You seem to be modesty personified as you still call yourself a newcomer and a student of Bollywood….
your voice in every number stem up from your own personal experiences?
Ha-ha! Whatever you say, but frankly speaking, I’m not in a hurry to prove my mettle in all forms of music under the sun. I'm basically a relaxed person by nature and prefer to keep my feet on the ground, lest I fall in absence of wings (laughs)! Jokes apart, I take things as and when they come my way and consider myself a learner on the job. Doesn’t the saying go, 'slow and steady wins the race'?
As a matter of fact, none is alien to a dark chapter in life. Sabhi is pehlu se waqif hai aur iss dard se guzar te hai. (All are familiar with the ups and downs of life and have to pass through this agony). And the harsh fact is, you don’t plan or predict such things in advance. It just happens. Sometimes it brushes past while on other occasions, it shockingly punches you in the face.
Do you fear getting typecast as a tunesmith? For, even if you explore and innovatively experiment with other genres, you are mostly celebrated for your love ballads alone. To be very honest, I’m still at the nascent stage of my career. So I don’t think I’ve reached a certain position where I can really pick and choose my assignments. Moreover, it’s a producer’s call to decide upon which composer to rope in — merited upon his/ her strengths — so that the best goods can be delivered pertaining to the chosen story and a given song-sequence. See, the maker has a business model set in his mind and he would run it with a profiteering motive. So, at the end of the day, his invested money has to be secure.
Your voice has a sloshed, addictive feel to it, which is reflected in all your memorable love gems — be it the passionate Sunn Raha Hai Na Tu, a soulful Galliyan, the romantic Tu Hai Ki Nahin or a very sensual Katra Katra. Is that your natural tonal quality or have you consciously inculcated the style to comply with the market’s dictates which understandably demand hits after hits? Well honestly, there’s no rocket science or fixed formula behind this. It’s an inborn quality, if you allow me to put that way. But I am afraid, I can’t change my vocal texture according to the fluctuating marketdynamics. I may modulate my voice, bring in a range of variations — suiting a particular song-situation — but definitely cannot ever alter my sound from the scratch. For example, Sunn Raha had a different bhao (expression) to offer, so was Galliyan. So the style of singing and emotions discharged in both cases were dissimilar but not my voice, if you notice it carefully.
Love also brings along its own crises — estrangement, angst, misunderstanding, fights and insecurities. Does the audible pain, poignancy and poise dripping from
Now, how you pick up those shredding threads of life and tie up the loose ends only to spring back with a greater force is solely up to you. And yeah, often these encounters get registered in your sub-conscious mind and find a vent through your work.
Do you believe in fate and blame your stars for facing a temporary lean patch or wading through a troubled phase in life? I do believe in destiny but not brooding over the past till eternity. Let bygones be bygones. My funda is to take a leaf out of my book of mistakes and bad times to rectify the same in the next step. Life is about moving on — like a tide on the flow. When it gives you a second chance, just grab it to the fullest. Look you win some and lose some. Even our God of cricket Sachin Tendulkar had to endure some bitterest brickbats in his career when his runmachine was in drought. But that’s part and parcel of the game. Either you perform or perish.
What if success ever eludes you… Well, it’s a very normal thing and quite possible too. You tell me, can you ever chalk out your success-graph? Never! I can only think about my hard-work and projects. For results lie in the omnipotent God’s hands and I have to just await his verdict.
Can you recall your struggling stretch? Well, it was a humble beginning. I had started off entirely as a rank greenhorn struggler from outside and my career in music shaped up bit by bit. Quite like a toddling little boy, I first went to a playschool, then gradually shifted to high school and got promoted further to enrol for college. Initially, I would prepare ready-tracks to back up live-performers on stage. Thus, I got the sense of sound. Then grasped the ropes in jingles from where I got a hang of television and did background scores for the serials. In due course of time, the emotions of music started seeping into my veins and I learnt to understand what film music is all about.
Who is your musical inspiration and why? Definitely my mother (Mrs. Suman Tiwari). She was the first person to introduce me to music. Dekhiye mujhe sangeet viraasat me mili hai. (Music has been my familial legacy). It’s in my blood and genes and ever since I was in my mother’s womb, I have been connected to the musical strains. She is a well-known devotional singer of Kanpur, my native town. And my parents (father Mr. R. K. Tiwari) own a music-troupe called Raju Suman and Party which performs at religious congregations. I remember playing the keyboard at some ceremonial gatherings and would even lend my vocal chords off and on. That’s how I cultivated the sense of beat and rhythm in me. You may say that the seeds of my basic foundation in music were sown at home only.
Do you ever dream of cutting a solo private album? Not an album per se but am already working upon a single. Urge to record a compilation is always there but right now, my schedule is so much jam-packed with film workloads that everything else put
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