naseeruddinn shah in sunayana

I squirm at the memory of doing the song

My toughest scene would have to be one of my songs. I’ve always felt uncomfortable doing songs on screen.

The title song in Sunayana, where I had to sing the love lyrics Aaj in nazaron ko tum dekho aur main tumhein dekhte huey dekhoon to Rameshwari, was particularly painful.

I squirm at the memory of doing the song even till today. What is it about doing songs that makes me so uncomfortable? I really don’t know.

Even when I was in the the Film & Television Institute-Pune, I always skipped the ‘Playback’ class, which focused on playback singing. I just don’t feel comfortable doing it. For the song in Sunayana, I was pretty much left to my own devices.

The concept of a choreographer was pretty alien those days. We’re talking about 30 years ago. The camera was switched in and I was told to do whatever I could. I of course froze. I don’t know how I went through with the song.

From that time, performing to songs has always been problematic for me. I think the root-cause for this lack of connectivity with song sequences is that I’m not too fond of film songs. I can count on my fingers the number of film songs that I like.

The only one I’ve enjoyed performing was Huzoor is qadar bhi na itra ke chaliye in Masoom. That’s because me and Shekhar Kapoor were on the same wavelength.

Also, the songs in the series Mirza Ghalib, were more like poetry recitation.