Doosra Kinara - Song Composition

We started looking for a good voice to record the song. We advertised, called friends and acquaintances, to inform them that we are looking for a male singer. Soon, we were having our own version of Atlanta Desi Idol every weekend. But it was all in vein as no one came close to what we were looking for.

Apurva ji is a stickler for perfection and that made it wrost. Folks who could sing had no sense of Urdu diction. I remember showing up for the auditions with lots of expectations of finding the guy who would sing the very first song of my career, but every weekend brought more frustrations.

In desperation we started auditioning our friends. I too auditioned and was rejected in about 60 seconds (actually he rejected me in 9 seconds but gave me 51 seconds more to get it right, which I never did!).

In the meantime he continued to work on the Ghazal. Sandhya ji, Sandeep Savla and I used to be with him at the studio. Man, that was an experience. I have never seen a person with so much energy. He is amazing and can function with less sleep. He can compose music till 3 am and show up for the board of directors meeting at 8 am. Apun ko jis din 8 ghante neend na mile us din us din ye malum nahi padta kea a raha hoon ke jaa raha hoon!!

Sandeep Savla, the sound engineer is another night bird. Both of them enjoy working at night. I was exposed to raagas and thumris first time in my life and it was so overwhelming.

One day Apurva ji called me to ask if Bhupinder ji's voice would be ok. What, OK?

I could not hear any further than that as I went into a flashback. Those days in college, hanging with friends, listening to Bupinder Ji's songs, smoking ( not me! ) and talking was our favorite pass time. Those were the days when "Zindagi mere ghar aana" used to bring images of girls that we thought would soon be our wives and later girl friends - in that order. Our college had only one girl, and was already taken by a senior. So guys from our college used to hang around the bus stops of liberal arts colleges.

We were mostly from Urdu medium schools, so studying engineering in English was a challenge in itself. We did not have time for "fielding" as it used to be called in those days. My favorite line was ' jis ko chaiyye apna intezaar kare - apun ke paas time nahi hai". Now I look back and think those "fielders" were "gyani" and must have seen the "nature of things to come!"

I grew up listening to “Dil Dhundta hai” and “ Ek akela is shere main” and was excited at the possibility of having a legendary singer giving his voice to my emotions. He has sang words of my poetic idols like Gulzaar and Kaifi Azmi. It was too good to be true.

I saw things falling in place and could not believe it. Nita says when something has to happen the universe conspires to make sure it does. I sure was enjoying this conspiracy …

(Above in pics: Pt. Raghunath Sheth, Apurva Shrivastava, Sandeep Savla, Akanksha Joshi, Sanhdya Bhagat and Lauren Winterbottom playing Oboe)
(To be continued.)