The bright side of Mumbai is that, following the pandemic, multiple venues have opened to showcase the arts. The MYNA Academy Of Performing Arts is one of the newer ones, just having celebrated its first anniversary, and located in the heart of the western suburbs at Khar. In offering a diverse range of courses in music, dance, and theatre, MYNA became the default base for guitarist Ravi Iyer’s ongoing musical initiative, Shades Of Floyd on Saturday,  25^th April 2026.

Under the branding of ‘Mahaul’, a Hindi/Urdu word meaning atmosphere, ambience, environment, or surroundings that also refers to the mood, or physical atmosphere of a place, the room dedicated within the MYNA premises appropriately shared that meaning with seating rangingfrom chairs to the pillows placed on the floor with appropriate pink lighting in the background, and the removal of footwear at the entrance being a pre-requisite for entry.

On this given Saturday, Pink Floyd’s music took an Indian classical tangent of sorts as guitarist Ravi Iyer, accompanied by a seven-member band – consisting of Shawn Pereira Docarmo (lead vocals); Geet Gupta (upright bass); Jeson Filipe (keyboard); Vedaantaa (cajon); Onkar Kulkarni (tabla); Rohit Patwardhan (saxophone); and Kshitij Saxena (flute)– featured a Shades Of Floyd set of about100-minutes.

In redoing songs from Pink Floyd’s history, guitarist Ravi was back at what he does best: sharing his incredible talent of playing guitar with a twist in arrangements, as the gig started at 6.44pm to a crowded house.

Beginning with In The Flesh, the initial five-member band performed faithful renditions from Floyd’s catalogue until the conclusion of the various parts of Another Brick In The Wall. With the introduction of the tabalchi and flautist into the line-up, Ravi infused the band to Breathe (In The Air)along with the introduction of Indian instrumentation.As the final instrument, the saxophone was introduced to the richness of Money in an extended version, providing Onkar an opportunity of showcasing his solo talents during the brief tabla interlude.

Expectedly, the bulk of the setlist was spread across Pink Floyd’s more popular albums, ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’, ‘Wish You Were Here’ (this writer’s favourite), and ‘The Wall’, but the repertoire also included Coming Back To Life from ‘The Division Bell’. But the highlights were no doubt a rendition of Mother, which commenced only with the sounds of guitar and flute before the other instrumentalists joined in, and the key song from 1971’s ‘Meddle’ album, Echoes, which commenced with Ravi providing an introduction to the genesis of Waters’ song, inspired as it was by the Urdu poem, "Two Planets" – published in 1923 in Payam-i-Masriq or as a "Message From The East" – by philosopher and poet Muhammad Iqbal, which Ravi read during the rendition.

For the trivia-minded, besides the lyrics, the song composition itself was fascinating as Waters accused Andrew Lloyd Webber of plagiarising the distinctive portion from Echoes – the DAAAA-da-da-da-da-da bit – within the main theme of Webber’s 1986 musical,‘The Phantom Of The Opera’. This occurrence upsetting Waters to such an extent that Waters directly referenced Webber in the song It's A Miracle, from Waters’ 1992 solo album, ‘Amused To Death’, which includes the scathing lyrics: "We cower in our shelters / With our hands over our ears / Lloyd-Webber's awful stuff / Runs for years and years".

While purists may grumble about the crossover between what was once popularly known as psychedelic music with Eastern sounds, that should not detract anyone from listening to Shades Of Floyd objectively. Leader and guitarist par excellence Ravi Iyer has thought through his initiative with thoroughness, which was well depicted in the musical camaraderie between the competent members of the band to the unprecedented jellying of arrangements.

In fact, having viewed multiple avatars of Ravi Iyer through the years, it still amazes this reviewer how he continues managing to find yet another brighter shade of Pink (Floyd).

By Parag Kamani

Parag Kamani has been part of the media and entertainment industry across 35 years, having worked for licensors such as Warner Music and EMI/Virgin in music, as well as Warner Bros, Universal Pictures, and Paramount Pictures in the field of films. Parag continues pursuing his passion as a profession.