Shreya Ghoshal is currently pleased with the song Deewani Mastani from Sanjay leela Bhansali’s magnum opus Bajirao Mastani. She tells Shrabasti Mallik how the movie was conceptualised during the time of Saawariya and how she feels that actors should be encouraged to record their own songs
Bajirao Mastaniis Bhansali’s dream project, but not many would know that he has been planning it since the time he was shooting Saawariya. Shreya Ghoshal, who sang Deewani mastani, told us that she has been part of the making process all along, so the success of the movie and the songs are not a surprise for her. She shared, “We recorded a few songs and we sort of kept it. It was decided that we would use it when the movie was on the floors. I have been part of every stage of development of the movie, so, it will be a big surprise for the people.”
She has known Bhansali as a director, producer and a composer. “It is a rare thing to see someone embody such precision and talent. I am in such awe of him I have known him as a director, producer and a composer which is very difficult and is a lot of work. It is very rare to see someone with such precision and calmness as him,” Shreya pointed out.
Shreya began her career with Bhansali’s Devdas over a decade ago and she has worked with him in many of his projects. But she finds no change in the way he approaches his music. “It forms the seed of his story and on that he visualises the story. If you observe closely, his movies are nit just about the story — the music is such an integral part of it that it almost becomes a character,” she explained.
However, the singer did draw a drastic difference between how music was composed in the past to how it is composed now. She rued the fact that there are a very few scripts which actually require music. “Earlier, the score for a movie was a script requirement, it developed simultaneously with the story. Nowadays, people create a bank of songs and the songs are picked up from there. Not many movies have songs which actually takes the story forward. The process has changed a lot,” she explained.
She is one of those few singers in the industry who is not intimidated by the rising number of actors who are lending their voice in a song. In fact, she seemed to be totally in favour of it. “I think it is interesting to see actors sing their own songs,” Shreya laughed and pointed out to the west where actors sing their own songs. “There, music is integrated into their acting training courses. As an artiste you should be familiar with singing, composing music, writing songs, acting and dancing. It is a good thing as long as it is done well,” she said.
Shreya is quite lucky, who has been a part of the era when independent albums were recorded. In the present times, an artiste rarely invests in a solo album and Shreya told us that it is largely because of lack of good promotion and marketing. “Today, everything is on social media and they are rarely played on TV or Radio. Everyone is caught in the web of commercialisation and it is vicious. People, especially artistes are losing confidence. The worst part is that they have lost the support of the system and it is not going to come back. Those were golden times when an artiste was free to pursue his own music. Genres like ghazals have somehow survived but even then, it is not growing as an exponentially Bollywood music,” she explained.
Over the years, she has with elan, voiced some of the top actors in the industry including Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra, Kareena Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and many more. She does not think about the actor for who she is recording but just relates to the situation and the emotion. She added, “Somehow it always matches,” she smiled.
When we asked Shreya about the indie bands composing for Bollywood movies, we got a very positive response. Her liberal point of view took us by surprise when she said, “We tend to look at a small figure but there is a bigger world outside the Bollywood. It is wonderful to see the indie music scene garnering so much popularity and the success of festivals like NH7 Weekender, EVC and Sunburn establish the fact. In fact the kind of music that bands are incorporating in our movies has a certain sensibility. Even the style of composition is different and very unique. It is a welcome change.”
So what is it that keeps her at the top of her game, we asked her. “The secret is to have a clear picture of what you want and work towards it without regretting anything,” she said. Devdas plummeted her to fame and there was no looking back but Shreya told us otherwise. “I learnt so much from him and that was an experience. And till date I learn something or the other from everyone I work with because that is the only way you will constantly evolve,” she concluded.