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FEAR... beyond musical boundaries
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There is more to Sandeep Chowta than "Mast" tunes. He is now directing a film with Tabu in the lead. Want to know about the man ready with more music? Read on with RANA SIDDIQUI.
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Sandeep Chowta...Creating music of a different kind. Photos: V. Sudershan.
THERE ARE countless songs sung by male singers in praise of their beloved, their beauty. Innumerable poems in many languages extol women as ravishing, gorgeous, splendid, and as miraculously wise and balm for wounded souls. But why doesn't a woman come out with similar words in praise of men? Why can't she? Troubled by this thought for a year-and-a-half, music director Sandeep Chowta made an album, "Now That's Sandeep Chowta" with Times Music to correct the balance. Described as a chill-out pop album that has to be read between the lines, it has eight songs, in which "Khubsoorat Hai Tu" is a video track directed by him. Featuring a woman praising a man, it makes a woman realise her folly! Featuring Sukhwinder Singh, the album also has the voices of Sowmya Raoh, Sonu Kakkar and Sunita Sarathy.
"It is my spare-time album, my state of mind, very me in the past one-and-half-years."
But having scored the music for "Satya", "Mast" and "Jungle", and created the background music for "Asoka", "Vaastav", "Kaun" and "Shool", Sandeep does not take much time to shift gears. He is making a song-less film with Tabu. Sounds strange? He has stranger things yet up his sleeve.
About the film, which is based on occult sciences, he says, "You know, what fear is? Very few people have encountered real `fear'. Take for instance, if your near and dear one dies, you are downhearted after you cremate the person and come back home. You cry a lot and want the person to come back. But the same night, you go to the kitchen for a glass of water, drink it and when you turn, you see the same person sitting quietly at the dining table. You are scared. You don't want the dead person back, do you?"
He has a point you may say. But what is it that drew him to direct this film? "Fear! Fear of the unknown," he says. "I believe in occult sciences and that there is something between science and voodoo. I am questioning that in the film."
And what makes him believe in fear? His own and others' experiences, he replies, and recounts an unnerving anecdote involving his uncle. "At 10-30p.m., he landed in a village, took a cab and drove towards his home a few kilometres away. After some four kilometres, he saw a lady with a small child, asking for a lift. The lady pleaded that at that time all the buses had gone and she needed to be dropped just near by. He dropped her at her destination nearby. After crossing three more kilometres, he saw the same woman and child he had left behind, asking for a lift! He was down with fever for 15 days after he experienced this incident."
The atmosphere has grown gloomy in the room at Le Meridien hotel where he is narrating the story. Trying to revert to a more cheery topic, he says, "Complete Jazz will never be successful in India. It is not even working anywhere in the world, but I have grown up with it so I try to include its notes in all my music."
But he hates remixes! And blames the audience for being attracted to it. "Recall value is so high these days. People like familiarity. In remixes you don't have to introduce the artiste, spend money on him, nor advertise the song as it is already popular, so music companies are just capitalising on it."
Next on his agenda are the music scores of "two films in Telugu and Kannada and one in Hindi by E. Niwas". A record with Fatboy Slim is also in the pipeline.
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