Messenger of Oneness: Neeraj Arya

  (Founder of Neeraj Arya’s Kabir Cafe)

A child named Neeraj Arya who was hearing Kabir’s words and other folk melodies because his father was a great follower of the 15th-century saints and poets now has become the founder of a rock band named Neeraj Arya’s Kabir Cafe and is renowned all over the globe.

Being a school drop out and bad in studies he saw The Kabir Project Documentary  Has Anhad in 2005 which blew his mind and he got interested more in this whole poet’s philosophy thing and then he met his guru Prahlad Singh Tipaniya and learned all his folk melody skills from him. Arya thinks that the way his guru is living his life and he thinks that he is Kabir for him.

Earlier he started to play all his dohas and sakhis with a mix of rock on his guitar on streets of Mumbai as a part of Natural Streets for Performing Arts(NSPA). Then in 2012, he met violinist Mukund Ramaswamy and then they started performing as a duo. Ramaswamy mentions that the uniqueness in the voice of Neeraj is so much that it does not seem that you are listening to any Doha or 15th-century poems.

Times passed by and slowly slowly, Neeraj formed a complete band which includes Arya as vocalist and guitarist, Ramaswamy as a violinist, mandolin player Raman Iyer, bassist Britto KC, and percussionists Viren Solanki and Vicky Bramhankar. They all are now full-time musicians and have left their day jobs and even left their families to make Kabir more accessible and they as a group work very hard toward their aim. They perform at live shows in festivals, weddings, anniversaries and funerals.

Arya never forgets to take lessons from his guru and before any album or performance he understands the words and the contents of Bhajans. Their debut album was Panchrang in 2016 and their live album Kabir Cafe Life in 2018.

Till date, Neeraj and his group have performed in more than 900 shows and that’s a huge number.

Arya’s aim is to spread the message of ONENESS among all and he wants to defeat this evil of religion and want to see the whole world as one religion i.e. Human.