Reconnecting with Lesle miyaan

Since your name is practically synonymous with a fusion of musical styles can you tell me a little about your earliest musical influences Were they primarily Western No quite contrary In fact since my father PL Raj was a choreographer for Hindi films I grew up listening to Indian music Irsquod even get to hear songs while they were being composed by legends such as Kalyanji Anandji and RD Burman Sometimes Irsquod even go to their studios and actually listen as the orchestra came aliveu00a0 Besides because of my fatherrsquos connect with classical dance and music I was also exposed to the genius of Ustad Alla Rakha and later his son Zakir Hussain All the Khan Sahebs of the classical gharanas were Muslim mdash there was Ustad Vilayat Khan and Ustad Amir Khan for instance not the actor he winks ndashndash so everyone took to calling me Lesle miyaan This album draws on all those memories in fact everything that has ever touched my heart Thatrsquos why Irsquom so excited about it ndashndash itrsquos intrinsically me Yoursquove fused musical genres before and experimented with new techniques Does this album have anything completely new to offer Therersquos a song called Saawariya Calling which is about a relationship that constantly boomerangs in which Suchismita Das a trained classical singer sings my lyrics in the Thumri style Therersquos a bit of Tabla therersquos blues guitar and the lyrics switch from English to Hindi with traces of the more colloquial Hinglish but you have to hear it to understand its freshness Yoursquove heard something like it but nothing like it You say you penned Aaja Tu Aaja decades ago Why have you waited these many years to release it I wrote that song in English around 1981 then rewrote it in 1986 but everyone laughed at my composition back then The IndieBossa Nova fusion was too ahead of its time Then last year someone heard me play it and really loved it And at an MTVCoke Studio session in Chandigarh I was amazed to see Sikh couples clinging to each other and swaying to the song Thatrsquos when I felt Indiarsquos ready for it now In fact I hope to dub this entire album in Punjabi Whatrsquos your favourite song from the album Are any of the songs influenced by your personal experiences Asha Bhosle once said to me ldquoIf you want to be a good musician you should experience everythingrdquo and Tanha Sa Hoon puts some of my deepest most internalised feelings out there A lot of introspection went into that album I believe thatrsquos what sets a song apart Itrsquos not so much about a voice as it is about the way the emotion comes across But I donrsquot have a favourite song from the album I love them all Itrsquos like having six wonderful children one could be short another tall one could be handsome another particularly brightyou love something about each one Each represents a different facet of me so itrsquos very hard to choose Was this always the dream Did you want to compose music for more Hindi films Is that still something that would interest you My original dream was to work with Quincy Jones Irsquove passed up Indian films before mdash I didnrsquot do Sarfarosh and the Shahrukh KhanAishwarya Rai starrer Josh mdash because at that time I felt I needed to prove to myself that I was doing my sort of music which was staying true to me Besides Bollywood wasnrsquot really ready for me then Right now Irsquom focused on being a singer songwriter and composer and I am already working on the soundtrack for one film It even includes an item number but doesnrsquot have crass lyrics u00a0