Suddho Roy was born in Kolkata, studied in Darjeeling and works in Bengaluru. The Bengali film composer has now forayed into Kannada films and his title track for Dinga, directed by Abhishek Jain , has gone viral. Not only has the song garnered over 1 million views on YouTube, it also has over 1.9 million TikTok videos as the “Dinga Dance”.
Suddho is all smiles. “I am thrilled to bits. TikTok is normally known for comedy and re-enacting old film songs but it has drawn enough attention to my work. The response has been amazing,” he says. Ask him what is special about this song and he says, “For one, it has a Western beat throughout and only in the end it has this thapaang Indian beat. It is this end part that has gone viral,” laughs Suddho, who credits singer-composer Arjun Janya for “rendering this quirky song so beautifully for me”.
Dinga is Suddho’s third Kannada venture. The first two being Murkal Estate and a yet-to-release Kannada film. He has also composed music for a web series titled Loose Connections by RJ Pradeepa and Sakkat Studios, and for Pradeepa and Shivarajkumar’s web series Hate You Romeo featuring actor Arvind Iyer.
About his association with Pradeepa, Suddho says, “I was working on creating spoof videos for an online platform. That was when Pradeepa connected with me asked me to compose the music.” Coming back to Dinga, Suddho says, “Even I have sung a song in this film and having Arjun sing a song was a great experience. He heard the entire album (all the songs were sung by me initially) and was impressed. He was so busy and yet made time to sing this song for Dinga. He even made time to be present at the film’s audio launch,” beams the composer, who has earlier worked with singers such as Shaan and Sonu Nigam who have sung his songs for Bengali films, most of which feature actor Jeet.
On the very beginning — his days of struggle, he says, “I would create music and randomly tag film production teams online. One day, I tagged Jeet. Among the many I had tagged, he was the only one who got back. He had liked one of my demos,” says Suddho, who is today a regular in almost all of Jeet’s productions. About tagging producers and directors online, Suddho explains, “It was unusual route as I wanted to take a shortcut and not go through the grind of working as an assistant, associate and all that...”.
The first film with Jeet was for Badshah . Then came Abhimaan and Panther. One song titled ‘Selfie’ sung by Sonu Nigam topped the charts in Kolkata.
Yet, the struggle continues and to keep himself financial afloat, Suddho works in an international insurance company at Manyata Tech Park. Doesn’t film music pay well? “The music industry has evolved but the economics of it has changed. Earlier, we had cassette sales, which brought in huge remuneration. Today, everything is free online. So financially, it gets a bit stagnant. But, our usual source of income is from stage shows. Once in a way I open shows for Jeet too.”
He also adds that his upbringing in different cities has helped him understand the culture and given him exposure to various genres of music. Yet he states that he avoids listening to too much music. “I spend most of my time creating music and am learning to play the flute now,” says the BBM graduate, who has also created jingles for radio station Red FM.
Is he open to working in other language films apart from Bengali and Kannada? “Of course. But before that I need to learn to speak the language. I speak fluent Kannada and learning the language makes a difference as you understand the words and the emotions associated with them.”
