Down memory lane with Sunidhi
Bollywood singer Sunidhi Chauhan takes a trip down memory lane with her careerdefining songs, ahead of tonight’s Eid concert in Dubai
Top Bollywood playback singer Sunidhi Chauhan, who recently celebrated her 35th birthday, has her hands full at the moment. She’s a mother to an eightmonth-old boy, but that hasn’t stopped her from getting on the road staging concerts.
As the singer gears up to perform in Dubai tonight at the Shaikh Rashid Hall at the Dubai World Trade Centre, tabloid! caught up with her on her new phase in life. In January, the awardwinning talent gave birth to a baby boy. The prolific talent claims that motherhood isn’t daunting and is something that she has looked forward to all her life. “Being a new mother is not at all challenging. It’s only fun. I am enjoying every bit of it. He is growing up really fast and I’m already missing him… The way I look at it is that I wanted something and I got it, so I’m going to cherish it, every day, every moment and every second,” said Chauhan in an email interview.
While she may not find parenting tough, what Chauhan lists as her most challenging phase in her life was when people stereotyped her as a singer who was perfect for ‘item songs’.
“It was a difficult phase as I first had to convince myself that I can sing soft romantic songs with
confidence on the mic, in studios and then convince others. But no matter how much you try, if people want to typecast you, they would do that. So it was [music composer] Anu Malik who actually saw that vulnerable side in me and believed that I had that voice for romantic songs. So he was the first one who gave me a break,” said Chauhan.
Malik’s discovery changed the industry and her fans’ perspective.
“They never had expected that from me and when they heard me sing like that I also started getting a lot of romantic songs. I feel so blessed,” she added.
tabloid! decided to give a different spin to our interview with the singer.
Instead of the conventional route, we asked Chauhan to take a trip down memory lane and give us anecdotes about the hit songs that defined her career.
RUKI RUKI (MAST)
I just remember one thing:
I was extremely sick and I had no voice. [But] I still had to go and perform as this was my big chance. I met [music director] Sandeep Chowta there along with [film] director Ram Gopal Varma ji. They heard me for an hour and when I left I was thinking how they felt about my voice. Fifteen days later, I get a call from Varma who said: “You are recording with us for this film called Mast”. I was ready for the recording but I fell sick suddenly. There was just one day left and I had no voice. So I met my doctor and he said if you really want to keep your voice you just have to keep mum till you are in front of the microphone. I was just breathing for the next few days, no words were spoken. I warned Sandeep Chowta that I don’t how I would sound in that song. It was in that frame of mind that I sang Mast. They thought my voice sounded nice on Urmila’s [Matondkar, actress] face, so they gave me another song called
Ruki Ruki Thi Zindagi, followed by another song. So this is how this film became a major break for me.
SHEILA KI JAWANI (TEES MAAR KHAN)
This was most fun. I just landed at the recording studio of Vishal-Shekhar [composers] and they made me hear the song. At first, while it was being written, I thought it was cheesy, but when I heard the track it blew my mind. All I can remember when it comes to this song is that I had the best time while singing it.
HALKA HALKA SUROOR (FANNEY KHAN)
This song was originally sung by Nusrat [Fateh Ali Khan, the late Pakistani singer] saab [sir]. So, when Amit [Trivedi, composer] called me and he played the song, I love what he did to tweak a portion of it. I sang this song with all my heart because I loved the tune. But we did not anticipate the love that song got. We thought it might just be another remake, but it made its mark and I can’t wait to perform it on my show in Dubai.
RADHA (STUDENT OF THE YEAR)
If I look back, most of my songs that I have sung did not have much preparation. Here too, I met [composer] Pritam at his studio and he told me this is the song. I liked the sound of it. As we recorded, we came up with new ideas and Pritam made sure he incorporated those in the song.
HAT JA TAO (VEEREY KI WEDDING)
This was interesting because I had not sung much in Haryanavi. It’s a language that needed a lot of power, punch and a hint of naughtiness which makes it a quirky combination.
DILLI WAALI GIRLFRIEND (YEH JAWAANI HAI DEEWANI)
Honestly, I don’t remember much about this song. I just recorded my portion and got out of the studio. I was just amazed to hear it when it released. Pritam had done such a fantastic job on it that the song sounded totally different after its release.
KAMLI (DHOOM 3)
This song was special. They had already shot it with some other voice and apparently had tried a lot of singers. But then they wanted to go ahead with my voice. When I was asked to sing it, they made me hear a few versions of different artists and they were like, we want this from this artist and that from the other artist. But I made it clear that I was getting confused and that all I can do is give my best... add my touch to it. We all have our preferences but it has to come from within and it has to sound natural. So I told them to just leave it to me. Pritam was kind and gracious enough to give me that freedom. But the tricky part was to match the lip-syncing, because it was already shot on some other voice. So I had to sing the beginning part of Kamli, Mein
Ruth Yaar absolutely in synch with Katrina’s [Kaif, actress] lips by looking at the visuals. So what you hear in the song is a live rendition. I was watching her lip movements as I was singing it. So all my efforts went into matching my voice with her lips in one take so that it sounds natural. That was challenging. And that made this song memorable because I had never done anything like that before.”
HEARTBEAT WITH ENRIQUE IGLESIAS
This was an English song and it was a difficult task to make it sound Indian-ish and natural without making it a bad blend. So we came up with different ideas and I sang it with a little folkish tone.
DESI GIRL (DOSTANA)
This another song that sprang from one of those trips to Vishal-Shekhar’s studio. They would just randomly call and say: ‘Arrey [Oh] Sunidhi there’s one song just come’ and I would casually drop by, sing a song and leave. Desi Girl was one of those experiences. But we never thought it would become such an anthem. Whenever I sing Desi Girl, all the ladies and me go crazy dancing. It’s an amazing visual and I will make sure that I sing that on stage.
MEIN BADHIYA TU BHI BHADIYA (SANJU)
It was a difficult song to sing as I had to sing in different notes. It had both high and low tones. It was a task to maintain the tone from low to high, but it came out well and director Raju Hirani ji was particular about it and he was happy too.