“I often tell my friends that I am housewife material… I can multi-task like her,” says Babul Supriyo with a hearty laugh. The singer-actor is now Minister of State for Urban Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India. He has meetings and programmes lined up for the day, but squeezes in some time to talk when MetroPlus catches up with him over the phone. He opens up about his show in which he is going to be featured with his daughter, Sharmilee, in a forthcoming episode of MTV Coke Studio .
The duo has sung the number ‘I Wanna Fly’, composed and produced by Anupam Roy, the Bengali composer and singer who debuted in Bollywood with Piku . It is written by Javed Akhtar with additional English lyrics by Anupam and Babul and the foreword is by Amitabh Bachchan.
“It felt really good to be performing with her. It was a proud moment for me as a father,” says Babul Supriyo. The song is meant to celebrate International Day of the Girl Child observed on October 11 every year by the United Nations Organisation and highlights the need to empower women.
“The idea was mooted by Debabrata Mukherjee, marketing vice president of Coke Studio, and it was his suggestion that I do something with my daughter,” says Babul.
It was the first time that Sharmilee was recording with her father and Babul is one proud father who can go on and on about his 16-year-old daughter who took to music at a young age. Calling her as somebody with a “one direction mind” – obviously playing on her admiration for the band One Direction – he says, “She is a keen listener of English songs. With somebody like Anupam at the helm and Javed saab [Javed Akhtar] gracefully accepting our request to write the lyrics, all we had to do was sit down at my home in Delhi and make the song. And since we had to make a full episode, we came up with two more songs.”
One is ‘Jhelum Naina’ sung by Babul, composed by Jeet Gannguli [who composed the songs of Aashiqui 2, Youngistaan, Citylights, and Hamari Adhuri Kahaani among others] and written by Prasoon Joshi. The last one is a folk number ‘Moner Manush’, originally written and composed by Lalon Fakir and sung by Satyaki Banerjee, Anupam and Babul for the episode.
So how does music fit into his busy life as a politician? “Actually, I am a workaholic. And just like a charger recharges the mobile phone, music is my recharger. Of course time constraints are there. But then I can’t leave behind music because that’s how people have connected with me,” he stresses.
Babul, who got elected from Asansol in West Bengal, was inducted into the cabinet much to the surprise of many.
A lot has been written and talked about his meteorical rise from banker to singer-actor and then to politician and minister, that too the youngest one in the Cabinet.
“For me politics is more about logic. During my college days it never occurred to me that I would end up as a politician. My strength, according to my friends, is that I speak pretty well. May be that helped,” he says. He enthusiastically talks about how the Prime Minister and other ministers have been encouraging his talent.
“I was given an opportunity to sing at Rajghat. Also, when we ministers get together there are some lighter moments and they talk about my music. There is no way I am going to keep away from music,” he says.
Therefore the singer known for his songs in Kaho Na Pyar Hai, Hum Tum, Fanaa, and Chori Chori Chupke Chupke , among others is tuned to the latest in the music industry.
“My daughter keeps a tab on all the latest works and therefore I also find time to listen to them. If I don’t do that I won’t sound fresh. I love listening to Ed Shareen’s album ‘Photograph’. I also listen to Eric Clapton and these days I am going back to the songs of John Mayer. And of course there are songs of Arijit Singh…”
Once a musician always a musician.
Watch Babul Supriyo onMTV Coke Studioon October 4, 8 p.m.
