Singer Shilpa Rao: Struggles are part of the journey

singer shilpa rao on what shaped her music, her connection with kerala and her training

“It has been one of my best shows. My band felt the same. The sound was great and the audience was just wonderful.” That was singer Shilpa Rao gushing about her show in Thiruvananthapuram, for Cult A Way, the techno-cultural festival of Sree Chitra Thirunal College of Engineering. She has posted a video on her social media page that shows the crowd at the packed Nishagandhi open-air auditorium singing along with her as she crooned her title track from Kalank.

Her sombre, yet soulful voice, has struck a chord with music lovers ever since she started playback singing 16 years ago. The singer’s road to fame has been her hits such as ‘Besharam rang’ (Pathan), ‘Ghunghroo’ (War), ‘Bulleya’ (Ae Dil Hain Mushkil), ‘Subanallah’ (Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani) and ‘Khuda jaane’ (Bachnaa Ae Haseeno), to name a few.

The interview kicked off with a mention about her Kerala connection. “My husband, Ritesh Krishnan, is from here and I love a lot of things about the State — the greenery, the monsoon, the music...” she goes on.

Perhaps because nature has been integral to her growing up years in Jamshedpur. “My parents gave me and my brother, Anurag, a simple and nice childhood. We lived in a township amidst a lush green cover. There was a beautiful connect with Nature, which I still have. With no phones to distract us, we had enough time to think, see and feel what is happening around and eat the seasonal fruits and vegetables. My father loved mangoes and he would go around picking mangoes. He used to take me along and that was when he would teach me music,” the singer remembers.

She adds that her singing has been shaped by her roots. “Sur lagana (to pitch) is the most important thing for a singer. When you sing under a mango tree or by the beach or a river bank or the mountains, it is so much easy to pitch correctly because you are surrounded by natural sounds. That is not the case in a city where you are surrounded by noise from traffic, construction work etc.”

Although music was a constant in her growing-up years, she never planned to become a musician while living in Jamshedpur. “I preferred listening to all kinds of music to singing. The decision to become a musician happened when I came to Mumbai and happened to meet Hariji (singer Hariharan).”

She started by singing jingles and entered the film industry with the song ‘Tore naina’ in Anwar (2007), composed by Mithoon. There has been no looking back since then and she has worked with almost all the leading composers, including AR Rahman, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Amit Trivedi, Vishal-Shekhar, Salim-Sulaiman and Sachin-Jigar. While she worked with Ilaiyaraaja for the Hindi film Paa (‘Mudhi mudhi’), she sang in Tamil for Yuvan Shankar Raja in Naan Mahaan Alla. She has also sung in one Malayalam film, Puthiya Mugham (‘Rahasyamaayi’), with the late KK. “That was long ago. I miss KK...,” she says.