The scorching summer kills not just your enthusiasm but also drains one of energy, so much that being upbeat is the last thing on one’s mind. Not so for voice-over artitse/music composer Anitha Rangaswamy, who gets on a call from her home in South Bengaluru, to talk about her latest music video, ‘Swalpa Swalpa’.
“Talking is my profession and forte, and earns me my bread and butter,” says the chirpy Anita, who needs no prompting as she narrates the story behind her work, the song and its release.
She sounds happy and cheerful and the word “beautiful” is added to almost every sentence she speaks. Anita wears many hats — lyricist, music composer and voice over artist (primarily for FM Radio ads). She has been writing jingles for the radio and other platforms for 20 years and recently released an independent music video titled ‘Swalpa Swalpa.’
The song has garnered over 1.2 lakh views since it was uploaded last month on her YouTube channel. This is her third song following ‘A Tribute song for Dr Puneeth Rajkumar’, sung by Shankar Mahadevan and playback singers from Kannada cinema and ‘Amma, an Ode to all Mothers’ featuring Kannada cinema actors and their mothers.
‘Swalpa Swalpa’ is special to Anita as she launched her YouTube channel with this song. Anita has written the lyrics for ‘Swalpa Swalpa’ and also composes the music. The song is produced by musician Hriday Goswami (known for mixing/ mastering Raj Shetty’s Tobi and Ondu Motteya Kathe).
The video is directed by Panidhar Revannur, also a wildlife filmmaker and features Abhinav Vishwanathan, a popular actor in Kannada serials (Nannarasi Radhe and Tripura Sundari), and model and actor Harita Shah. It is sung by Rajat Hegde, who has worked in Kannada cinema and was one of the semi-finalists with Voice of India under Arman Mallik’s team.
A student of English literature, Anita worked as a copywriter and voice over artiste before finding her way into music. “’Swalpa Swalpa’ is a fresh and romantic song. Rajat deserves fulsome praise for doing justice to the song. I happened to write it on a beautiful day.”
The song, Anita says garnered a good number of views not only for the music and the visuals but also the title. “Swalpa Swalpa are the first Kannada words a non-Kannadiga picks up. If you are to ask someone who has recently moved to Bangalore if they understand Kannada, the most common response is swalpa swalpa.”
Anitha Rangaswamy | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Anita has written the lyrics for Newton’s 3rd Law, a movie by The Australia World Pictures and the Kannada movie Tortoise directed by Suraj Shetty. Anita says she writes and composes the song concurrently. “This is the way I am most comfortable working, this is my way of romancing with words.”
Anita is currently in the process of releasing ‘Swalpa Swalpa’ in Hindi, which will be released towards the end of May. “We are going not to do a literal translation but transcreation and composition. We look for words that will sound good in Hindi without losing the essence of the original song.”
