This World Music Day, Shweta Mohan fulfilled her dream. The musician released her first indie song. The bi-lingual track – Yaavadhum enave (Tamil)/ Sab mera hain (Hindi) is climbing up the popularity charts and the singer is ecstatic. “It is the dream of every singer to make his/her own song. The positive feedback it is receiving is what excites me. It is more than what we had expected,” gushes the singer.
The song has been composed by guitarist Bennet Roland, a pioneer in rearrangement and re-orchestration of songs. The track has been in the works for quite sometime, she says. “I have worked with Bennet chettan much before I got my break in Malayalam. He is a trendsetter and I requested him to do a project together. We started this four years ago. There were a lot of challenges and changes. It took some time to decide upon the concept, lyrics, video… We both had our apprehensions. Actually when you keep doing the same thing for long, after a point your judgement goes for a toss. Since I am my worst critic, I had my doubts and anxiety. Finally it was amma [her mother, singer Sujatha Mohan] who told us to go ahead with the release. Otherwise, we would have been still working on it,” says Shweta.
An uplifting number, the song conveys a profound thought in a refreshing manner. “It says that selfishness is good when it comes to spreading love. You love, take care and protect everything that is yours, especially your family and friends. What if you expand that circle of love and include the community, the city, the country and the world? You will feel protective towards everything around you and then the world will be a beautiful place to live in,” she explains.
A happy song
Shweta says that she was particular that the song should reflect her personality. “I am a happy-go-lucky person and I didn’t want the song to sound preachy even though it has a deep message. I wanted a refreshing, feel-good track and it has come out that way,” she says.
She opted for a bi-lingual to ensure a wide reach. “Malayalis will listen to a song in any language, whereas Tamil listeners prefer to stick to Tamil songs. So the best option was to do it in Tamil. And since I have a fan base in Hindi, thanks to the covers I have done, I thought of doing it in Hindi as well,” she says. While the Tamil lyrics is by Madhan Karky, son of Vairamuthu, Raqueeb Alam has written the Hindi lyrics.
The toughest part was shooting the video. “I was extremely conscious. It was difficult to act with a crowd watching you,” she says. The video was shot at different locations in and around Kochi by Shruthi Nandagopal, who works with ace cinematographer Rajiv Menon.
Being the producer of the song, Shweta says she feels all the more responsible to take the song to more listeners. “I don’t expect any monetary benefit. It is the realisation of a dream and I just want a lot of people to listen to it,” she says.
Meanwhile, she hopes to turn composer one day. But for the time being, she is enjoying her recordings, stage shows, classes in Hindustani and Carnatic vocal, and, of course, being mother to seven-month-old Sreshta.
Bennet Roland
Bennet’s music
Bennet forayed into composing with Veetraag in the movie Out of Syllabus. Then they scored music for Dr Patient, Gaddama and August Club . In 1998, he started rearranging tracks and it eventually got christened as Bennet and the Band in 2007 with shows on Rosebowl channel. Since then, he has jammed with several leading musicians in the country.
“I keep composing and this is the first among the lot to be released. I haven’t released any of my compositions because I am not a singer. This song happened only because of Shweta. Our association goes back to the song Eeran Nilave in Dr. Patient . After that, we did a Music Mojo session that was widely appreciated. I could make her sing songs in different genres and that’s where this project took off,” he says. They are working on two more songs.
