From making friends in their neighborhood to experimenting with music, Weston Estate formed into a musical group. Their journey started out with feelings of self-doubt and transitioned to feelings of making an impact through their music. Weston Estate consists of Srikar Nanduri, Manas Panchavati, Tanmay Joshi, Abhi Manhass and Marco Luka. Each member brings their own unique skillset and personality to the group. Continue reading to learn more about Weston Estate.
What is the story behind the group getting together, the meaning behind Weston Estate, and how the group decided that this was type of music to make?
All of us became friends when we were really young, way before we started making music together. There’s actually a video on YouTube of one of our Instagram Lives that explains how the band formed in a lot of detail, but long story short, Abhi got FL Studio for Christmas one year in high school and he called Srikar and Tanmay over to make a song for fun. We sampled a Bollywood song and after some debating, we plucked up the courage to put the song on SoundCloud. Word got around at our schools and people surprisingly liked it. Later, Manas and Marco joined the band and the rest is history. The name “Weston Estate” came from this neighborhood that we all used to hang out around called Weston Estates. We liked how it sounded really cool and regal and sophisticated, so we just ran with it. We honestly didn’t really know exactly what kind of music we wanted to make, but because everyone we showed it to really loved it, we thought it was a good direction to go in with our sound.
Let’s start out with your song “Saturday Nights.” Lyrics like, “Saturday’s when the kids close the door To find themselves at home all alone,” call out to me. This song feels reflective of the times of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when everyone was asked to stay indoors. What is the meaning of this song in your own words?
We actually wrote that song before COVID, but it ended up taking on a whole new meaning by the time it came out. The pandemic was definitely a huge struggle for us, both personally and creatively. It made it a lot harder for us to meet up and work on music together, so it was a really isolating time. That song ended up becoming an expression of that desperate need to get back out into the world and see the people we cared about and do the things we loved to do again.
Your song “Pears” is one of your biggest hits thus far. With lyrics like “Sometimes I feel alone hide in my secrets you need to know I cannot feel no more all of my demons with me at home” we can only ponder what the song is about. What was the process of creating this song and what information can you shed light upon around the meanings for your fans?
We made “Pears” in December 2020 during a trip to the mountains in Maggie Valley, NC. That year was a whirlwind for the whole band, and balancing school and music, all amidst a global pandemic, was a lot harder than we expected it to be. This trip was the first time that all 5 of us were able to drown out all the noise from the other parts of our lives and just lock in on making music. Because of all this time we had in the mountains, we were also able to reflect on the feelings that we had about ourselves during that year as a whole. During a time where we had a lot of self-doubt, making “Pears” was an outlet for us to talk about how that uncertainty was affecting our relationships with the people we loved. A lot of the lyrics in that song are about how our creative journey sometimes left us feeling out of place amongst the other people in our lives because of how different our goals and dreams were. The whole song is basically a coming of age story about our struggles with our own personal and creative identities.
“Outside” is such a vibe I’ve had it on repeat over and over. How did you get into the mindset of creating this track?
We made “Outside” on the same trip to the mountains that we made “Pears” during. In a way, “Outside” was like “Pears” in that it was an outlet for our emotions, but it’s very much the opposite in terms of its meaning. Once we got to that cabin in Maggie Valley, we were ready to just let go of everything and have fun making music together again after so long. Srikar laid down this dancey guitar loop and Abhi added some island drums to it. As soon as Tanmay, Manas and Marco heard it, the melodies just started flowing out of them and we got straight to work writing it. We knew as soon as the beat as done that, we just wanted it to be a fun song about forgetting all your worries and dancing the night away, almost on some “Hakuna Matata” shit. It was a much-needed song after such a stressful year, so it wasn’t too hard to get into that carefree mindset.
Your acoustic versions are something special and evoke deep feelings for your listeners. What was the reasoning of dropping acoustic versions of your songs?
I think we saw this one video on YouTube of UMI doing live covers of some of her songs and we loved it so much that we wanted to do something similar. It was also a cool way of showcasing each of our individual personalities and it gave us an opportunity to flesh out some of the concepts and themes that we wanted to highlight in each of the songs. We were really excited when we found out how much people enjoyed those videos, especially the “Pears” one, which ended up being a lot of people’s introduction to our music.
How does it feel to be one of the few bands to be full of people of color at this time in history?
It always makes us really happy to hear other people of color come up to us and say that they feel represented by us and that they’re proud of how far we’ve come as a band of color. It makes us feel like what we’re doing is actually having an impact on people and making them feel heard and understood in ways that they usually don’t see in traditional media. That’s always an amazing feeling and it has a profound impact on all of us every single time we hear it. At the same time, the last thing we want to do is be boxed in as the “brown boy band,” since, at the end of the day, our music and personalities should speak for themselves. By the time we’re done, there should be so many other bands of color succeeding in this industry that it becomes normal and doesn’t even need to be mentioned.
You just dropped the “Maggie Valley” album, which also happens to be a place in North Carolina. How has North Carolina played a part of crafting your sound for this album?
We were all raised in North Carolina. It’s where we all became friends and started making music together so it holds a really important place in our hearts and our art. On top of that, the creative community in NC is crazy. We’ve made so many amazing friends just through making music. There are a bunch of photographers, videographers, musicians—it’s a very tight-knit, youthful and supportive community with a lot of great energy. We were very fortunate to have our creativity fostered in this particular environment. In terms of Maggie Valley in particular, as we said before, that was a place we went back and forth to many times to forget about school and focus on absolutely nothing but music. It was the one place that was a constant for us throughout our entire artistic progression. Over the course of the past few years, we’ve been growing as people and as musicians, and this EP is like a time capsule that shows how far we’ve really come. The project is an eclectic grab bag of sounds and melodies. There’s something for everyone on this EP, and we’re putting these songs out to immortalize this chapter in a journey that’s just begun.
We concluded our conversation with what Weston Estate hopes individuals take away from this interview with Brown Girl Magazine.
We want people to know that, at the end of the day, we’re just like them. We’re 5 regular ass dudes from NC who are best friends and love making music together. It’s been a blessing that we’ve come this far and it’s only going to go up from here. We can’t wait to show you all what we have in store for the future.
An exclusive standing-room-only crowd, dressed in dazzling colors and shimmer, packed SONA — an upscale South Asian restaurant in Manhattan — in February to celebrate queer love and allyship in the desi community.
The event, ‘Pyar is Pyar’ (which translates to “Love is Love”), recognized the landmark bipartisan legislation that President Biden signed into law in December: the Respect for Marriage Act. The event raised $168,000 to support Desi Rainbow Parents & Allies, an international nonprofit that provides peer support and resources to LGBTQ+ South Asians and their families.
Maneesh Goyal, founder and partner of SONA, organized the event with Shamina Singh, the founder and president of Mastercard’s Center for Inclusive Growth. Both Goyal and Singh are openly queer South Asian leaders and thanked the crowd that evening for their support of other LGBTQ+ desis.
Opal Vadhan and Gautam Raghavan from the Biden/Harris Administration read a letter from President Biden to commemorate the event.
“Jill and I — and Kamala and Doug — hope you have a wonderful night celebrating our nation at our best,” Biden wrote. “May we all carry forth that American promise of freedom together. May we also know that love is love — and pyar is pyar.”
“The work that you do to become visible and powerful, to form narratives, to change minds, and to make people feel something about a cause for equality — that is incredibly important,” Raghavan added, before introducing Vaibhav Jain and Parag Mehta, a same-sex Indian couple that got married in 2019 in Texas.
“They denied us because we are a same-sex couple,” said Jain, who grew up in New Delhi. “This is a violation of the Indian constitution, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex; so we filed suit.”
“Parag and I are hopeful for a positive verdict. If our case wins, it would bring marriage equality to nearly 1.4 billion people across India,” he continued. “Just to put that in perspective, the total number of people today who live in a country with marriage equality is about 1.4 billion. That means our cases together could double the global population of places who live in a place with marriage equality.”
“We need a mechanism to help build allies in our community and to help provide the support that LGBTQ people need,” Mehta added, encouraging people to donate to Desi Rainbow.
Rayman Kaur Mathoda, Desi Rainbow’s board chair, challenged allies to put their dollars behind their vocal support. Her family announced a $50,000 donation to the organization’s ongoing work.
Founded and led by Aruna Rao, a straight cisgender mother of a transgender adult, the nonprofit has served more than 2,000 LGBTQ+ South Asians and their families since 2020. The goal is to serve 10,000 in three years; a million in the next 10 years.
Mathoda, a wife and mother of four, recalled how painful the lack of family and community support can be.
“For most of us who come out in the desi community…coming out is still a negative experience,” she said. “It is not a moment of pride. It is a moment of shame.”
Mathoda thanked all allies in particular for making the road easier for queer South Asians. To find the love and acceptance they want and need.
“Take what you want//Take everything” reflects on a time with my partner and our cat, Layla. It’s a retelling of the chaotic night I adopted her. I didn’t know why Layla hid from me. When I chased her around, it scared her more. “Take what you want//Take everything” juxtaposes our first night, filled with misunderstanding, with the rest of the time we spent together. My fond memories call back to the loving moments Layla and I shared.
Such memories defined us; they reverberated in my partnership. I wonder if my partner, like Layla, only remembers her fear of me, over our shared moments of love. The title, a Kanye West lyric, is an acknowledgment that their happiness together–without me–destroyed my sense of self. When I see their photos, I wonder if I can see myself reflected in their eyes. I wonder if they still keep kind moments of our time together.
I remember when she would look at me from behind a laundry basket.
A small simple cat with green owl eyes. She was afraid of her new home and its owner. Shit, I remember the night I got her, she hid under my bed, in the middle just out of my reach for maybe 6 hours, watching me. She didn’t eat anything the entire day. When the night fell I was afraid she’d starve or come out and attack me. I was just scared. I didn’t have a childhood pet, I’m not white, I didn’t know what to do. I picked up the whole bed and yelled that she needed to move. I chased her into the closet with a vacuum cleaner. When she ran in, I called my lover and yelled to her that she wasn’t helping enough, she needed to be there to help me. That was our first day together, me and that cat. No one will ever have that memory but me and maybe her.
It was during Ramadan, my first year fasting.
Our problems had already begun by then. Enough so that I decided to fast and show retribution. I’d try to change into a more patient and understanding self. Like the Prophet (SAW) I guess. To become someone that my lover could feel safe around. Somehow, getting a cat felt like it fit into that picture. I’d be a cat dad, you know, gentle. We’d raise her. I’d fast and become New Again. Maybe I’d wrap an inked tasbih around myself and show I’m a man of God.
I don’t know how a cat remembers fear any more than I know how a lover does.
I know her body stored it. My cat’s must have stored it too. That first night, I wish I could tell her that I was afraid too. It doesn’t make sense that I was afraid really — I’m bigger, more threatening. We don’t speak the same language anyway, so how could I ever tell her? She learned to trust me though, in her own way. Her small bean paws would press on my chest in the mornings. She’d meow to berate me for locking her out some nights, or when I was away from home too long.
She lives with my lover now. They share photos with me, they’re happy together.
I saw my lover once, it was on 55th and 7th, Broadway shined blue performance lights over us. She wore a red sacral dress. She said her mental health has never been better. I think she was trying to tell me that she’s doing well, because she knows I care for her. I don’t think she was trying to say she’s happier without me. We don’t speak the same language. I actually think they are happier with just each other. And I loved them both, so it hurts. Sometimes, not all the time. And it doesn’t always hurt that bad. Other times it does get pretty bad, though. I probably owe it to myself to say that.
I look back at the photos, the ones of our life together, and the ones of their new life.
Two green owl eyes, and two brown moonlit eyes. I look for myself in them.
August 3, 2023August 20, 2023 7min readBy Ramona Sukhraj
Passion is something many claim to have, but few truly possess. Whether it’s hobbies, professions or romances, it’s the secret ingredient we all crave but is quite difficult to come by. But on meeting Chef Devan Rajkumar — aka Chef Dev — it takes just a few moments to understand true passion. For the Indo Guyanese chef from Toronto, passion has always been food and its power to connect, nourish, excite and represent.
Whatever the outlet, Rajkumar feeds his mission to bean ambassador for modern, West and East Indian cuisine. I recently sat down with him to talk about this and the experience of bringing Indo Caribbean flavors to South Asia and beyond.
Feeding a passion for food
“The sights, the sounds, the aromatics. The excitement of the kitchen has just always appealed to me,” he began. “Food moves me in a certain way. I want to nurture and nourish. I’ve just always wanted to do for others.”
As he sat back in a ‘Guyana vs. the world’ tank top, Rajkumar’s energy was palpable.
“I’ve always lived and breathed food, all day, all night. Like I’m talking about food right now. I’m constantly talking about food.”
To Rajkumar, food is education — one of the best (and most enjoyable) ways to learn, teach and explore the world — and he credits his older brother Jai for inspiring this mindset. Jai was the first to introduce him to different cuisines, teach him to be curious about the world and show him how to challenge the norms of a “typical brown kid.”
Despite this encouragement, however, a culinary career wasn’t Rajkumar’s first instinct. The son of a businessman, he initially jumped around universities and career paths. He also struggled with substance abuse and grief after Jai’s passing. Through all the challenges, food remained a constant, and the sense of community it created was a powerful draw.
“At a very young age, I recognized how food made me feel if I was in a bad mood and how it made others feel,” he shared.
He’s always looked forward to sitting around a table with friends and family, enjoying a nice meal, and how everybody could share their stories or just forget their troubles.
“Food is a very powerful vehicle for transporting someone.”
In 2009, Rajkumar finally followed his passion and joined a culinary school. He realized he had a knack for creating this experience for others.
“I realized I had the power and the gift to nourish and nurture someone else in this way,” and it became irresistible.
A cook with no boundaries, Rajkumar didn’t want to limit the number of people he reached to just those in Canada.
For many, success in the culinary world is having a thriving restaurant, but after spending six months opening one with The Food Dudes in 2015, Rajkumar realized this route wasn’t for him.
“I wanted more culture,” he explained. “I wanted to learn and not so much get my ass kicked, but to be a sponge. I knew I needed to travel to broaden my horizons.”
So he did. Rajkumar spent months cooking in India, London, Peru and Dubai. He shared his experiences on social media and people back home took note.
“When I returned to Toronto,” he continued, “that trip had established me as a cook who had no boundaries. As someone who wasn’t afraid to explore and get out of their comfort zone.”
And get out of his comfort zone he did.
“From catering to a pop-up abroad to filming ‘Cityline’ and speaking engagements, every day is different,” he explained. “I’ve had my bouts with imposter syndrome, but ultimately, I’ve gotten to make more of an impact than just opening a restaurant.”
That impact has especially been prominent in South Asia.
Rajkumar embraces not only his Caribbean culture, but his South Asian roots as well.
The temple he grew up in was a blend of Guyanese and East Indians, so he knew foods from a typical Guyanese household like alu curry and saijan but also East Indian favorites like dhokla and malai kofta.
“Ultimately, we came from India,” he declared. “I embrace the culture and I am very comfortable leaning back and forth into it. It’s in me. It’s who I am.”
In fact, Rajkumar noted his career became much more defined and successful when he really began to identify as not just a chef, but as an Indo Guyanese Canadian chef.
Hearing this, it was no surprise that Guyana, India and Pakistan stand out as some of his favorite destinations.
“Guyana is hugely impactful for me,” he shared, having visited his parents’ homeland frequently. “As soon as that door opens [at the airport], you smell Guyana. You smell the sugarcane burning from rum factories. I have all these wonderful sights, sounds, smells and flavors from those trips.”
His sentiments for India are similar.
“Incredible India is incredible India,” he referred to the country’s tourism slogan. “Every 100-200 kilometers, the menus can change completely. I can live in India for the rest of my life and never see it all.”
Rajkumar’s first trip in 2020 was only nine days long, but its impact stayed with him.
He couldn’t have been more excited to return for a month, earlier this year, and host what his friends there dubbed the “Mad Love Pop-Up,” after one of his signature sayings.
He filled the menu for the 18-day event with global dishes like ceviche and scotch eggs but infused them with West and East Indian flavors like masala, jerk and cassareep — a rich extract of the bitter cassava native to Guyana. Before he left, he even prepared Guyana’s national dish of pepper pot, a hearty meat stew, for the staff meal.
“My whole thought process was ‘let me give these people — my family there — an experience they’ve never had before,” he detailed. “Any time I give someone pepper pot or cassareep, they’re just so shocked. It’s so unique.”
Rajkumar is always excited to share the flavors and culture of Guyana with new people, but with his roots in South Asia, bringing them to Pakistan was that much more profound.
“In India, maybe it’s different, but in Lahore, most people don’t know about Guyana or where it is. That’s another reason why I did this. That’s why I do all the things I do. That’s why I’m wearing this tank top — to raise awareness about my culture and how beautiful it is,” he said.
Time in South Asia has also helped Rajkumar gain a deeper appreciation for the origins of many Indo Caribbean dishes and reinforced his love for them.
“Guyanese cuisine doesn’t just have Indian influence, but so many dishes in some way, shape, or form come from there. Like when I’m eating sada roti, I can tie it back to which type of flatbread it came from in India. I feel like a better-equipped chef at the end of the day. I’m more connected to my Guyanese roots and to the culture overall.”
Rajkumar wants to foster a deeper understanding and relationship between both heritages. He wants his food to build connections, not disparity.
Bringing the world back home
Rajkumar has visited over 20 countries, but Pakistan remains one place he’ll cherish his entire life. He is grateful not only for the opportunities he’s had there, but also for the chance to offer a fresh, alternative view of the country from what is often shown by the media.
Chef Devan Rajkumar wants to use his culinary skills and experiences to bring people together.
“When people saw me posting content from Lahore, they were like, ‘Oh my God, this is Pakistan?’ This is not what we expected. This is not what we thought we’d see.’ They were shocked at how beautiful, kind, and welcoming everyone was.”
Reactions like these are Rajkumar’s ultimate goal.
A cookbook is due next year. He has aspirations of launching merchandise and cookware, traveling to South East Asia, and continuing his pop-ups, but ultimately, he concludes,
“I just want to stand for something. I want to continue to learn, remain humble, represent my Western and Eastern cultures and spread mad love. I want to be an ambassador to that world and be someone who’s dedicated to his craft, bettering himself and those around him.”
“I just want to continue to grow as a person,” he added with sincerity as he touched on his sobriety and what it’s taught him about achieving your goals.
“That might sound cliche, but it’s new to me. I’ve spent the last two years learning about myself and being vulnerable about how I feel, my healing journey and what I’m going through. If I excel and continue to invest time and discipline in that arena, everything else around me will flourish. I believe that goes for anyone.”
Rajkumar is going far literally and figuratively, but no matter where he lands, you can be sure he’ll bring something back for his supporters, whether it be a new view of the world or a concoction like a ceviche pani puri on one of his menus.
“That’s my travels to India, Pakistan and Peru all in one bite!” he exclaimed.
Chef Dev’s journey has not always been an easy one, but it’s a powerful example of the success one can taste with hard work, embracing authenticity and following true passion.
