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Journalism of Courage
After a string of his compositions failed to find popularity in the ’80s, legendary music composer RD Burman believed that luck wasn’t favouring him and had promised singer Kavita Krishnamurti Subramaniam that he would one day create a song for her that would be a major success. Though the singer had by then lent her voice to his compositions in multiple movies such as Hum Hain Lajawab (1982), Boxer (1984) and Karishmaa (1984), all of them failed to make a mark. That, however, was going to change.
During the making of 1942: A love story (1994), Burman called Krishnamurti Subramaniam excitedly and said he was going to fulfill his promise. After rehearsing for two days, they recorded Pyar hua chupke se, which went on to win hearts and wide acclaim. Next, they recorded Rimjhim rimjhim rumjhum rumjhum, Krishnamurti’s evergreen duet with Kumar Sanu. Burman put his foot down and recorded the song live with both the singers performing together. Incidentally, this is the last movie that Burman worked on.
In this era of pitch correction and auto-tune, Krishnamurti Subramaniam misses this rigour. “Notwithstanding the technological progress, if I get a chance, I would love to record a song live with an orchestra. The experience of rehearsing with a music director and singing the whole song at one go is unmatched,” recounts the singer, who recently performed songs of iconic Lata Mangeshkar at Mumbai’s National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) for its annual Bandish festival. The evening’s performance started with Vande Mataram, followed by Aayega aanewala from the 1949-movie Mahal, and ended with Ae mere wattan ke logon.
For the Hawa hawai singer, Mangeshkar has been a constant source of inspiration. “While growing up, the only way we could access music was through radio. Lataji’s songs used to play on it frequently. Whenever a good song by her came on air, I used to pick up a notebook and pencil to quickly write down the lyrics. Next time, the same song played, I would write some more lines. After listening to it for the third time, I could focus on learning it.”
Yet, the thought of becoming a playback singer had never crossed her mind till her aunt Protima Bhattacharya realised her potential and brought her to Bombay. “She knew Hema Malini and her mother Jaya Chakravarthy. Through them, I met a few people from the industry including Laxmikant-Pyarelal (LP),” the singer recalls. A student of St Xavier’s College, she got acquainted with singer-composer Hemant Kumar during an event. When he was recording a song for Shriman Prithviraj (1972), he called Krishnamurti Subramaniam to sing a few lines. On reaching the studio she discovered that she was to sing with the iconic singer. That was their first meeting.
In the ’70s, they were going to establish a stronger musical connection. During that period, Krishnamurti Subramaniam dubbed a number of LP’s compositions. These recordings were used during the shooting of song sequences and Mangeshkar – an artiste in high demand – used to record the final version later. Krishnamurti Subramaniam counts this as a learning experience. “I remembered how I sang and struggled with a certain phrase. Listening to her version of the same song, I used to wonder how beautifully she tackled it. She, by the way, had to deal with some limitations since the shooting and lip-syncing would be over by then,” says Krishnamurti Subramaniam.
Being “a happy-go-lucky person”, Krishnamurti Subramaniam wasn’t upset that her songs didn’t make it to the final version. “I was singing so many jingles, including ‘Washing powder Nirma’ in 14 languages. I earned well and my aunt served great food at home. I had two dogs. There was this guy who used to deliver latest video cassettes. I was happy.” Though she hasn’t hankering for it, when her version of Hawa hawai was retained in Mr India (1987), she was elated.
“Originally, its final version was supposed to be sung by Asha ji (Asha Bhosle). Some time after I had sung it, Laxmi ji told me they are keeping my song in the film. My initial response was that we have to re-dub it since I’ve mistakenly sung ‘Jeenoon jo tumne baat chhupayi’ instead of chhinu jo…”. Laxmi ji said the way Sridevi ji had lip-synced for the song, Jeenoon seems apt.” Later, whenever Krishnamurti Subramaniam sung for Sridevi, for instance in ChaalBaaz (1989) or Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja (1993), she tried to add some verve to her singing keeping the actor’s screen persona in mind.
Though Krishnamurti Subramaniam never tried to imitate Mangeshkar’s style of singing, she was inspired by “the polish and approach” the iconic singer had towards music, especially the way she held herself back without opting for any embellishments or harkatein. “In the songs of Khamoshi (1996), had I done some harkatein or improvisations, the result wouldn’t have been the same. In Iqrar karna mushkil hai from Agni Sakshi (1996), I’ve sung all the lines in the same manner,” says the Padma Shri recipient, who believes that a song doesn’t stay in one’s mind for long unless it’s written beautifully.
Expressing her dismay over pitch correction, Krishnamurti Subramaniam says that it gives a metallic feel to the voice. “Today, we have many brilliant singers like Arijit Singh, Sunidhi Chauhan and Shreya Ghoshal. I believe their voices need not to go through any machine. That might work for pop songs but not for an emotional song,” she says and rues the fact that while music is today easily accessible, singers have to spend a lot of time promoting themselves online.
With many chartbusters to her credit in her career spanning nearly 52 years, Krishnamurti Subramaniam today is not part of “any rat race”. She, however, wants to keep music alive for herself. She enjoys travelling with her husband violin maestro L. Subramaniam. “When he performs, I like to sit in the audience, listening to him. Whatever projects I take up, I make sure I give it my best,” says the singer, who listens to a range of music — from old film songs, instruments, classical songs of Kishori Amonkar to shlokas by MS Subbulakshmi.
