Of hope and healing: ‘Ghodey-pe sawaar’ singer Sireesha Bhagavatula and music composer Sterlin Nithya collaborate for a new single in Hindi

Singer Sireesha Bhagavatula is set to launch her first single, Tanha, in collaboration with Chennai-based music teacher and pianist Sterlin Nithya on July 27.

Sireesha Bhagavatula, the singer of ‘Ghodey-pe sawaar’ (from the film Qala) is set to launch her first single, Tanha, in collaboration with Chennai-based music teacher and pianist Sterlin Nithya on July 27. “I am super excited at this new beginning,” says Sireesha over phone from Visakhapatnam.

While Telugu-speaking Sireesha has penned and sung the Hindi lyrics for Tanha, it has been composed and produced by Nithya and is to be released under their label, Virgo Originals. Tanha speaks of the feeling of being away from oneself after a loss. Sireesha says the song does not reflect sorrow, “It is not about longing but a song that evokes hope and healing. It’s a feeling that we are done with the grief and loss and need to get back to ourselves. Tanha is open-ended, so each listener can connect to it on different levels.”

Hailing from Visakhapatnam, Sireesha shifted to Chennai in 2018 to try her luck in playback singing. But the pandemic-induced lockdown had her returning to her home ground. The engineering graduate from MVGR College of Engineering in Vizag says, “Music runs in the Bhagavatula family.” Her paternal grandfather, poet-writer and theatre artist BH Krishna Rao inspired her and her elder sister Soujanya (also a singer and aha Indian Idol winner) to take up music. While her father, Bhagavathula Satyanarayana Murthy, is a writer, (in Hindi and Telugu), singer and keyboard musician, her mother, Bala, is a fan of old Telugu melodies. She used to play songs to put the sisters to bed. . “I still remember the song, ‘Tuneega tuneega endaaka parigedathaave‘, that my mother played on the tape recorder,”

Sireesha pursued music and academics simultaneously and participated in reality shows such a Super Singer on Vijay TV. Then she had to choose between travelling to a concert in London and joining for work at Tata Consultancy Services in Ahmedabad. “The decision was tough but I decided to try my luck with music.”

Except for the win at SPB’s Padalani Undi (Maa TV) in 2004, Sireesha has never won any other reality show — Indian Idol - Season 12 and Super Singer -Season 6 — she had participated in. She says, “My eliminations have proven lucky; I went to sing for AR Rahman sir and Amit Trivedi sir after the reality show stints. My mantra is: Never take failure to heart as some new opportunity will come from it.” Sireesha got the chance to sing Maathare (Tamil) and Maanini (Telugu) for AR Rahman in Bigel (Whistle in Telugu).

Tamil Super Singer changed my life, says Sireesha, who was introduced to AR Rahman by singer Anuradha Sriram, who was a judge on the show. The winner of that show had an opportunity to sing for Rahman, who was present for the Top 10 selections and the finale. Although she didn’t win that contest, she got a call to sing for Bigel and Ponniyn Selvan 1 , composed by him.

Among the six songs from Qala — including two background scores — her rendition of ‘Ghodey pe Sawaar’has won her accolades. Destiny contributed to this success, she says adding. “One of my programmer friends, a senior from school, showed my work to Amit Trivedi sir; he liked my voice. Producer Karnesh Sharma sir too liked my voice on Indian Idol and wanted to speak to Amit Trivedi sir to select me It all fell in place.”