“I have heard everything Rahman has ever composed”

And though he has heard a lot of Indian Classical music over the years,Sharpe still has to get the hang of Hindi. “Ab main kya kahoon,” he jokes,barely faltering. He acknowledges,composing for films made in languages he doesn’t understand has its own complications,but he’s learnt to work around them. “I’m learning Hindi,not through a real program though,but I spend a lot of time with the filmmaker who conveys the story and emotions to me,verbally,” says Sharpe,who is planning to take proper lessons to learn the language. In Hollywood,Sharpe has done the music for the Donnie Wahlberg-Amanda Peet starrer Southie and Pokemon among other film and television projects. And though his Indian visits are not so frequent,he keeps in touch with Indian filmmakers via the Internet. It was through emails and the phone that he worked from New York and LA on Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan’s forthcoming Lahore,a film set in India and Pakistan that deals with sports and

nationalism. “I composed half the music before even meeting the director since I was sent the script in English,” he says. Sharpe’s musical influences have been Peter Gabriel,Bill Laswell and Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan but the musician he reveres is the iconic A R Rahman. “I first heard his score in Taal and I was blown away. It changed my thinking entirely about Hindi music. He blended the Western sound so beautifully and since then I have actively sought out everything he has ever done,” says Sharpe. While in the US,he’s found time to work on another crossover film with singers Sonu Niigaam and Sunidhi Chauhan for Basmati Blues. This American is here for the long run.

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