Sonu Nigam: Trying to come up with songs that have a lot of depth

BY NATALIA NINGTHOUJAM

New Delhi, Nov 7  Singer Sonu Nigam says he is working towards making songs with depth these days.

One of Bollywood’s most successful playback singers ever, Sonu may have sung a variety of songs but he is still loved for crooning romantic numbers like “Deewana tera”, “Dil ne yeh kaha hain dil se”, “Ab mujhe raat din” and “Saathiya”.

Now, the singer has released “Ishwar ka vo sacha banda”.

“The track is ‘Vaishnava jana to’ song translated in Hindi — a language that most people in India understand easily. Whatever said and done, ‘Vaishnava jana to’ is a Gujarati song, so that language gets limited to only Gujarati speaking people. Now this song is made available to all,” Sonu told IANS.

“Vaishnav jan to” by poet Narsinh Mehta was one of the favourite bhajans of Mahatma Gandhi.

Talking about “Ishwar ka vo sacha banda”, Sonu said he was in Dubai when he was approached to sing it.

“I had started my studio at that time. It was a portable home studio. I recorded the song there and sent the tracks to (composer) Shameer Tandon and they mixed it and sent it back to me. We shot the video capturing the beautiful desert views of Dubai. We also mixed it with shots and videos of various religious and spiritual places,” said Sonu.

“The idea behind it was that all religions lead to the same destination. This is an old idea and concept of the song. The video is also based on that. ‘Good Karma’ is the face of an ideal man and good human being. So that is the whole idea,” he explained.

Talking about relevance of the hymn now, Sonu said: “Goodness is relevant in every time and every era. This is the basic purpose of life — to learn, to evolve, to understand the true nature of God. So, of course, it is relevant in these times.”

Meanwhile, Sonu has been tied up with various projects, including his new music label. He had released a single, “Rudhrashtakam”, under the label in July. The song marked his return to the spiritual genre.

“Lately, I have been making sure that whatever I do has to have quality quotient that is unquestionable. Whether it’s through my company or other labels, I am trying to come up with songs that have a lot of depth and meaning,” he said.