The Giant Panda’s Music Room
This is where I store the music I’ve composed over the years, usually at airports, in transit lounges, or late nights in faraway countries while documenting stories for the UN. Each track holds a memory. Some are light, some heavy. Many, like Merv and Rajat, were born in some of the toughest locations on earth, North Sri Lanka during the civil war.
This isn’t commercial music. It’s mood. It’s motion. It’s that quiet moment between takeoff and landing, when you’re carrying stories that won’t let you sleep.
Welcome in. Plug in. Let it play.
This one came together in transit...Bangladesh to Delhi, then back to Afghanistan. In Bangladesh, we had just covered stories of children drowning in floodwaters not far from their homes. And in Afghanistan, I was heading into the aftermath of a deadly mudslide that had buried entire families. Somewhere between those two heartbreaks, this track found its shape. It’s the sound of loss, movement, and everything in between.
Born from the Road, Haunted by What I Saw
I made this track during one of those in-between moments, somewhere between exhaustion and clarity. It’s not flashy or loud. It’s more of a quiet conversation with everything I’ve seen and felt over the years. The kind of song that just flows out when you’ve witnessed too much and still can’t find the right words.
A Blend of India
This track was born in Rajasthan, in the heat and dust of villages where childhood ends too soon. Where caste still decides fate, and girls are married off before they learn to dream. We were uncovering stories of child marriage, of systems that crush hope early. This song is my response, raw, restless, and rooted in what we saw.
After the Wave
I composed this after returning from a mission deep into the tribal interiors of Fiji and the Solomon Islands. Entire communities had been washed away by a tsunami, homes, memories, everything gone. And what the waves didn’t take, climate change is slowly stealing. This piece is for them. For the silence that followed the storm. For the strength of people who’ve lost everything, yet still offer you a smile.
Merv and Rajat
This piece was composed after one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had—with children barely old enough to speak, trying to make sense of a world that had ripped their family apart. Their mother had been blown to pieces while searching for milk for her newborn. The father had disappeared, leaving them in an orphanage and starting a new life elsewhere.
Smiles Without Borders The Faces of the World
I composed this song thinking of the smiles I’ve seen across places, in between journeys, in the middle of chaos, or right after a storm. This video is a celebration of those moments, the faces of the world, caught in joy, even if just for a second. No big production. Just real people, real places, and the kind of happiness that doesn't need words.
Fuel for the Fight
Sometimes, when the weight of the world feels too much, especially in places like Afghanistan, where every story pulls at your soul, you need something to lift you.
I composed this on the heels of a tough child protection mission. It’s not sad. It’s not heavy. It’s fire. This one was for me
Islands of Silence
I had just returned from the Maldives, a place of beauty, but also of quiet heartbreak. Nearly every family we met was touched by drug addiction. Parents behind bars. Children left behind. Alone. Vulnerable. Forgotten.
I composed this track for those children, for the weight they carry without ever being asked. The islands may look like paradise, but there’s another story underneath the surface.