When veteran singer Hariharan embarked on his musical career in the early ’70s, resources like cable TV and social media were still decades away from taking over our lives. Those were simpler times, and yet, he says, it was more likely for an upcoming singer like him to reach to a wider audience than it is today. His first live performance on television was in 1974, barely a year after black-and-white television arrived in India.
“In about two-three years’ time, people in Punjab already knew my ghazals,” he says. “In those days, musical programmes and a few soap operas was the only entertainment available on TV. There was no clutter or competition. I got lucky.”
It’s been 37 years since, and Hariharan’s presence in the music industry has remained rock solid. At 60, he spends months on end on the road, performing at live concerts that span from the interiors of the country to overseas. After weeks of travel, he returns home to Mumbai for a two-day breather before jetting off again. “I love to perform in small towns the most,” he says admiring the view from his 14th-floor home in Powai.
“In Bhopal, you’ll still have three to four thousand people who will turn up for a ghazal concert. People ask me if ghazal is dead, and I say ‘not where I’m concerned’. Looking back, he believes the key to staying in the game for over three decades is constant re-invention.
Though trained in Carnatic music, Hariharan went on to dabble in ghazals, Bollywood and even pop music with his band Colonial Cousins. He worries the younger crop of talent may have a shorter shelf life because they have fewer avenues to explore. “New singers don’t have a non-filmy platform. It is only film music in every State of India that is being promoted. It is quite pathetic,” he adds. “That’s why kids who sing only in movies have a lot of popularity but it lasts only till those songs are top of the charts. Thankfully, I had a wider repertoire and film music was only one part of my career.”
He’s lost count of how many albums he’s cut, and with songs in over 10 languages, of which 2,000 of them are in Tamil alone, his repertoire is one of a kind.
“I get bored doing one genre. I want a break after a while. I’ve started singing pure classical also now — khayal. I’ve learnt it all my life but I didn’t perform it. I realised that if I don’t do it now while I’m physically okay, I never will.”
Yet, his latest musical experiment comes as a bit of surprise even for him. Under the influence of his 29-year-old son Akshay, a London School of Economics graduate with a penchant for gizmos, he’s now educating himself in EDM (electronic dance music).
“I listen to a lot of other kinds of music, most importantly what newcomers are doing. You always have to be a student of music,” he says. The father-son duo has come up with an Indian electronica concoction which they’ve been performing at live shows. “It is basically Psy-trance, dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass, infused with people like U Srinivasan. I have also sung bandish to those beats. I like what he [Akshay] does because it is original,” says the singer.
Music has been a way of life in Hariharan’s family for generations. He laments how we undervalue the talent of our traditional music artistes. “The other day Niladri Kumar [sitar player] and I were having a discussion on this while coming back from a concert in Bhopal. He said, ‘Hari bhai, a sculpture or painting sells for millions. But when Amir Khan saab sings a beautiful Marwa, kuch nahi milta’,” he rues. “It is appalling and nobody can do anything about it. It’s so unfair.” He admits that while this can be demoralising for an artiste, the joy of performing keeps him going. “Live shows have increased ten-fold in the last couple of years. When you’re performing and making people happy, it compensates for the other things,” he ends.
Hariharan will perform ghazals at 7.15pm on Sunday January 24 at G5A Laxmi Mills Compound, off Dr E Moses Road, Mahalaxmi. For details, call 2490 9393.
Limited early bird passes available at the venue.
