375.88. It has traded in the range of $1,926.86 - $2,390.49 in the last 24 hours. Ethereum, however, is still nearly 51 per cent lower from its all-time high of $4,891.70, scaled on Nov 16, 2021. Among other popular altcoins, Cardano (ADA) was trading higher by 11.55 per cent, Solana (SOL) up 9.29 per cent, Ripple (XRP) 7 per cent, and Binance Coin (BNB) 3 per cent.
