First Person

So impressed with Agashe was the legendary father of the legendary daughters that he gave him the freedom to compose an entire song — `Khulya khulya re pavasa’. “I was over the moon when I learnt that Ashaji had agreed to sing the song I had composed for the film,” gushes Agashe. “It was a dream come true”.

“Honest” is how Agashe would like to describe his music. “I compose what I feel,” he says, claiming that he has never made a deliberate attempt to categorise his compositions. Yet he admits his debut Hindi album, which also happens to be his first foray into singing, is a collection of love songs.But more than the composition of the songs, Agashe recalls how nervous he was during the shooting of the Nazar Nazar video. “It took us more than three days and I requested the directors, Bunty and Prashant, both first-timers like me, to shoot my sequence on the last day,” he says. “Even now, I can’t recognise myself each time I see the video. They have done such a terrific job.” So much for someone who’s a close family friend of noted theatre and movie actor, Mohan Agashe — they aren’t related, though they share a rare last name.

Being the son of the recently elected BCCI vice-president, Agashe can’t get over being the odd one out in the family. “Nobody in my family was remotely interested in music,” he says. “And here I am doing exactly what sportsmen don’t do singing and partying late into the night.” And, unlike the rest of the family, he idolises Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Michael Jackson and the Backstreet Boys, not Sachin or Azhar.

Back in ’94, on a visit to the US, he met Mike Wilson, a sound recording engineer at Indianapolis. “He introduced me to three other recording engineers and we recorded an album in three days,” Agashe remembers. As luck would have it, the album still hasn’t seen the light of day. But after he’s through with Nazar Nazar, Agashe hopes to release this album finally. Considering that he claims his Marathi pop album, Achanak, was a roaring success, there’s no saying what’ll happen next.