As he prepares for his upcoming wedding, Kailash Kher talks about old feelings and new

THE studio looks plain from the outside. Only a tubelight illuminates the entrance door. Inside, it's another story. Practice is on full swing for Kailasaa band members, including Paresh and Naresh Kamath. Every now and then, the recording room's door swings open and high decibel music hits you.

The band's lead vocalist and playback singer Kailash Kher is yet to arrive. He is getting married this month-end in a low-keyed affair.

While we wait for him, tiny details in the studio leap out. A string of bells that chime melodiously when the main door opens, a pile of drum and guitar cases, dumped by the entrance probably because of their recent American music fest trip, and shoes that lie outside the recording room reminiscent of a shrine.

The entrance door opens to the bells' chime, and Kailash Kher walks in. He apologies for the mess in the studio and indulges us with a photo shoot first. "The studio is being renovated," he says as he lifts some instruments lying around at the recording studio to make space for the shoot.

From the heart
Kailash has just arrived in the city from Banaras. He was invited by the Banaras Hindu University to inaugurate its annual Spandan youth festival. "Anupam Kher called me up a couple of days ago and asked if I would go. I was there to light a diya. But I was surprised that the management didn't ask me to sing. You never know which direction the brainy guys thinks in," he says with a laugh.

About his outspokenness, the composer-singer says, "I follow my heart. But since I now belong to this industry, it's taught me a thing or two. Even if you don't want to be diplomatic, you have to be." He says he wonders if he is losing his real self to the glitter of the industry. "Dekko aaya tha insaan bhola bhala sa, ab chaalaak duniya ne usko bhi chaalaaki se jeena sikhaya. It's like removing a thorn with a thorn. It makes me question myself sometimes, whether I am wrong in following my heart," he says.