The Score Magazine - Archive February 2015 issue! | Page 14

What was your first major break in Playback singing
and how did the opportunity come about?
How shall we put it? Major break would possibly be a song that
hit the charts and stayed on top for a long long time. That would
perhaps be Tum Se Hi from Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met that Pritam
composed. But I would think if one doesn’t break at all, no big
breaks can happen at all. Simply because there will never be any
chance to arrive at the bigger stuff. In that sense, my first song,
Pehli Nazar from Ram Gopal Verma’s film Road. The song was
filmed on Manoj Bajpayee. Just the other day, I was speaking to
someone about it and he said, can you imagine, you are known for
romantic songs, and the first ever song you did playback for, was
on Manoj Bajpayee! That’s such an unusual debut for a romantic
songs singer!
As for Tum Se Hi, Pritam actually launched a man hunt for me
when he wanted me to record this song. The story goes that around
the time when Pritam was recording for Imtiaz’s film he thought
he wanted me to do Tum Se Hi. I love to trek in the mountains
and disappear every now and then for my small rejuvenating,
meditative treks. That particular time I was on one such journey
with no information on where I was with any of my friends in
Mumbai. I was in a distant place high up in the mountains and
my phone was unreachable. Pritam, my dear friend, waited for a
month and more to establish contact with me and get me to record
that song. The rest as they say is history. Pritam and I have done a
huge number of songs since and share an amazing bond.
You've been a part of some great projects such as
'Rang De Basanti' and 'Jab We Met'. What would you
say is the most memorable project till date for you
and why?
You’re telling me to name my favourite finger and that’s an
impossible job to do! But if you were to push me, then I guess the
most memorable will have to be Rockstar for the sheer range that
the album covered and I was singing all the songs in that album.
The Rockstar album was terrific at many levels. For one, it was
an album composed by A R Rahman saheb and even though I was
getting to work with him for a third time, the first being Khoon
Chala in Rang De Basanti and then Masakali in Delhi 6,
Rockstar was the first time when I was getting to sing all the songs
in the film. In that sense, Rockstar was phenomenal. For years
together the trend of one singer singing all the songs in a film had
been done away. In 2011 when Rockstar happened, the industry
had plunged