I had never quit singing: SP Balasubramaniam

The first time the title track of Chennai Express played on television sets it tugged at our nostalgic chords For those of us who grew up in the rsquo90s the familiarity made us smile After all the melodious voice of SP Balasubramaniam enthralled us through the lsquo80s and lsquo90s especially with Salman Khan hits from the films Maine Pyar Kiya Hum Aapke Hain Koun Saajan Baaghi Love and so on Now music composers VishalShekhar have brought the voice back Shekhar Ravjiani says ldquoWhen we were composing music for Chennai Express we thought we should have a touch of the South in the songs as well We are huge fans of Balasubramaniam and decided to approach himrdquo When we ask Balasubramaniam if it took much prompting from the music directors to bring him back to Bollywood he has a simple answer ldquoMy job is to sing I donrsquot need to be prompted at all If I donrsquot like the song after going to the recording studio and listening to it I simply excuse myself This time I liked the song and went ahead with itrdquo says the 67yearold composersingeractor Clearly ever since he last sang for Bollywood the industry has changed ldquoThings are different For instance I feel technology is overused now Yet it is heartening that some wonderful songs are composed even todayrdquo he says An engineering student from Nellore in Andhra Pradesh Balasubramaniam made his playback debut in 1963 after winning a singing contest in Chennai The MGR film Adimai Penn launched him in 1969 He went on to sing for various Tamil Kannada and Telugu films ldquoA good singer is one who after the basic training adapts to any style and situationrdquo says Balasubramaniam When K Balachander decided to remake his Telugu film Maro Charitra in Hindi as Ek Duuje Ke Liye with Kamal Haasan and Rati Agnihotri as lead actors he decided to rope in Balasubramaniam as well The film became a musical success and Balasubramaniam won many awards It was then that Balasubramaniam decided to stay back in Bollywood and lent his voice to more actors of the time Another reason why Balasubramaniam sang Bollywood songs was the quality of composers ldquoAll composers and lyricists had an individual style then You listened to a song and you could identify the creatorrdquo he says It was around this time that Salman Khan was roped in by Sooraj Barjatya to play the lead character in Maine Pyar Kiya Balasubramaniam was signed on to be the actorrsquos voice in all his songs thereon The film was a hit and filmmakers thronged to rope on Balasubramaniam for most of Khanrsquos films ldquoI however did not put any special effort to sing a song for any actor in a particular way I act and emote with my voice the rest is in the hands of the artiste director and the crew to project it successfully on the big screenrdquo he says Balasubramaniam a successful voice by then returned to the South during the late rsquo90s Was it the change in film music or was it the introduction of new voices that made him quit the Hindi film industry ldquoI did not quit There were no offers from Bollywoodrdquo he says humbly But the South still welcomed him ldquoIrrespective of the language I still record at least one song a day even todayrdquo he says Over the years he even turned to composing and acting However singing remains his first love He has no plans of shifting base to Bollywood nor does he want to avoid singing here ldquoI never plan anything I want to give my best today Tomorrow is another day I do not have goals and take things as they come My only wish is to quit when I am not able to do justice to a compositionrdquo he saysu00a0