Some albums arrive with a tracklist. Coshish's arrived with a puzzle. When the Mumbai band released Firdous in September 2013, its ten Hindi-language songs told the story of a man on a journey towards nirvana, and the photographs and inlay hid clues to a second running order in which the record could be heard, in drummer Hamza Kazi's words, as "one giant track." More than a decade later the band has released no second album, yet the first one refuses to fade. On Spotify's Rock in India playlist today, "Raastey", the album's first single, sits at No. 37. This is the story of a band that chose patience over output, and of the record that made that patience worth it.

Coshish at a glance

  • Based in: Mumbai, Maharashtra
  • Formed: late 2006, by vocalist-guitarist Mangesh Gandhi and guitarist Shrikant Sreenivasan (Rolling Stone India, 2013)
  • Line-up: Mangesh Gandhi (vocals, guitar), Shrikant Sreenivasan (guitar), Hamza Kazi (drums), Anish Nair (bass)
  • Sound: Hindi-language progressive rock that moves between sing-along alt rock and long, odd-metre prog
  • Releases: debut album Firdous (2013, Universal Music India) and the limited-edition Mukti DVD box set (2015)
  • Recognition: Best Rock Band at the Radio City Freedom Awards 2014; Best Drummer for Hamza Kazi at the ninth Jack Daniel's Annual Rock Awards; nominations at the UK's Progressive Music Awards 2014
  • Rock in India: "Raastey" at No. 37 (checked 14 October 2026, about 1:00 PM IST)

From a duo to a prog quartet

Coshish began small. Gandhi and Sreenivasan formed the band in late 2006, and the band's Wikipedia history describes the early version as a songwriting duo that recruited a rhythm section from the local scene and played college band competitions as an alternative rock quartet. By early 2008, after a couple of line-up changes, Hamza Kazi had taken the drum stool and Anish Nair the bass, and the music started stretching into progressive rock. That four-piece has stayed together ever since.

The influences were never hidden. Kazi, who has also played with the comedy rock band Workshop, told Rolling Stone India he was drawn to concept records by Tool, Porcupine Tree and Pain of Salvation. As a schoolboy in 2000, he said, he saved his pocket money to buy imported CDs by Nine Inch Nails, Tool and Radiohead, many of which came loaded with bonus material. "It made me want to have the same thing for my band." What set Coshish apart was the decision to pour that ambition into Hindi. As Gandhi admitted when Firdous came out, some of the ideas were hard to carry in the language: "'Maya' is about how everything is an illusion and there's a bigger sense of clarity when you die. It's difficult to write about that in Hindi."

Firdous: a concept album with a hidden map

Firdous took years. Rolling Stone India's review noted that the band finished recording in early 2012 and that the wait grew long enough for fans to make a "Hitler Reacts" parody about the delay. Gandhi later put the album's development at five years. The record was produced, recorded and mixed by Zorran Mendonsa and mastered by Jens Bogren, with artwork by Bernard Dumaine and Daeve Fellows and additional art by Imran Ladak (Rock Street Journal). Universal Music India released it nationwide on 2 September 2013, and the band launched it at Blue Frog, Mumbai, on 11 September with Blakc and Paradigm Shift on the bill.

The structure was the point. Rolling Stone India explained that the album opens with alt rock songs and shifts towards prog as it goes, while the inlay's photographs and handwritten lyrics point to an alternate order. "The album is packaged in a way that the listener discovers this guy's story," Gandhi said. Kazi compared the process to film-making: "With Firdous, you can almost see a movie when you flip through the artwork." He was equally frank about the scale of the project: "We're a relatively small band, but our aims are huge."

The critics heard both sides. In his review for Rolling Stone India, Anurag Tagat called the production "flawless", singled out the "half-dark, half-hopeful" "Raastey", the "radio pop rock" title song "Coshish" and "Woh Kho Gaye", and described the instrumental closer "Mukti" as "an eight-minute mammoth mix with a tip of the hat to bands like Tool and Porcupine Tree." His conclusion still reads as the best case for the band: "Coshish is among the first bands to prove that singing in Hindi isn't limited to any genre or any lyrical themes."

"Raastey" and the awards run

"Raastey" became the album's calling card. The band self-produced its music video, released in October 2013, and Kazi later used it as proof that a label deal is not a safety net: "People think that if we have a record label, they do everything for us, but that's not the case. We struggled quite a bit." Within a couple of months, Business Today reported, Firdous was among the top ten most downloaded albums on iTunes in India.

Recognition followed in 2014. Kazi won Best Drummer at the ninth Jack Daniel's Annual Rock Awards, and in June Coshish were nominated at Prog magazine's Progressive Music Awards in the UK, in the Anthem category for "Raastey" and in the Limelight category. "It's quite surreal to be nominated," Kazi told Rolling Stone India, guessing that singing in Hindi was "probably a bit exotic" for overseas listeners. Later that year the band won Best Rock Band at the Radio City Freedom Awards. "The album was in development for 5 years," Gandhi told Radio and Music. "It feels great to finally get some recognition for all that hard work."

Mukti: the box set as a thank-you

Instead of rushing a second album, Coshish built a collectible. Released in mid-2015, the Mukti DVD box set was hand-signed, numbered and limited to 500 copies. It gathered five music videos ("Raastey", "Bhula Do Unhey", "Hum Hai Yahin", "Maya" and "Mukti"), behind-the-scenes footage, live clips from clubs and college festivals, and download codes for a FuzzCulture remix of "Raastey" and an acoustic "Rehne Do", plus a keychain, wristband and lenticular 3D card. Kazi edited the behind-the-scenes footage himself, on a laptop at home.

The reason was the fans. "People wrote to us saying that Firdous was the first CD they ever bought," Kazi said. "There's always something physical that you'll be proud to own." He credited Universal Music India with taking "a big risk" on manufacturing and packaging: "They spent a huge amount on an indie band." The DVD also hid an easter egg, a demo of the unreleased "Revolving Sevens", for anyone patient enough to look. Coshish toured the release in July 2015, playing Bengaluru, then blueFROG venues in Pune and Mumbai.

Building a prog community

Coshish also helped build a scene for this music. In July 2015 they were one of the headliners at Progworks, billed by The Hindu as Bengaluru's first progressive rock festival, a DIY show organised by Rainburn's Vats Iyengar and Coma Rossi's Suman Chalamcharla, sharing the bill with guitarist Baiju Dharmajan, formerly of Motherjane. In October 2016 the idea went on the road as Progworks On Wheels, a five-city tour with Rainburn that gave the band its first Delhi show since 2009 and its Hyderabad debut. New songs were already taking shape. "Compared to the first album, this is way more prog and heavier," Sreenivasan said.

That approach, playing the long game and sharing stages with peers, is one many Indian bands have learned the hard way, as our guide to how independent bands build their sound explores. Fans who came to Coshish through their heavier passages will find more of that lineage in our overview of Indian metal bands.

The quiet years and the return

Then the band went quiet. Rolling Stone India reported in 2024 that Coshish had not played since late 2019. The pandemic accounted for part of the gap, Kazi said, but Sreenivasan and Nair had also moved out of Mumbai, so jams became irregular, and this was not a band that could write its long, intricate songs remotely. The break, he insisted, was never planned.

The comeback was low-key. On 14 March 2024 Coshish played The Stables in Mumbai, and on 17 March antiSOCIAL in Pune, as part of Prog Encounters 2.0, the DIY gig series launched by Bengaluru prog band The Pulse Theory, whose vocalist Avishek Dasgupta called their inclusion a "show-stealer." The set mixed Firdous songs with new material under working titles such as "Circular Time", "Gavin Grooves", "Tambi" and "Tribal", the last of which dates back to 2009. In January 2025 they headlined the first edition of Segue at Antisocial, Mumbai, alongside Paradigm Shift, promising the "full version" of a new 10-minute track.

Kazi was clear about the plan: "We don't want to go down the singles route, because we've worked so hard with the concept. Even if it takes two years to release, so be it. We want to be that stupid band that still goes out and releases albums, even though the world has changed drastically."

Why Coshish matter

Coshish matter because they proved, early and on a major-label stage, that Hindi lyrics and serious progressive rock could live on the same record without either one giving way. Firdous remains their only album, and its packaging, its hidden order and its sheer patience still feel unusual in a streaming-first independent music scene. The fact that "Raastey" sits on Rock in India thirteen years later, one place ahead of Motherjane's "Home", says the songs have outlived the hype. Kazi summed it up in 2024: "If people are still listening to our songs, [that's] what we want to give more of." For bands weighing whether to release music without a record label, Coshish's story offers a useful lesson: a label can press the record, but only the band can make people care about it.

FAQ

Who are the members of Coshish?

Coshish are Mangesh Gandhi (vocals, guitar), Shrikant Sreenivasan (guitar), Hamza Kazi (drums) and Anish Nair (bass). Gandhi and Sreenivasan formed the band in late 2006; Kazi and Nair joined by early 2008.

What genre is Coshish?

Coshish play Hindi-language progressive rock. Their music moves between melodic alt rock and long, technical prog passages, with clear influences from Tool and Porcupine Tree.

What is Coshish's album Firdous about?

Firdous (2013) is a concept album about a young man's journey towards nirvana. Clues in its artwork and inlay reveal an alternate running order that lets the ten tracks play as one continuous piece.

Which label released Firdous?

Universal Music India released Firdous nationwide on 2 September 2013. The label also manufactured the limited-edition Mukti DVD box set in 2015.

Is Coshish still active?

Yes. After a break from late 2019, Coshish returned at Prog Encounters 2.0 in Mumbai and Pune in March 2024 and headlined Segue in Mumbai in January 2025, playing unreleased songs from a planned second album.

Where is "Raastey" on the Rock in India playlist?

"Raastey", from Firdous, is at No. 37 on Spotify's Rock in India playlist, checked on 14 October 2026 at about 1:00 PM IST. Positions change, so check the live playlist for today's spot.

Sources

Cover: Coshish (from left) Anish Nair, Hamza Kazi, Shrikant Sreenivasan and Mangesh Gandhi, band press photo by Pavitr Saith, as published by Rolling Stone India (March 2024). Cropped and resized to 1200×630; metadata stripped. Source: https://rollingstoneindia.com/coshish-live-concert-mumbai-pune-prog-encounters/.