Bollywood Dhol drummers
Being an Established award winning female Bhangra team in the UK, we have strived to promote Bhangra music to a wider audience since 1999. Our hard work and growing recognition has earned us the opportunity to perform on some of the largest and well-known platforms such as, the Glastonbury festival and the BBC. However, now we have three Bollywood films to add to the list, allowing us to be referred to as the ‘Bollywood Dhol drummers’.
In 2012, we made our first appearance in Bollywood by featuring in the wedding song of the year, ‘Suit Tera Laal Rang Da’ from the Deol production, ‘Yamla Pagla Deewana 2’. Being surrounded by one of the pioneers of Bollywood, Dharmendra and his iconic sons Sunny and Bobby Deol, was a dream come true for us all. Many believed our Bollywood appearance then was just by ‘chance’.
Three years later our Dhol drummers brought the same energy, enthusiasm and this time, experience to Bollywood once again in the 2015 Dusserah release, ‘Shaandaar’. Working closely with the versatile actor Shahid Kapoor on sets during filming for the song ‘Raita Phail Gaya’ felt surreal. During this experience we conversed with the crew and stars on a more personal level. Two of our drummers were later flown to Poland to complete filming. By this point we felt part of the Shaandaar team and production family. Once again, seeing Eternal Taal on all leading Indian channels across the globe during various promos and being recognised by those around us was an incredibly proud feeling.
We didn’t have to wait too long before being approached by the production team of one of the leading filmmakers of Bollywood, Karan Johar for another Bollywood project. Our female Dhol drummers were invited onto the sets of what turned out to be one of the largest grossing box office hits of 2016, ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’. As we made the journey to the filming location in London, we were instantly recognised by some of the crew as we’d worked well together in ‘Shaandaar’, feeling right at home. Knowing what was expected from us straight away made the whole process run smoothly. As with all the previous films we experienced something different this time too. In this project we were choreographed with Ranbir Kapoor and that is definitely a moment we will never forget.
No matter how many times we do this, we still feel the same excitement every time we see ourselves on the big screen. A lot of us have grown up watching these same stars on our televisions and to be sharing the screen with these same people is an experience that cannot be put into words. Once may be seen as chance, twice may be seen as luck but a third is most definitely destiny.. Eternal Taal look forward to our future projects.