nishant mittal
I’ve always been a massive Usha Iyer (Uthup) fan. It was her much requested Auwa Auwa that first introduced me to her irresistible pop magic. So, it felt like a full-circle moment when I learned about Nishant Mittal’s vinyl collection during a conversation with a friend at Trincas — the iconic Kolkata nightclub where Usha Uthup began her career as a lounge singer.
Later that week, when I spoke to Mittal, I realised that for him too, the journey begins with Usha — only his discovery came in a dusty crate.
Somewhere in a stack of seven-inch records, pulled from a flea market, Mittal found a song that would alter the course of his life. It was by Usha and the track was called The Trip.
“An absolute heater,” he says, recalling the late-’60s rock’n’roll recording from Kolkata. That one spinning disc opened a portal. “It really opened my eyes and my mind to a whole other sub-genre of music that I didn’t know existed.”
From that moment on, he began digging deeper into Indian rock and jazz from the 1960s through the 1980s. A sonic excavation that would eventually evolve into ‘Digging In India’, the archival vinyl project now travelling to the Perth Festival.
Devoted to vinyl
For Mittal, who began collecting records while still in law school in Delhi, the journey has always been instinctive rather than strategic. What started as an Instagram page grew organically into a respected platform, a physical record store, an NTS radio residency, and international DJ sets. There was no business plan, he insists — just obsession and faith.
“I started collecting records when I was in law school,” he reveals. Selling vinyl on the side helped him buy more vinyl. Meanwhile, his interest in legal textbooks faded. “I quite honestly despised the idea of becoming a lawyer and eventually dropped out of law school and started the record thing full time.” Record culture, he says, showed him a better life — something he doesn’t take lightly.
That devotion now travels far beyond Delhi. Having played across India and parts of Asia, Mittal is preparing for his first show outside the continent. “It’s going to be my first time stepping out of Asia and bringing my records to spin in Australia at the Perth Festival,” he adds. “I’m keen to see how the sounds from my archives will be absorbed by the audience at the festival.”
Perth’s music scene may be geographically isolated, but Mittal isn’t one to tailor his selections “too carefully” for his audience. “I like to play what I want and hopefully people will enjoy it. It’s mostly groovy stuff, just maybe at times in a different language, so I think people everywhere should be able to enjoy it!”
Discovering music Nishant Mittal
What Mittal carries with him are not just records, but stories of regions, languages, and eras that streaming platforms often overlook. There is “so much Indian music on vinyl that is not even on streaming platforms,” he explains. He often finds records with no information available online including forgotten soundtracks of family gatherings, regional film industries, and local bands. These are the treasures he digitizes and uploads to his YouTube channel.
The excitement online is palpable and the response deeply emotional. The most common comments, he says, read like messages from time travellers: “listening to this song after xyz years” or “been looking for this song for xyz years.” For Mittal, those moments of reconnection are everything. “I just feel so happy that I can give that moment of happiness to some people.”
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His digging has revealed surprising cultural truths too. Which one is the most striking, we ask? “Disco was MASSIVE in India in the ’80s,” he confesses. He’s unearthed disco records in Marathi, Kannada, Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya and in many more languages. “It really was a disco decade over here!”
A treasure trove Nishant Mittal
In a hyper-digital world, Mittal remains committed to the tactile romance of vinyl. “When you buy an album in a physical format it becomes a part of your life, and you tend to enjoy it much more,” he says. He is quick to clarify that his love for records was never about sonic superiority. “For me, it was always about holding a beloved album in my hands and making it a part of my life.”
That physical intimacy — the artwork, the weight of memory — forms the emotional backbone of ‘Digging In India’. And with younger listeners increasingly discovering Indian and global music history through selectors like him, Mittal acknowledges a quiet responsibility. “There is a sense of responsibility on me to showcase the music from my country in a careful and respectful way,” he agrees.
What he wishes for in Perth is simple: “Hopefully a positive experience.” Having read about the festival’s past performers, he trusts the curation.
Beyond Perth, the future remains deliberately undefined. “Never had a plan — taking things one week at a time,” he says. But he does hope for “more exciting opportunities, more countries to travel and play in, more great friends to make on this difficult journey.”
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