Pillow Talk...

...with Sukhwinder Singh. ANUPREETA DAS finds out how the singer has adopted festishisms as a shield against big city fickleness

It's a world he Chhaiya Chhaiyaed his way into more than two years ago, but singer-composer Sukhwinder Singh is still tentative about his stardom. Which probably explains why his mannerisms swing, pendulum-like, from one extreme to the other.

One moment, he talks like an assured playback singer, secure in the knowledge that he’s a wanted man in Bollywood. ‘‘They (the people who matter) obviously enjoy my melody, because they want me to sing, and as long as that remains, I don’t have to worry.’’ Blink once, and the confident image is replaced by a schoolboy aspiring to stardom, bragging about his ambitious Big Dream: ‘‘Whitney Houston will co-star in my next project.’’ This, when his debut Hindi pop album, Nasha Hi Nasha (released by HMV-RPG), has just hit music stores and the feedback is yet to reach his ears.

But what’s the harm in dreaming? ‘‘I know Whitney is a difficult target, but I love this kind of challenge,’’ says Singh, who claims to be possessed by his dream musical project. In fact, the 32-year-old has already shot off ‘‘humble’’ faxes explaining his concept — setting to music the poetry of legends like Sahir Ludhianvi, Kahlil Gibran and even Kalidas — to world-famous musicians like Ravi Shankar and Zubin Mehta. ‘‘I’ve been inspired by Pink Floyd’s The Wall, which I saw 15 years ago,’’ is his prompt explanation. He whispers, however, that there have been no replies yet.

In the meantime, Singh is busy with the music score for Jhamu Sughand’s next, as-yet-unnamed feature. And of course, there’s the promotional blitz for Nasha Hi Nasha, for which he has penned, composed and crooned all the eight tracks. ‘‘Each track reflects one aspect of my character,’’ he says in a tone that makes you wonder if he’s not a bit narcissistic. While the music of Nasha... is ‘‘mainly experimental’’ — and Singh admits to a Floydian influence once again — it is also quite technically slick. ‘‘Before Dil Se happened, I needed to learn how to be technically perfect, to convince film producers to invest in me,’’ explains Bollywood’s resident Punj popper, who spent eight struggling years in Mumbai before music whiz A. R. Rahman and the Dil Se team discovered him. True to the guru-shishya format, Singh, who hasn’t had any formal training in music, doesn’t hesitate to slip in his ‘‘gratitude’’ to Rahman, who ‘‘taught me a lot of techniques’’.

Since then, he’s lent his incredible voice to the soundtracks of Taal, 1947, Deewane and the unreleased Dus among others, and composed music for the Bachchan-Devgan flop, Hindustan Ki Kasam. ‘‘I like to sing a variety of songs — peppy numbers, romantic melodies or dance tracks,’’ says the man whose vocals for Mujhe Meri Biwi Se Bachao (the catchy Nach Meri Jaan tune with Hema Awara Bhanware Sardesai) have been getting bigtime airplay these days.
It’s in the Nach Meri Jaan video that you get to see Singh in his pop-star avatar — an image he admits to having cultivated studiously. Like fellow-singer Sonu Nigam, who donned a trendy image to increase his saleability in Indipop’s fickle domain, Singh knows the importance of marketing oneself.

Living up to the expectations (or what he perceives they may be) of the audience for pop music, Singh has rehauled his wardrobe, and liberally punctuates his sentences with the MTV-ish ‘‘Yeah! Man’’, or uses the sing-song intonations favoured by the millennium generation. That’s ‘‘Hieee’’ for greetings and ‘‘Nooouou for denials. What you see, though, is not entirely disagreeable: a small-town boy with a storehouse of talent and ambition, peeping out of a glamour guise he’s been forced to don for the world he now inhabits.

In the past few months, Singh’s had big draws at international live shows across the UK and USA, primarily due to the popularity of his film songs. And, in the months ahead, he’s going to woo the very same audiences with his Nasha.... Of course, he’s happier gurgling about the melange of pillows and balloons in his Mumbai apartment than elaborating on any marketing strategy, but he’s surprisingly assured in his assessment of Indipop. ‘‘They keep calling it fusion music, but it has resulted only in confusion,’’ says Singh about the music genre he’s foraying into. Quiz him about why Nasha... wouldn’t add to the ‘confusion’ and pat comes the reply — Bollywood’s regulation talk-back — ‘‘it’s different’’. Despite all that ‘difference’ waiting to be espied, the title song has a video that courts current convention: a beauty-in-love-with-beefcake storyline, set against picturesque locales.

Though Singh’s critics claim he is in danger of getting typecast for a certain folksy ‘type’ of song by Bollywood, it doesn’t bother the loquacious singer. When belting out a melody, he likes to incorporate styles as diverse as ‘‘Elvis Presley’s and Lataji’s (Mangeshkar).’’ And when he’s composing, he’s not above culling out surs and taals from folk, classical and even R ‘n’ B tunes. ‘‘Music is my ideal — it makes me feel physically and mentally complete.’’ Which is why he likes to experiment with sound and has never wanted to be anything other than a musician. Then, a mawkish meander: ‘‘I handle only one girlfriend and she’s my music. She’s romantic, stylish and beautiful and we date everyday.’’

As a child, performing his first stage show at the age of eight, Singh had a dream: people in white, thronging a castle, watching a star. ‘‘I was that star,’’ he exclaims. But for now, it’s a star that’s only beginning its ascent.

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