[ Man singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ My name is Jacob Edgar.

I'm an explorer, but I don't search for lost cities or ancient ruins.

I'm on the quest for a different kind of treasure -- music.

[ Man singing in native language ] ♪♪ Edgar: As an ethnomusicologist and world-music record producer, I travel the globe hunting for the best songs the world has to offer, and I suffer through some of the worst so you don't have to.

[ Man singing in native language ] Edgar: I've got a backstage pass to the world's music, and I won't stop until I've heard it all.

[ Man singing in native language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Edgar: This is my third trip to India and I still experience sensory overload as the sights, sounds... [ Horns honking ] ...and smells come rushing at me like the speeding auto rickshaws that buzz madly through the city streets.

♪♪ ♪♪ I've arrived in Mumbai at the onslaught of summer, when stewing in your own sweat is the local version of air conditioning.

It's a massive, funky city, and its immediate surroundings are home to as many as 18 million people, making it one of the world's most populated metropolitan areas.

[ Woman singing in Hindi ] Edgar: Ever since Ravi Shankar jammed with the Beatles in the '60s, India's diverse music has been recognized around the globe.

[ Singing in Hindi ] But the most prevalent sounds in India today are the film songs that blare from auto rickshaws...

This one's pretty pimped out.

...and jingle from everyone's cellphones.

[ Women singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ I've come to Mumbai to meet two of my favorite local stars.

Both Sona Mohapatra and Kailash Kher mix Indian folk, spiritual, and classical music with Western rock and pop to create a rootsy yet modern sound.

I want to find out how they've built a fan base in a land where Bollywood dominates the entertainment industry.

While Sona is well known in some circles, she's still struggling to reach a wider audience.

Kailash Kher, on the other hand, is practically a household name.

Sona asks me to meet her at the Gateway of India, one of Mumbai's most recognized landmarks.

In a few minutes, we're going to be meeting up with Sona, the first musician that we're profiling on this adventure to India.

Mohapatra: [ Singing in Hindi ] Edgar: Sona is an up-and-coming star whose first album really intrigued me.

Her music conjures the spirit of ancient India.

Mohapatra: [ Singing in Hindi ] Edgar: Sona's promised to take me to some of her favorite places in Mumbai, and in visiting them together, I hope to learn more about what makes her tick, not to mention having a great time exploring Mumbai with a beautiful Indian pop star.

Mohapatra: Bombay or Mumbai becomes your own, so I'm as much a Mumbai... as anybody else.

It's a place where I came to fulfill my bigger dream.

Which was?

Which was to be on stage.

I have always dreamt of being on stage.

♪♪ Sona has brought me to the Banganga Tank, the center of an ancient temple complex that is one of the hubs of the city's religious and cultural life.

♪♪ [ Singing in Hindi ] Local children swim in the tank's murky waters, which are also used for bathing, laundry, and religious ceremonies.

[ Singing in Hindi ] I love the history of my country.

I love traveling, and a lot of that comes into my music.

But I'm also a young woman living in Bombay, which is a very urban -- it's a modern, big city.

And Banganga is this perfect combination of the old and the new.

♪♪ [ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ What I find incredible is you have Bombay, which is -- with its mad, chaotic energy, and in the middle of this, an area as ancient as this, which in some -- some of the little streets we call gullies, some things won't have changed in the last -- Centuries.

Yeah, yeah, it would just be the same.

You know, you'll find a little babu sitting and doing his thing and, yeah, just it's kind of incredible.

[ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Sona has been adamant about recording music her way and has avoided becoming just another Bollywood playback singer.

[ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Her music videos often feature humble villagers and colorful traditional clothes and rustic settings, yet her music has a very accessible and contemporary vibe that I'm sure would appeal to people all over the world.

[ Singing in Hindi ] Now, many people come to Bombay in music, and they go into Bollywood.

Hm.

Now, you've intentionally stayed away from Bollywood for much of your career.

I believe that being a playback voice for somebody else is, again, not that exciting for me.

Because most Bollywood singers are singing, and then an actor is mouthing their -- their lines.

Yeah, yeah.

I always wanted to be the one facing my audience.

I don't have the conventional Bollywood voice, either.

Right, they have this birdlike voice, you know?

[ Chuckles ] It's like it's -- I don't have that.

[ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Edgar: We also wandered through the Colaba Causeway, one of Mumbai's most famous shopping areas.

Is this an actual, real trumpet?

[ Trumpet plays ] Charge!

Oh, check it out.

What do you recommend?

I have "Slumdog Mill"... "Slumdog Millionaire."

...."Australia."

"Australia"?

Why would I come to India and buy "Australia"?

Okay.

You Indian movie want?

Yeah, you have Indian movies?

Oh, there it is.

Ram Sampath.

He did the music for this.

Yeah, that's his name.

Sona's husband, Ram Sampath, did the music for this film right here, "Khakee."

Ironically, Sona's husband is an important producer of television jingles and Bollywood soundtracks, so it's even more impressive that Sona's resisted Bollywood's pull for so long.

We quickly make the rounds of some of her favorite off-the-beaten-path restaurants and snack shops.

You have these.

These are called panipuris.

That's what -- these are called panipuri?

Yeah, so it's a kind of... [ Speaks Hindi ] Alright, this is the spicy one?

Mohapatra: Yeah.

You ready for a little explosion?

Is it spicy?

Is it?

No, it's not so bad.

[ Laughs, speaks Hindi ] Is this cooked?

It is cooked.

You're safe.

The water isn't... Blah.

[ Chuckles ] Edgar: Further down the streets of Mumbai, we come across Oval Maidan, a large field where people come together to play cricket.

Basically, they throw the ball, you hit the ball, you run like hell, that's the game, right?

Something sort of, yeah.

I think I can wrap my head around that.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Laughs ] So maybe I'm not ready to join the Indian national cricket team, but I'm definitely ready for a cup of traditional South Indian coffee.

Sona brings me to one of the best South Indian coffee shops in Mumbai.

It's served milky, extremely sweet, and with a nice froth that's formed by pouring the scalding-hot coffee between two cups.

South Indian coffee.

Mmm, and it's sweet.

Just the way I like it, sweet.

I want to try to pour it.

I want to -- I want to try that.

It's okay.

And that's how you do it, okay?

Follow the master.

Aah.

I think I have to enroll in coffee-pouring school, which I'll do right after I go to the hospital for second-degree burns.

Woman: Thank you.

♪♪ Edgar: Rhythm House is Mumbai's best record store, and it's a must-visit for any music fan.

The shop has an impressive selection of Indian classical music, folk music, Bollywood soundtracks, and much more.

They have Rolling Stone.

So anybody that we'd know in here?

Well, you have Rahman.

Oh, there's A.R.

Rahman.

Yeah.

And... Oh.

[ Chuckles ] ...hey, I know this person.

She looks familiar.

I'm hanging out with a celebrity.

She's in Rolling Stone.

You can't send me to a record store and expect me to walk out empty-handed, right?

It's hard to resist buying CDs in India because they are so cheap.

Do you take credit cards?

Yes.

Beautiful.

♪♪ [ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Edgar: Sona is clearly a strong woman who feels that she has an important role to play in representing a different image for women in Indian society.

[ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ Edgar: Sona's husband, music producer Ram Sampath is her frequent collaborator and composed most of her songs.

He invites me to his recording studio for some insight into the inner workings of Bollywood music.

[ Man singing in Hindi ] Bollywood is the glue that binds India.

It's the stories, folk stories, the tales, and legends.

So Bollywood has played an important role in the unity to the country in many ways.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, binding the country together.

Cultural identity, for sure.

That's incredible.

[ Man singing in Hindi ] The thing that actually inspired the Indian -- the early Indian filmmakers were the Hollywood musicals, and once that format came into India, we just -- we just didn't let it go because we just fell in love with the idea of music being part of the movie.

[ Woman singing in Hindi ] When you're hired to do a film, for example, they come to you and they say, "We want a hit."

How do you go about composing a hit Bollywood song?

Edgar: When I asked Ram to explain how he goes about creating a Bollywood song, he surprises me by offering to give me a five-minute lesson.

As it turns out, there are some pretty standard formulas that most Bollywood soundtrack composers follow.

Ram, we're in front of your computer screens and you've got your software up and you're going to show us how you begin the process of creating your hit Bollywood songs.

Yeah.

So what's your first step?

The first step is to find the right Indian beat.

[ Up-tempo music plays ] So that's perfect.

That's got the Indian booty shake.

Now let's put in the token cliché beat that we need to put in.

The Eurotrash beat?

Okay.

Yeah.

[ Chuckles ] I can hear that.

And so let's hear them together.

[ Up-tempo music playing ] Yeah.

[ Chuckles ] I can make a -- That's so funny.

You've already got it -- you've already got it going.

Yeah.

Cool.

Okay.

And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to give myself some kind of harmonic reference.

Alright.

So I'm going to take a tumbi, which is a Punjabi single-string instrument.

It's the thing that always goes [imitates tumbi] Correct.

Exactly.

Okay.

[ Up-tempo music playing ] Alright.

Nice.

[ Imitates tumbi ] There you go.

Alright?

I think I got it.

[ Laughs ] So you just kind of sit and jam with the -- with the rock and you get some idea of what the tune's going to be like.

So then you can pick up a word like, say [speaks Hindi] Yeah?

And then you just go... [ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ And drop half-a-million synthesizers on top of this, and you've got your contemporary Bollywood hit.

Thank you so much for doing that.

That was fun.

You're welcome.

[ Chuckles ] [ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ [ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Edgar: After years of resisting Bollywood's formulaic approach, Sona's finally decided to record a very commercial pop song for an upcoming movie soundtrack.

She hopes that the mass audience that can come from Bollywood will help shine a light on her other artistic endeavors.

In fact, the next artist I meet in Mumbai, Kailash Kher, has managed to do just that.

[ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Edgar: Kailash Kher is one of the biggest pop stars in India today.

He may look tiny, but he's got an enormous voice and personality.

Originally from Delhi, Kailash has sung on some of the biggest Bollywood hits of the past 10 years.

But unlike most playback singers, Kailash has released successful solo albums, as well, and created numerous radio hits with his band Kailasa.

His fame has only grown since he was invited to be a judge on the TV show "Indian Idol."

People all across the country tune in every week to see Kailash playing the part of an Indian Simon Cowell, except Kailash is actually a nice guy.

I first discovered the music of Kailash Kher when I was in India the last time, driving along in an auto rickshaw, just minding our own business, and all of a sudden I heard this music blaring out of one of the roadside shops.

Kher: [ Singing in Hindi ] The whole rest of my India journey was the quest for this golden Holy Grail.

Eventually, I found it because I bought tons of CDs, and when I got them all back home, it turned out that one of them was Kailash's CD, and I heard the song and I knew that this guy was really something special.

I've asked Kailash to show me some of the areas of Mumbai that give some insight into his music.

He's taking me two hours out of town to Lonavala in the Sahyadri mountains, the second-highest mountain range in India after the Himalayas.

♪♪ I don't really know what's in store for me, but we're going to find out.

I'm going to introduce him to the local food here, actually, right now.

[ Chuckles ] Truck-stop food.

Indian truck-stop food.

[ Woman singing in Hindi ] Okay, he's still alive, so now I'll try it.

That's good.

[ Both laugh ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Singing in Hindi ] Edgar: There, amidst the rolling hills and surrounded by the vastness of nature, Kailash likes nothing better than to visit his rustic farm and enjoy the simple life.

Kher: Okay, so now this is Maharashtra, Sahyadri Hills, where I have brought you guys today.

This is the caves called Bhaja Caves.

This is just two hours away from Mumbai, where I live.

♪♪ And you see the life is so different between this kind of world and the city where we live.

Why I brought you guys here, my music talks about love and the pure form of love.

Kailash's lyrics are usually based on the tenets of Sufism, a form of Islam.

When Kailash sings about love, he's not just talking about romantic love between a man and a woman but a more deep spiritual love for God and everything he's created.

Carved into the mountains are ancient Buddhist caves that were built by monks thousands of years ago.

They are profoundly spiritual settings that help Kailash reconnect with the universalistic beliefs that are at the heart of his music.

Kher: [ Singing in Hindi ] My great-grandfather seed this... Yeah, yeah.

and today the tree is quite big, like me.

Yeah, right.

Check it out, man.

Don't believe the hype.

Oh.

[ Laughs ] Whatever story I have come up with, he always puts that down.

[ Chuckles ] That's why I'm here, to keep it real.

[ Laughing ] Oh, okay.

Kher: [ Singing in Hindi ] Edgar: Kailash has a deep respect for all religions, which is why it makes perfect sense for him to bring me to a place that is sacred for Buddhists, as well as followers of the Hindu faith.

These hills, as it is known as Shiva's.

So these are Shiva's hills?

Yeah.

So my music connects with both -- both of those, both -- both philosophy of love and Shiva's philosophy of humanity.

And one of your songs is about Shiva.

Yeah, and the kind of song I have come up specifically about Shiva is in my Kailasa "Jhoomo Re" album...

Okay.

And the words of that song is... [ Singing in Hindi ] Kailash draws a crowd wherever we go, which I guess is understandable given his endearing habit of belting out songs at full volume.

[ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ Back in Mumbai, Kailash heads to the recording studio run by his musical collaborators, Naresh and Paresh Kamath.

Naresh and Paresh are brothers and musical directors of Kailash's band Kailasa.

Part of the Indian rock and pop scene, they provide the fresh beats and modern energy that act as a foundation for Kailash's voice.

Hey.

Hey.

Hey.

Naresh and Paresh.

Naresh and Paresh.

Alright.

So you guys are the co-founders of Kailasa... Yep.

...the band that started this all, and, wow, what an honor to meet you in person.

Edgar: At the studio, I'm treated to an acoustic performance of one of Kailash Kher and Kailasa biggest hits, the epic love song "Teri Deewani."

[ Men singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Kailash likes to step outside of the cacophony and chaos of Mumbai to visit the villages and rural settings that hold such a deep spiritual meaning for him.

This love of God and nature comes through powerfully in his songs, and now I see that there are more ways than Bollywood movies to escape the exhausting busyness of an Indian city.

Kher: [ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ While his music is thoroughly modern and influenced by rock, funk, reggae, disco, and even techno, his voice recalls the ancient history of India, and he's just as likely to include a traditional village rhythm or a sacred Sufi chant in the mix as he is a jamming electric guitar or hip-hop beat.

[ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ I've had a fantastic musical journey in Mumbai.

Sona gave me a great tour of the city and helped me understand the challenges she faces trying to create meaningful music outside of the Bollywood mainstream.

Kailash Kher is an amazing personality and awesome talent who has used the film industry and his celebrity status to help him achieve success with his other recording projects.

[ Men singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ One of the songs Kailash plays for me that night is originally from Rajasthan, a desert state in northwestern India, where Europe's gypsies trace their roots.

It's time to leave the modern world behind and search for a place where the echoes of thousands of years of tradition still resound loud and clear.

[ Singing in Hindi ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ I'm following the musical trail through Rajasthan, a land of maharajas and magnificent mountaintop forts, to hear firsthand the region's colorful and celebrated sounds.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪