Opinion As he leaves Bollywood behind, Arijit Singh moves closer to another vision of music
Stepping away from the system and its complications does not interrupt Singh’s music. It will, perhaps, result in something more enhanced, away from the industry’s demands.
In a remarkable feat, Arijit Singh even surpassed popstars like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish to become the most followed artist on Spotify At the eastern edge of the Bhagirathi, where it flows unhurried, sits Jiaganj – a tiny town in West Bengal’s Murshidabad with open drains and significant out-migration, well-removed from Mumbai’s glamour. This is where 38-year-old musician Arijit Singh chooses to live — away from studios and labels, and their relentless executives — in an old-fashioned home with mint-green walls decorated with his children’s handprints. It is where his mind and music breathe.
When the most popular playback singer of our time, whose textured timbre has been intimately woven with love and loss in contemporary Bollywood for over a decade, retires from playback singing at the peak of his career, it feels like a hard decision to accept. But peer beneath the surface and this choice signifies, like his location, not the abandonment of music, but a seizing of the reins. It is an assertion of creative control over how his song sounds, rather than how it fits a “situation” in a film, soothes a composer’s ego or meets a producer’s demand to make it a streaming hit and go viral on Instagram.
Stepping away from the system and its complications does not interrupt Singh’s music. It will, perhaps, result in something more enhanced, away from the industry’s demands. It may give us the kind of tunes that are missing in film music today, when technology and a new idiom of filmmaking have transformed the Indian playback singer — once an icon of popular culture — into someone whose numbers matter more than the song itself.
In a marketplace that is all about metrics and formula, where remixes rule the roost, even Singh’s songs had begun to sound monotonous. One felt the artistry, but there was also a predictability. Just listen, however, to “Barkha”, Singh’s composition under his record label Oriyon Music by Arijit Singh, and you enter a slower-moving world. A gentle rain song written by Irshad Kamil, it easily outshines many film songs of today and shows how something simple can move one’s heart. It boasts talent and versatility and a voice rooted in Hindustani classical music — a combination that has allowed Singh to find an emotional relationship with a wide spectrum of audiences.
Born to a Sikh father and Bengali mother in Murshidabad, Singh trained in Hindustani classical music. He told me in 2013 that he always wanted to be a composer and music producer. He had found some attention through a reality show as a singer but becoming a composer wasn’t going to be easy in a cutthroat industry. He assisted composer Pritam and sang scratches for other singers before his debut, “Tum hi ho” (Aashiqui 2, 2013) topped the charts, followed by “Kabira”, “Phir le aaya dil”, “Channa mereya” and “Kesariya”, among others, which took the popular music space by a storm. In a remarkable feat, he even surpassed popstars like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish to become the most followed artist on Spotify.
When Grammy-winning popstar Ed Sheeran wanted to collaborate with Singh (the two made “Sapphire” together), he visited Singh in Murshidabad, willing to travel the distance. Seated on his scooty, the two zoomed around the bylanes of the town Singh grew up in, where he learned music, where he still takes the cycle rickshaw from the railway station after a long concert tour, where his kids go to school and where he protects himself. We will miss his voice in films, of course. But his departure carries the promise that something brilliant may just be around the corner.
The writer is senior assistant editor, The Indian Express. suanshu.khurana@expressindia.com
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