Echoes from the hills

In her debut film as composer,Deepa Sahis Tere Mere Phere,Shivi R. Kashyap promises more than just a whiff of the mountains of Himachal Pradesh,where she grew up and was groomed in music.

It is her mountain roots and her deep bond with the rich folk of Himachal Pradesh that got Shivi R. Kashyap her first chance in the film industry as a composerin the forthcoming romantic road movie set in that region,Tere Mere Phere.

My dad did one Hindi film,Cobra,and is also credited with the first-ever song recorded within Himachal Pradesh in 1985, says Shivi,full name Shivangi,who will use this name to avoid confusion with pop singer Shibani Kashyap. The R,however,does not stand for her classical singer mother Ravikanta Kashyap but is about numerology. Shivi was always singing and making music for her dad Som D.Kashyaps record label back home. Trained as a singer by her mother and in the art and craft of composing by her father,Shivi,who did the companys album Sound Of Mountains as composer and singer,says that she began making tunes at the age of 13 or 14. Himachali folk is so rich that it changes every 10 kilometres in terms of the pattern of singing and flavours. Even the language,not just the dialect,changes,as do the way instruments are used. She came to Mumbai to expand her horizons and sang her first film song for Sandesh Shandilya Love UMr Kalakaar. She has also sung a few jingles and done some bhajans for T-Series.

I promise a score that will be a mix of Himachali folk and Hindi film music, she states confidently. I have even used our distinctive instruments,like the kernal and the nagada that is different from the Punjabi nagada in both size and the way it is played. For every film I do,whatever be its theme or base,it will be music that the story demands but done in my way with my signature folk touch.

Like many of the new entrants,Shivi has also composed the films background score. My brother Aarohi is also a singer and he was wondering how I could manage that, she smiles. But creativity is about experiences. My family was always solidly by my side.

Shivi believes in a strong composition and good lyrics. Quality songs stay on. The rest come and go. Good work alone will take one places, she declares. There is also a secret ambition to compose English songs. I was living in the mountains since birth and had never heard English music when I composed a song from an English poem when I was eight years old that sounded just like an English song to my father! she says.

She is now composing for a festival film and planning her own album. And she has a regular habit of making a song a day. I have more than 100 songs with me as a bank,but none have been used in my debut film, she says.

Has her gender caused any obstacles or trouble? After all,there has only been one successful and enduring woman composerUsha Khannato date in Hindi cinema. After meeting so many good people and a few bad people,the realisation dawned on me that I have to choose with whom I want to work, says Shivi. She is also clear that if there is something solid in a woman composer,there is no reason why she cannot make it despite any gender bias if Usha Khanna could succeed five decades ago. But I admit that there was a time when I had almost decided to go back and forget all about working for films, she confesses.

Happily,she stayed on.