Are you living to live? - Part 2 (Rewind)

I was 12 when I first went to a recording studio, that belonged to a relative of mine. I asked him what they did there. He said his employees did regional language dubbing of films and Hindi character voices for kids channels. I was fascinated. Having thoroughly enjoyed singing along to TV and radio jingles all through childhood, I remember thinking “This sounds like so much fun!”. 

At 15, I had made the decision to become a singer. I started dreaming of auditioning for musicals, because the acting bug had bit me bad post a couple of theatre stints in school. One afternoon, a relative with a longstanding career in Bollywood asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up.

“She wants to be a singer!”, Dad declared.

“Oh, that’s great beta. Where’s your interest - Indi-Pop or playback?”, she asked.

I was confused; I didn’t realise those were my only two options.

“No aunty, I sing in English. No Hindi music for me!”

“Beta, then you can only maintain it as a hobby because English music will never work in India. Playback is a must. You must try for playback. Try singing in Hindi!”

How do I just TRY singing in Hindi? I hardly ever think in Hindi. You sing what you feel, and you feel what you think, right? (Till date, I might've written close to 200 songs in English, but perhaps only 1 in Hindi)

I guess that was the day I mentally stopped dreaming to be a singer. It wasn’t a viable career option, and people aren’t really wrong when they say that. I come from a highly educated, middle class family. Who'd here support a struggling-something to make things happen in an area they don’t understand, all the while cementing my role as a hopeless case.

Suddenly, I was left ambition-less, at a very wrong age. I didn’t know anything else besides music. Some idea of engineering had “struck” me like every other person around me. But later, convinced I wasn’t made for it, I contemplated studying the German Language and Law, but who was going to help this confused teenager get clarity. Forced into engineering, and embarrassingly so, I performed stellar in an otherwise awful college. Ah those 4 years of my life worth erasing, barring a few beautiful friends and my band. To make matters worse, I unwittingly came across the “fact” that a fairly pretty, talented, no-nonsense and intelligent Delhi girl in Faridabad *had* to be a slut. One 2-month rebound-fling with a loser didn’t help things either. 

I was surrounded by people who were neither rich in their existence nor brought up with ideals, ideas and thoughts that matched mine. The dream of MBA from a great college seemed to be the only way to kept afloat. If it wasn’t my engineering text books, I was buried in novels or CAT prep. Unsurprisingly, MBA entrances tanked just the way engineering entrances had. 

The thing about under-confidence is - it never allows you to get anywhere.