Five album releases in the last 27 years, and yet, this stylish musician duo continue to have a strong fan following and the ’90s music-loving kids fondly remember listening to their songs on cassettes. Singer Hariharan and singer-composer Leslee Lewis of the Colonial Cousins, who are all set to perform live this Sunday at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (KGAF) 2023 after almost a decade, talk to Bombay Times about their soulful bond, the magic their music creates and recall some of their special performances together. Excerpts:

“This is a great festival for music lovers and people are here just for the love of good music. We are excited and happy to be performing at the KGAF this year. I had a concert at many Kala Ghoda years ago and I really enjoyed the crowd. Actually, performing in Mumbai is always exciting,” says Hariharan. Leslee adds, “Performing at Kala Ghoda is like performing in our colonial space. It is a zone that looks and sounds like colonial cousins, so what better than to perform there!”

While the duo performed a lot during the pandemic, it was all completely online, and only later that they did some private gigs in some cities in South India and Dubai, among other places. “The KGAF show will be our first public concert together in Mumbai after almost 10 years,” says Hariharan. Leslee chips in, “It is crazy that we are doing a public concert in Mumbai after so many years because we are both Mumbai boys. We were born and brought up here and the city has given us the musical background that we have today and the best spot to give it back is this artistic space called the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival.”

In 1994 they recorded their first album, which was released in 1996 and lauded by music lovers. They got so much adulation and love that they didn’t know what had hit them. It has been “magical” says the duo when they talk about their almost three-decade-long journey. “All I can say is that we are very blessed, and we were destined to do this. Even today, we both coincidentally wore the same colour jackets for this shoot! We still have that connection and when we get together and perform, that magic always pops up for both of us and then people get to experience that,” shares Leslee.

So many bands have emerged in our country over the years, but not all of them have such a strong bond and deep connect as Colonial Cousins. And this, despite the band members pursuing their individual musical careers. Leslee feels that the fact that people love them is because of something more than just music. “There is a soulful connect between us that people like.”

The singer-composer duo has many fond memories of working and performing together. Talking about their concerts Leslee recalls, “In 1996, around 15000-20,000 people attended our concert at St Xavier’s College, Kolkata, and we literally got our clothes torn off.”

Recalling one of their most memorable concerts in Mumbai, Hariharan shares, “It was at the Mahalaxmi Racecourse. Suddenly, it started raining heavily. It was an open-air concert so we thought we would have to cancel the show. But the crowd just stood on the ground, nobody left! They were drenched, but wanted to continue listening to us perform. But eventually, we had to stop, else we would have been electrocuted!”