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| By LISA TSERING India-West Staff Reporter For some artists, reaching the top of their profession might mean losing themselves in success. But for Sonu Niigaam, reaching the peak has brought on a period of intense reflection. The 33-year-old singer has discovered faith in a big way, but he's not preaching any one religion over another. "In my everyday life, I'm a very ordinary, simple person. But when I go onstage, someone else or something else controls me," he told India-West by phone from Vancouver, on his nationwide 10-city tour that wrapped up Sept. 10. Niigaam opens his shows by reciting a Hindu invocation, as he has for many years. "It's more of a ritual than a belief," he explained. "I don't believe the invocation will change the show at all, but it's sort of a ritual, an old-time memory from when I started singing many years ago. I believe the almighty is much deeper than depending on a ritual like this! "Every day I question myself, what's next? What's next? I compare how I started in my life, as a nobody with nothing in my hand, and trying to establish myself as a singer in a country like India, where singers are always given stepmotherly treatment. "In India, it's the actors or the cricketers who are the stars. Singers are not really the stars, and music is secondary. Maybe it's because of their own naturalness or a general temperament that is very unlike in the West, where singers are given as much star status as the actors and sportsmen are. "Given those factors, what God has given me is much more than I ever imagined. I live with the kind of glory that is rare to most of the actors in India," he said. "I have come to understand that God is not confined to Islam or Hinduism or Christianity. God is not confined to a place, to a mood. It is us. When I'm onstage, that's when I can actually see God overpowering me." Niigaam's electrifying stage show incorporates the best of his material - from top hits like "Tumse milke dil ka jo haal" (Main Hoon Na) and "Sooraj hua maddham" (Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham) to underexposed, but gorgeous, tunes like "Sun Zara" (Lucky - No Time for Love) and vintage Rafi. He dances, he tells jokes, he recounts hilarious adventures from his early days pounding the pavement in Mumbai, waiting for his first break. Niigaam is pleased with the way the shows turned out. "When I started the tour, I had no expectations. But I knew I had a show in my hand which was almost infallible," he said. "The kind of performances I do, the kind of songs, the kind of graph I have for the show, is something which is my best at this moment. I am not doing anything less than my capacity; I am doing my best." As open as he is about his own mind and beliefs, he is steadfastly tight-lipped about his personal life. Niigaam's lavish wedding to Madhurima Mishra, a journalist, in Kolkata in 2002 made headlines in India. So too have stories of their reported split. But Niigaam is not providing any details. "I don't normally discuss my personal life," he told India-West. "People speculate about my separation, or my affairs or my relationships, but I have never commented on it. I have never endorsed the fact that I'm separated from my wife or that we are back together. "My family and my personal life is a different entity. They have their own individuality and I don't want to mix them with my profession." One of Niigaam's most powerful recent songs was "Mere haath mein" from Fanaa, which was the final film by the legendary hit-making composing team of brothers Jatin and Lalit Pandit. Asked if he knew at the time it was Jatin-Lalit's last film, he explained, "Actually no. When I was singing the second song, 'Dekho na,' only at that time I got to know they were breaking up." He doesn't feel he will have to choose sides in future projects. "They're brothers and I've spoken to Lalit about it and I'm sure the feeling is mutual and their differences are irreconcilable. The only sad part is they are a wonderful team and they should stick together, but we are no one to comment on them. It's their lives, their decision." Some have remarked on the strangeness of the spelling of his name, which was originally "Nigam." The numerologically auspicious spelling of his name, Niigaam, is, as he puts it, "the professional way of spelling it. I've always signed autographs as 'Niigaam' but people only recently noticed it. Numerologically, the name 'Sonu Nigam' is not lucky. 'Niigaam' is much luckier!" He laughs when reminded by a reporter that his official Web site is www.sonunigam.in. "Well it makes it easy because everybody knows that name. I'm not touchy about it; I don't force anybody to write it a certain way." India-West correspondent Rajiv Vijayakar interviewed Niigaam in Mumbai just before he left for his tour. Here are some excerpts from that interview: Recent reports in India-West and elsewhere have quoted Niigaam as saying he is quitting the music business. "Much has been made of the statement that I am quitting," he said. "But I want to reduce my work from 100 to 10 songs. I have taken stock of what I have done in the past two years. I have recorded some 300 Hindi film songs alone, and how many songs have made a difference to me, my skills and to the people? Less than 10 or 12 from films like Parineeta, Paheli, Main Hoon Na, Krrish, Fanaa and Lage Raho Munna Bhai! So my logic now is - why sing 288 below-average songs that get me only money and additions to my score of 6,000 or 7,000 and nothing else?'" This is the reason why Sonu, who wants to hone his art, is doing a "more-than-semi-classical" album with Deepak Pandit, son of Shambhu of the Shankar-Shambhu team. "Deepak also broached the idea of a raag-based song that inspired the youth and also proved that everyone appreciates quality music. He played out the composition to me and said that he was going to get the lyrics written. Something strange happened that night - the tune kept reverberating in my psyche and in the middle of the night I suddenly started writing the lyrics - "Yeh rashtra prem ki bhavana/bas maatra ek hai kaamana/Hriday ke seenp mein aas ka moti/Tam ghan jan man pe ho jyoti/Araj hai yehi Bharat ke rakth mein pravaahit ho rashtra prem ki bhavana." Everything fell into place and we recorded the song and released it on Aug. 15 through airing on radio and TV channels and with provisions to download." Sonu refused to release the track on audio. "I have not done this for money, it's more like a crusade. I financed everything and the response and accolades that I got have been amazing." With greater time available at his disposal, Sonu, who will soon shift to his new bungalow, plans to be active at a farm he brought some years ago, catch up on the books that flood his house but he has not yet read, and interact with learned classical musicians and maybe teach what little he learns from them to others. About his successful stint as a disk jockey with the show "Life ki Dhun with Sonu Nigam" on Mumbai's Radio City FM, he is upbeat. "Instinct made me accept their offer, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it," he said. "Lata [Mangeshkar]-ji complimented me on it and I casually asked her whether she would like to be on the show. All she said was "Theek hai, main aati hoon!" We were live from 7:45 to 11:20 at night and she was indefatigable, talking on everything from her fear of cockroaches to her riyaaz in the days of her father. Finally, I told her to wind up because she was showing signs of tiredness! But we at Radio City saw to it that she got regal treatment!" | ||
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