Exclusive | Chinmayi interview on ‘Thug Life’ song: ‘Despite praise, I feel numb’

Chinmayi speaks on her recent performance at ‘Thug Life’ audio launch, Dhee’s version and how the last few years have been.

Singer Chinmayi is back in the limelight.

Her rendition of Tamil track ‘Mutha Mazhai’ at the recent Thug Life audio launch in Chennai is garnering a lot of praise. The interesting part is that Chinmayi has sung the Telugu and Hindi versions of this particular track composed by AR Rahman but not the Tamil version, which has been sung by singer Dhee, most popular for her ‘Enjoy Enjaami’.

“When I sang it, it was just another performance. It was just like how I perform classics of other singers; I have sung S Janaki amma’s, Chitra amma’s songs on various stages in the past. I sang the Tamil version that evening because Dhee was not available. I was a stand-in,” she explains.

That she might have been, but the version she dished out on stage, in the presence of thousands of fans and the entire starcast including Kamal Haasan, Silambarasan and Trisha, has gone viral; its official recording from music label Saregama Tamil has already hit more than 2 million views, with music fans demanding that it be included in the film’s final version.

“When Dhee was cast, I’m sure they were going for something quirky. Dhee has a special musical expression, which cannot be imitated by anybody else. This whole talk about her version versus mine... it feels like we are part of a wrestling match that we did not sign up for. As artistes, we openly admire each other’s work. It is not a competition,” she says, “I want to apologise to Dhee. She’s a young girl. To compare the two versions is not necessary at all.”

Is Chinmayi banned?

The recent limelight on her has not yet sunk in, she adds. “Because, in the last seven years, my DMs have been filled with abuse. Somewhere, my emotions got numb after that and now, when there is so much adulation, I’m like, ‘thank you, I guess’. While I’m truly grateful for this, I have become numb.”