What connects Valentines Day and peace? Sunitha Sarathy’s new single, released just before the big day, does the trick quite effectively. Called Nimmadhi, the song is about two people who are in love and find their solace and peace in each other. “I’ve been writing songs for over a decade-and a-half now, but none of it has ever seen the light of day...till now!” exclaims the cheery Thoodhu Varuma singer.
And if all this material that she has amassed is making it’s way out of the cupboard, most of the credit goes to her drummer-musician husband Rahul Gopal. “After I composed the tune and actually wrote the lyrics, Rahul kept pushing me to record at home and get the track done. It’s a very simple, straightforward ballad with no unnecessary vocal variations,” she adds. Sunitha, who is best known for her powerful voice and extensive range — she does everything from choir singing to blues and Tamil contemporary playback — is treading new ground by composing her first track in Tamil. “All these years, my whole composing mechanism has been in English, but I felt I needed to reach a wider audience, here,” she reasons. Though she speaks flawless Tamil, Sunitha admits that she took the draft of the lyrics to her Tamil teacher from school and ran it by her for errors, “I was so happy when she said that she had taught me well!”
Though she has more than enough playback work on her hands — working with A R Rahman, Harris Jeyaraj and many more composers from the South , Sunitha is excited at the proposition of making her own music, “I’ve been in the industry for 10 years and I believe that it’s time for me to explore my musical skills as a composer and put my music out there,” she says. So why not an entire album, you may ask? “One thing at a time, slow and steady,” she laughs.