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Ali's abstract notes

Singer and actor Lucky Ali goes down memory lane

PHOTO: ANU PUSKARNA

SOOTHING TUNES Lucky Ali: `My music is everyone's music'

It's not often that one gets an opportunity to know what a celebrity is like in real life. Especially when it is someone as reclusive as Lucky Ali.

We have admired his voice, liked his acting and, respected the struggle he underwent to reach where he is today. So a chat with someone like him is bound to be engrossing.

"I don't think I am successful," says the son of the late legendary comedian, Mehmood, adding, "You can decide how successful a person is depending on how people remember him after his death. I am still alive."

Values matter

He says he's grateful for having a family with great values. "We were brought up to respect elders and be satisfied with what we have. My father said I should learn from his mistakes and never repeat them."

Kicked out of his home by his father at the age of 25, he was left to build his own life.

"I was a confused and complex person. I felt I was bad in whatever I did. Since I come from a family of actors, it was expected that I should also take up acting. But I knew my calling was music. My father told me only one thing — `ride a rickshaw or do anything, but don't beg'," says the nephew of late actress Meena Kumari.

And it is this search for his dreams that made him wash carpets, breed horses and work in an oilrig in Pondicherry.

"I managed to make Rs. 17,000 by washing carpets. And I made my music sitting on the helipad in the oil rig." He refuses to categorise his music."My music is everyone's music. The way I express myself is the way I understand my music, though I am abstract at times."

This sincerity is what his ballad-style music is all about. That's what made his albums Sunoh, Sifar and Aks so popular. "I am into acting because offers come my way, but films don't give me the peace that music does," says the playback singer, who started his acting career with Shyam Benegal's Trikal.

Lucky is twice married; Masooma is settled in New Zealand with their children, while Inaya lives here.

"They have their own space in my life, though I know it must be hard on them."

MANGALA RAMAMOORTHY

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