Sarthak Karkare: The Legacy of Maqta and Musical Identity

Maqta. That name just carries this quiet declaration, doesn't it? It’s the final couplet in a ghazal, where the poet just signs himself onto the poem. For Sarthak Karkare, though, it’s been something more elusive. Not a disguise, not a brand. It’s a way of acknowledging all those voices that had already signed themselves into him before he ever started writing in Hindi.

You hear all this stuff bleeding into his music. Retro film songs playing at home. Ghazals that travel through generations. The “shudh” Hindi of his grandparents. Hindustani, Western classical music. Even the private literature of family memory—all of it found its way into the music he makes now, under that name.

Before Maqta, he was known in English alt-rock circles. Bands like Unohu and St. Cyril. But then the pandemic hit. Isolation forced everyone to look at what they actually lived. He started pulling back, returning to the language, the music, the stories that built his earliest emotional world. English, he said, just couldn’t reach the depth he needed. Hindi and Urdu, though—they carried this inherited resonance. Memory. Texture. A certain warmth you just can’t translate.

That shift became this whole musical universe. From Dor and Silsile to Jaane Bhi De, to Kahin Tu Azaad Toh Nahin. Maqta’s songs lean into vulnerability, but they don't turn it into some spectacle. His latest, Woh Geet , is lighter. It’s born from a creative block, really. His mother suggested he write a song about searching for a song, and suddenly, songwriting became this small adventure. The result is sprightly, acoustic, almost childlike in its sense of discovery.

He talked about choosing this identity. Moving from English rock to Hindi-Urdu songwriting. Finding home in old melodies. Turning literature, memory, and personal reckoning into sound. He mentioned the house-concert culture helped him build an audience away from those viral algorithms. There’s a quiet philosophy behind tracks like Kahin Tu Azaad Toh Nahin . And the full-length album he spent nearly four years shaping.

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The Meaning and Influence of Maqta

“Maqta” itself means the final signature couplet in a ghazal, where the poet reveals their name. Why that choice? How does it shape how you sign every song with something so deeply personal?

His music draws from retro Bollywood, ghazals, Hindustani and Western classical. And deep bonds with his parents and grandparents—especially his grandparents, who were from the northern part of India, so “shudh” Hindi was just household stuff. When he started writing in Hindi during the lockdown, he realized he was just blending all these things. Transcending them. Assimilating them into one thing, something bigger than just himself. He didn’t want to just name the music after himself. It felt like continuing a legacy. A legacy he’d witnessed, and now finally getting to participate in.

Using that stage name gives him comfort. It’s knowing he’s always in great company. That he’ll always be humbled by this legacy.

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The Shift to Hindi-Urdu and Authenticity

You grew up surrounded by those old melodies, ghazals, and classical music. Then you made your name in English alt-rock. What was the internal push that made him switch to Hindi-Urdu lyricism?

He started performing in English rock while in college. Then the lockdowns hit, and that was when he finally looked around. He rediscovered the music and literature he grew up with, mostly in Hindi. It connected him back to himself, his family, his grandparents.

Plus, he felt he hit a wall with English. It felt like the words were just scratching the surface. He understood the language, sure, but it felt too literal. Hindi and Urdu, for him, carried deeper connotations. They were beautiful to hear, yes, but they unlocked something else. It felt more authentic.

Your music feels like a quiet rebellion against the fast, loud stuff. Bridging nostalgia and modern sensibility. What does “home” sound like now? RD Burman records? Mehdi Hasan ghazals? Or just the silence between the notes?

He realized he carries a piece of everyone’s home in his songs. His inspirations are really the inspirations of countless households across India. There’s something deeply comforting about melodies and words rooted in the Indian tradition. It’s like everyone has tapped into this treasure, whether in film or music, to bring it back to life for their own time. He hopes to do that too.

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The Creative Process and Freedom

Woh Geet is this meta song about searching for “the song” itself—in everyday moments, books, spaces, fleeting thoughts. His mother suggested he write about the act of writing to break a creative block. What was it like to make the song the main character?

The only emotion left him while writing it? Joy. He wanted something simple, direct, almost childlike. He wanted to skip the seriousness of the writing process. He worked with Moe’s Art Studios for the music video, and he was happy with how it turned out.

The EP Kahin Tu Azaad Toh Nahin explores that quiet paradox: we might already be free, but we often don't notice it. How has that theme changed since Silsile , and what made him feel it?

He figured that when we’re down, we just want a little more from life, but we refuse to see what we already have. That makes us our own worst enemies. He admitted he was guilty of it. Right before the EP, he wasn't in a great space personally. But he knew it couldn’t be all that defined him. So instead of thinking about big ideas, he started looking at real, tangible things. Relationships. Things that made him feel like himself. That, for him, is freedom. Getting to be yourself.

If you start there, you find that life confirms freedom every day, in wonderful ways. You just have to look.

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Connecting with the Audience

From the breakthrough vulnerability of Dor in 2020 to the cinematic feel of Jaane Bhi De , his songs have always turned personal longing into something universal. How has six years as Maqta changed how he handles what he reveals versus what he keeps locked away?

He’s private. It took him a long time to accept vulnerability as strength. He still struggles with it, just like other artists. But he thinks that’s the point of the job. The most important thing he learned is you can’t connect with anyone if you don’t bare your soul. In that act, you confirm what it means to be human. Together. He’s seen it happen in front of him—the tears, the laughter during shows. When he reads the messages afterward, he realizes sharing himself authentically breaks down the formality. It creates safe spaces.

Many tracks feel like intimate conversations with the past. Is it remembering, or trying to create presence in the now?

He has a song called ‘Yaadon Ka Nishaan’ that tackles this. It’s about diving deep into the past, especially the bad memories, to understand what we’re made of. Who we were, are, and where we’re going.

In the end, he sees his songs as one big project. A way to link up important truths, feelings, insights that make up the fabric of life.

When you mix Hindustani classical raags, Western sensibilities, retro Bollywood, and modern production—what’s the trickiest, and most rewarding, balancing act?

Finding his own voice among all those influences is the hardest part. It’s an ongoing project. He has more clarity now, but songwriting is dynamic. It changes constantly. Finding that voice as an artist? That’s the ultimate goal.

In an industry that screams for high-energy, short content, what are listeners secretly craving that his Hindi-Urdu music offers?

He thinks most of us are just feeling overstimulated. We’ve built these prisons of excess information. It leaves people feeling alienated from everything.

But his audiences tell him something else. His music and shows reconnect them. To their memories. To their friends. To their families. To everything that was part of their formative years. He saw people sitting there—eighteen and eighty-year-olds—and someone wanted to bring their whole family for the next show. It tells him people still crave those real, tangible connections. He hopes his music gives them exactly that.

He’s still surprised by how people connect with these intimate, old-world stories through house concerts and word-of-mouth, instead of viral algorithms.

When he first started these shows, he was nervous. Would people actually want to come to a stranger’s house? But over the last three years, those shows have taken him everywhere. Introduced him to incredible people who totally got his music and this format.

He thinks it’s because life feels so surreal now. Scrolling social media makes you feel like your life is either too much or too little. You need experiences that bring you back to the present. Sharing a small space to listen, that’s deeply comforting. It pulls you back to the now. Phones just lead you everywhere and nowhere at once. He’s grateful for how those shows got accepted.