Amazon Prime Video’s new show Bandish Bandits started streaming on August 4. The show stars Naseeruddin Shah, Atul Kulkarni, Rajesh Tailang, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sheeba Chaddha among others and has been directed by Anand Tiwari. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have composed the music for this series. The Indian Express critic Shubhra Gupta wrote about the series, “The conversation around the need to revive interest in classical music, and the fact that there doesn’t need to be a rift between the classical and the popular, needs to be on-going. Despite its flaws, Bandish Bandits keeps up focus on this crucial theme.”

Director Anand Tiwari spoke about Bandish Bandits to indianexpress.com and said, “Amrit (Amritpal Singh Bindra, producer) and I have been making different kinds of content for the past 5-6 years. When we looked at the content that is being created, there wasn’t something like Bandish Bandits. So we thought why not create something that deals with the youth of today trying to express through art. Music is the most transcending of art forms. Hence, the idea of Bandish Bandits came in. And what better way to summarise India than throwing in two forms of music that are popular – the traditional form and the pop.”

He spoke about Shankar Ehsaan Loy’s music in the series and shared, “We couldn’t think of anyone else, who could’ve done something as magnanimous, as deeply traditional and as deeply today. They are like an ocean of knowledge as far as music is concerned. When we approached them, they were so moved by the piece. I don’t know if they knew what they were saying yes to, given the ridiculous amount of work they have put in (laughs). A lot of drama which deals with music was planned after our sessions with Shankar sir. He was able to give nuances of what happens in a studio when a song is created and what happens in a riyaaz session. So every musician will see those realities coming through and I hope they enjoy it as much as the general audience, which will be educated on how the greatest of pieces are created.”