Akash Vaigyanik Turns a Phantom Limb Into a Song About Love, Memory and Being Stuck

A love that has ended should, in theory, leave with the person. But sometimes the body doesn't get the memo. For Delhi-based independent artist Akash Vaigyanik, that strange disconnect became the starting point for My Phantom Arm, a song that borrows from Phantom Arm Syndrome, where someone who has lost a limb can still feel its presence, and turns it into a metaphor for a love that is long gone but somehow refuses to disappear.

That slightly surreal approach makes more sense once you know what Akash was doing before music. He spent six years at Delhi Press ghostwriting and editing children's storybooks, and that storytelling instinct clearly followed him into songwriting. His songs tend to come with their own worlds. There's the time-loop laboratory of his debut concept album Prayogshala, the friendly UFO invasion in Udan Tashtari, and the mysterious stranger wandering through dark streets in Dastaane. Akash isn't particularly interested in writing a song just because it sounds nice. There usually has to be a story hiding inside it.

My Phantom Arm started during a late-night drive home in 2022. A tune came to him, he recorded a rough version on his phone, and the lyrics followed over the next few weeks. The song then took its sweet time. At Meraki Recording Studio in New Delhi, Akash worked with Siddharth Mitra and Arrindamm Banerjii, gradually building it with acoustic and electric guitars, bass, drums, violin, organ and synthesizer. The result needed to feel as unsettled as the story itself, caught somewhere between remembering something and trying to escape it.

Then there's the line that started the whole thing: “Had sand for breakfast again.” Weird? Absolutely. But Akash says it came from the experience of feeling stuck in the same loop for almost three years. The image captured the strange absurdity of days becoming so repetitive that even something as ridiculous as eating sand starts to make sense. He kept following that thought until it became one of his most personal songs. There's a darkly funny streak running through it too. Akash cites Jordan Peele's observation that the difference between comedy and horror can come down to the background music, and My Phantom Arm seems to enjoy sitting right in that uncomfortable space.

These days, Akash writes both music and screenplays, and the two naturally find their way into each other. His day might start with tea and a notebook, then wander through guitars, synths, drum machines and his favourite toy piano synth, with song fragments appearing whenever they feel like it. His influences range from Radiohead, Pink Floyd and John Lennon to Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia and Amit Trivedi, but his own work has developed into something distinctly story-first. He describes his journey in one word: “Whimsy.” Considering there are phantom limbs, UFOs, mysterious strangers and sand involved, we're inclined to agree.