My General Manager in the bank called me on a fine morning in 1981 to say "Iyer, We have decided to transfer you to Kaala Paani"! I was stunned and speechless thinking what wrong did I do for the management to initiate such a drastic action? The Punjabis of North India always considered Madras as the last place of preference and often referred Madras as Kaala pani! The General Manager smiled once again to say " you stand transferred to Madras as the chief Manager of the branch"! It was like Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham scenario. I was behaving like the character Kalia in Sholay and his nervous(save my life) smile, when the notorious Gabbar Singh asks "Tera Kya Hoga Kalia"? My close friends were joyous to tell me that I can make it big as they were aware that I had a passion for singing and since I was trained in classical music, I could probably end up as a play back singer? My Punjabi friends were happy that they will have a place in Madras to camp if and when they visited? I did not have even a single friend in the city and I knew it was quite a hard time that i had to face. Heart of Hearts, Delhi remained close to my heart.
19th august, 1981 was the day I landed at the erstwhile Madras along with my wife, son, mother and my mom-in-law! My wife's relative was magnanimous in fixing a decent house in Mandaveli where I started living expecting countless events that one comes across in Life?
My Bank job was quite challenging and took me to lots of acquaintances in the business community and from there to developing personal relationships with people. My singing skills became an attraction for many to become friends with me and the lure of being the Chief of a Nationalised Bank who could also grant loans for furthering business attracted quite a lot of persons and it really took some time for me to create a divide between my personal singing personality and that of a bank Manager! Every day was a celebration and the invitations to attend functions and parties were numerous! I was thanking my GM who called this great city a "Kaala Paani" which directly had a reference to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands where convicts used to be lodged so that they don't escape anywhere! No North Indian would prefer to work in this state and to support this ideology, this city did not even have a North Indian restaurant serving Tandoori Rotis and other stuff! One had to go miles in search of a Paan-wallah who you can bump into at every nook and corner of Delhi and without whom Life could not go on? My landlord used to lock the gates at 8pm and many times, I had to jump the boundary walls when I came after attending a get-to-gether or a party! The streets were deserted after 8pm and e city was more like a glorified village! My landlord refused to give me a duplicate key for the gates and insisted that I should be back home by 8pm as otherwise, I will be considered a rogue which ignited and invoked the macho-hero in me to buy an apartment of my own!
One day, a person came to my branch and introduced himself as a leading film producer and insisted that I listen to the audio cassette that he had brought along and went on to say that he has heard from people about my singing capabilities and insisted that I sing all the songs for his forthcoming, under production film in Tamil. I was quite thrilled when i listened to this story and promised him that I will listen to the cassette and give him a date for the recording! He came the next day and said everything is finalised and that I have to render all the 5 songs in the film to which I readily agreed. He stood in my room for sometime and I knew he had something to say. After I finished with my clients, he said that he was in urgent need of Rs1 lac as the shooting was going on at Ooty and that he would return the money once the film is complete, with interest! I understood the game plan and expressed my inability to help him in the matter. The least I could do was not to charge him for the songs that I render!! He had ready suggestions and ways to lend him a loan from the Bank. Luckily, my integrity and commitment to the bank was foremost in my mind and the person was never seen after that?
Some of my journalists friends suggested that I meet the great Mastero Ilayaraja and arranged for a meeting at the Prasad studios. I was asked to come on a saturday at 3PM and I was there on dot with enthusiasm and Vigour! I was off erred a chair at the ground floor and Ilayaraja had his room in the mezzanine floor of the building. I sat for nearly 3 hours and saw many film personalities like Bharati Raja, Bhagyaraj and many others coming in and going out but my turn never came! I was asked to come the next Saturday at the same time by one of his assistants known as santhanam. This procedure was followed and went on for at least 6 months trying to meet him every Saturday and being unsuccessful in my efforts! At this point of time, I was told by Smt Jaya Chakravarthy (Hema Malini's mother) that I should consider myself just a plain artiste in search of recognition and shed the image and role of the Bank Manager whenever I met these artistes. I agreed to her suggestion and went along with her to meet the mastero for a film Pooja at the Prasad Studios. I saw Ilayaraja and his men surrounding him and training Smt Janaki to sing a song for a film named "Kozhi Koovudhu". Mrs Chakravarthy told Raja about me and my aspirations to sing for a film under his direction. He promptly asked me to sing a carnatic song and I sang a Keerthanai which was on Guru and set to Raga Shiva Ranjini. Everyone around liked my voice and the modulations and Raja cheered me saying that there is something called Karma and if there was a destiny like that I would sing for him! His expressions in Tamil just went above my head and I just nodded my head in acceptance. Jaya chakravarthy told me not to give up and pursue with interest and vigour and I rightly did the same thing. Hema Malini and Kannnan advised me to go to Mumbai and try in Bollywood as my Hindi was chaste and had character as basically I am from Delhi. One section of my friends introduced me to Director Sakthi who inturn, took me to Shankar-Ganesh, Music Directors who labelled my Tamil as something sounding like Hindi?? Everyone knows and often wonder what these new singers like Udit Narayan, Sonu, KK and Shaaan sound like when they sing Tamil songs, now? Times have changed and the same Music directors who were talking of chaste Tamizh are happy making the Non-Tamil singers sing for their films!
I finally managed to get a break to sing in films in the year 1997 for a Tamil Film called "Seevalaperi Pandi" where I have sung the song Kizhakku cheevakkayile with Sujatha, the noted playback singer. After nearly 7 constant years of persuasion and belief, I could finally manage to lend my voice for a film play back. The actor has now become a central Minister in Manmohan singh's cabinet!
I recorded about 20 songs for various music directors including the Oscar winner A R Rehman. I recorded about 12 Tamizh devotional cassettes for companies like Sangeetha, HMV, Echo and others. I am happy to have achieved whatever I could with such limited options. Time was such that it did not give me the options to break away from the Banking career as I was made to carry the responsibility of running the family and performing my sister's marriage which I did with much pride and courage way back in 1973. Somewhere in the corner of my heart there is a a sense of regret that I did not pursue singing as a career but the educated mind contradicts and says I am much better off in this present position of a businessman earning well unlike a musician whose earning period is restricted and directly proportional to popularity!
Last week, one lady in her 40s and working for a Foreign Bank came to my house. She has been with the Bank for the past 10 years and earning a decent salary. Unhappy with whatever she was, she said she is passionate to sing for films and that too for A R Rehman! Who would not like to sing for him? I advised her to remove this idea of singing for a film from her memory and explained to her that she would be neither do justice to her Banking profession nor to the playback singing sphere and prompted me to write this blog for the benefit of those who are on the same page as I am? The moment you say that you are working in a foreign bank, everyone will guess the income that you make and eventually will device methods to milch the hard earned earnings out of your strong room! You can either be a Banker or a passionate singer! One can not be both!! and I tried to be both?
My advise to the youngsters who aspire to pursue what they like is to believe in themselves and be after it with passion until you achieve what you wanted to be in your life as Life is only once and live it fully to your happiness and satisfaction!
Har Pal Yahan , jee bhar jiyo, Jo hai samah, kal ho na ho !
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