For a music maestro who specialises in ghazals, composing for No Means No, an Indo-Polish film, was no five-finger exercise. However, veteran singer Hariharan seems to have come out of his comfort zone to deliver what he calls a multi-cultural and multi-dimensional international project. What also makes this project special is that he collaborated with his son Akshay Hariharan for the film that will be released in July next year.
According to the 66-year-old Padma Shri awardee, the film will see a blend of a classical vocal track, a dandiya song, and melodies that give an “international flavour”. “Akshay has composed the background score for the film and I stepped in where there was a need for some melodious tracks. Although Akshay and I had some creative differences, we kept talking about it and ensured the music binds together the cultural worlds of both India and Poland,” he says.
Recently, Hariharan’s popular devotional song, ‘Hanuman Chalisa’, hit a new milestone with viewership crossing two billion. “I love singing bhajans. It brings in a positive vibe. I am glad that ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ has reached many people. I am also scared to see the big benchmark,” says the virtuoso who has lent his voice to more than 15,000 songs in 10 languages and won two National Awards.
Born into a family of renowned classical artistes in Mumbai, Hariharan grew up listening to Ustad Amir Khan, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Ravi Shankar and several Carnatic greats. His mother Alamelu Mani was a Carnatic singer and his first music guru. “I learnt Carnatic music from amma. She used to take out a krithi from a Carnatic composition, sing it and explain it to me. I had learnt all my aesthetics and grounding of music with her during my early days. Later, I started training under Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan to become a Hindustani vocalist,” says the singer who started his musical journey in 1977.
What makes his music complete is the dance steps that he brings along with his songs, according to Hariharan, whose Bollywood classic ‘Chappa chappa charkha chale’ is still a hit on the dance floors after two-and-a-half decades. His mother warns him against dancing on stage, so that he stays uninjured. But the performer in Hariharan believes it’s important to groove to the song to keep the music alive.
On his relationship with ace music director AR Rahman, Hariharan says it is a ‘block building’ model that the duo follows, and it has produced some big numbers. “I learn the composition from AR and then record it. And then we start block building by adding our input like sangathis, pauses, and other nuances to the songs. Most of our hit numbers were done either during the middle of the night or early mornings,” says Hariharan who is now undertaking a masterclass in ghazals.
During the initial phase of the pandemic, Hariharan managed to keep himself busy by experimenting with different musical formats. “In 2020, I collaborated with tabla maestro Bickram Ghosh to create a series of music videos called Ishq. Post the second wave of the pandemic, I got more creative. My recent concerts introduced new variations and dimensions in my singing,” says Hariharan, who is now working on rendering Mehdi Hasan’s compositions and also an album of Farhat Shahzad’s six ghazals.