MADHYA PRADESH: A A1997-batch Madhya Pradesh state police service officer, who while heading the crime branch in Indore, led his team to crack complex cases of crime, including the busting of west UP-based Sudhir Bhadoria gang, has an interesting passion – crooning the most melodious songs.
Currently posted as Superintendent of Police (SP), Economic Offence Wing, Ujjain, Dilip Soni in 2016 joined National Award-winning playback singer Monali Thakur to sing his first song ‘Sajna Ve’, which featured in a video starring actor Rashmi Desai.
‘Sajna Ve’ went on to garner 34 lakh views on the internet in seven years. Other numbers sung by him have motivated voters in the 2018 MP assembly polls and boosted the morale of the police and COVID warriors during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020.
Three years after making his singing debut, the police officer joined his then 12-year-old daughter, Kavyaa Soni, to come up with the song, ‘Saare Kaam Chhod Do Sabse Pahle Vote Do’ to propagate the message of the Election Commission to voters asking them to exercise their franchise in large numbers in the 2018 Madhya Pradesh assembly elections.
When the pandemic struck the world, Indore too was plunged into a morass of despair amid a rising death toll and lack of space in hospitals for the patients. Then posted as SP, Narcotics, Soni, sang the national song Vande Mataram and the famous number from the 1974 Vinod Khanna-starrer movie, ‘Ruk Jana Nahi, Tu Kahi Haar Ke’ to motivate the police to perform their duties as COVID warriors diligently.
“‘Ruk Jana Nahi’, with backing vocals from my daughter, will remain etched in my memory forever; it turned into an anthem of sorts, particularly for Indore police serving as COVID warriors,” Soni recounted.
The song sung by Soni to motivate voters in the 2018 assembly polls was used for a similar purpose in other states too, including UP – Soni’s place of birth.
Though Soni never had any grounding in music, the melody was in his genes. “My grandfather Raghuvar Dayal Soni was a gifted classical singer, but I couldn’t get trained under him. But I would sing at events during school and college days in Gwalior,” said the former Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
(CSIR) fellow in Chemistry.
In 2000, Soni was posted in the state police headquarters in Bhopal, he stumbled upon an old book being sold by a road at the famous New Market. “The book was about how to record one’s own vocals on a computer. I bought it immediately and this was when I started dabbling in computers and voice recording. Sadasivan KM Nambisan aka Sadu, lead singer of the famous 1990s band Aryans was known to me and he used my newly acquired prowess for scratch recording for one of his songs, which boosted my confidence. Gradually I started singing at police events,” recounted Soni.
Since then, the singer in the Cop never looked back, but instead of using his voice for commercial gains, he used his talent to voice social causes, including making the youth aware of drug abuse during his posting as SP-Narcotics in Indore.