IN CONVERSATION WITH
SHAMIR TANDON
Tell us about your journey into music ? From a corporate lifestyle to a music composer , how did it happen ?
When I started my career , it wasn ' t easy to enter the entertainment industry . It was in the hands of a few and not democratised as it is today . There were all sorts of rumours so middle class kids from modest backgrounds were recommended to refrain from such an industry . Having lost my parents early in life , I did not have the propensity to take risks and enter a not so organised industry then in early 90s . I finished my cost accountancy and MBA and then entered the corporate world . While I was in the rat race of the mundane duinya of number crunching , I was moonlighting doing jingles and other small music assignments on weekends and at nights on weekdays . I call this my Ranji Trophy innings where I was getting some hands-on experience in music making . Finally with the opening up of the economy , multinational global giants in the entertainment industry started setting shop in India . When EMI Virgin , one of world ' s largest and oldest record label then , set up its operations here , I managed to seek employment as a marketing manager . Soon I grew to be the country head in a couple of years itself and was running the APAC region for the entertainment / music of the EMI Virgin group . During this stint , I made contacts in the media and entertainment world and also got close to a lot of artists wearing my managing directorial hat . This came handy when I switched my role from being a managing director to a music director . I call this the back door entry . Got in with my left brain with an eventual vision to oil my right brain . In fact , the first few feature films that I did as a composer , I did while I was employed . My bosses in UK had no problems with this passion of mine and soon when the first handful of films that I did , became national award winners , I got tempted to do music full time and here I am .
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