Mumbai,
Jan 17
In Ravi Chopra's "Baabul" Richa Sharma has crooned the bidaai song
in an unending flow of heart-breaking emotions, for a full 15
minutes without any orchestral embellishments. Unfortunately, only a
small portion of it was included in the album.
"In fact my composer Aadesh Shrivastava had put one traditional
instrument. I had to request him to take it out. It was hampering my
flow of musical thoughts," said Richa, whose voice soars across the
crooning kingdom in meteoric maneuvers.
Listen to her do the bidaai song in "Baabul" or the bitiya song in "Umrao
Jaan" or go back to the title song of "Baghban" and of course the "Kahin
aag lage" song in "Taal", Richa's voice rips a hole in listeners'
souls.
"It's funny you say that, because I've been singing since the age of
eight.
That's when I did my first religious songs. I still continue to do
that.
They're my heartbeat," Richa told IANS.
At one time she wasn't hopeful that she would make a career in film
singing.
"Now, of course, I'm doing a lot of film songs. I never thought I'd
be singing in films. I just didn't have the heroine's voice. I
thought I'd continue to sing that stray religious songs or bhikhari
(beggar) song that needed a philosophical rendering in a rangy
throat. That's me. Fortunately, A.R. Rahman's 'Kahin aag lage' in 'Taal'
was picturised on Aishwarya Rai."
Nonetheless, Richa's ravishing range remains restricted to rangy
theme songs. Heroine's voices have so far been associated with one
kind of singing. And that's the Lata Mangeshkar role model.
Singers who have emulated her style have always reaped the maximum
benefits in the recording room. Those like Alisha Chinai, Jaspinder
Nirula and Richa, who have gone against the grain, have been put in
the fringes.
To Richa's relief and joy things are slowly changing.
"And I've one amazing singer, Sunidhi Chauhan, to thank for this.
How I adore that girl's voice! Her deviant voice makes me hopeful
about the future for another kind of voices."
What both thrills excites and intrigues Richa is the fact that
composers seem to give her a lot of elbowroom to improvise.
"It's rather gratifying but also scary. Aadesh always gave me room
to innovate tremendously. For the 'Baabul' song he gave me only one
brief. He gave me the words 'Babul mora naihar chutal jaye'. And he
just asked me to sing.
"I sang for 15-16 minutes without any musical accompaniment. Of
these only two-three minutes have been retained in the soundtrack
for the lack of space, I guess."
One can hear Richa's looming regret at her luminous labors being
edited so drastically.
"I've also sung the other number 'Kehta hai baabul', which Jagjit
Singh and Amitabh Bachchan have rendered in 'Baabul'. My version has
been kept out of the album."
But Richa isn't complaining.
"I won't say I'm satisfied with my career in film singing. But I'm
happy. Whenever I go to a music director, there's a certain look of
respect in his eyes. I cherish that above anything else.
"One of the high points in my career in films as a singer was when I
was called by Sanjay Leela Bhansali after he heard me sing 'Mere
maula', one of my favorite tracks, from 'Khakee'.
"Sanjay made my day when he said he was looking for me for a long
time. I've sung a beautiful thumri for Monty Singh in 'Saawariya'.
What a pleasure it is to sing for a filmmaker who knows what music
is all about."
Richa admits Bollywood hasn't really decided what to do with her
unusually textured voice and stormy range.
"But I've a place, though that place is restricted by the fact that
I'm not the heroine's voice. Nowadays, when I look at the kind of
voices that are voted in the televised music contests, I wonder what
we respect - talent or just the ability to ask for votes in a
charming way."
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