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Miles to go...Finally, in walked Ramgopal Varma and Satya. Chowtha took on the responsibility of composing the film's background score, wh...

Miles to go…

Finally, in walked Ramgopal Varma and Satya. Chowtha took on the responsibility of composing the film’s background score, which he says "Ramu (Varma) was completely blown by." He explains that "I did the score in a way that it didn’t complement the scenes — rather it contradicted them and highlighted them." And this, he says, was highly appreciated by the film-maker, who even remarked that perhaps Chowtha understood the film better than Varma himself did.

Next came Varma’s Kaun which was followed up by Mast, and more recently Jungle. Chowtha says the director trusts him enough to leave him to interpret the film in his own way. In Mast, listeners might recall the film’s haunting title song with Chowtha rendered himself. Meanwhile, Jungle, he says was interesting because the lyrics by Sameer were written first and the tunes came later. He attributes the success of his music to the fact that "I do not pre-conceive my ideas. I let them come spontaneously." He gives you an example. "When you think of a jungle, you would tend to think of Afro sounds, but I’ve used a lot of flutes in the music."

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Chowtha is all praise for singer Sonu Nigam, whose rendering of the songs in Jungle has enhanced the soundtrack no end. "He’s very good with harkats and murkis, and it’s essential to have the murki for the right word," the composer says of Sonu.

Today, Sandeep has arrived on the music scene in no mean way. Hailed as the newest kid on the block, he’s rubbing shoulders with the others… He’s got his own music studio at his Chennai residence, and that’s no ordinary achievement for a boy who first started his music career with his friends in a band called Pulse. The band may have called it a day, but Chowtha insists he has miles to go before he can sleep!