A second innings in music

Aishvarya Murali
Nov 1 · 3 min read

A bunch of friends and I released this video on IndianRaga. This post is the story behind the video.

Rahul, Sreeram and I are part of a Tamil karaoke group here at Bangalore. While we’ve learned music and been a part of school or college bands growing up, as we grew up…sadly as it happens, life took over! So here we were, a few (many) years into our career, secretly wishing we could get back to it.

Sreeram and Rahul’s (ahem) versatile voices :D

I heard of Raga Labs when I stumbled upon Indian Raga’s version of Ra Ra Venu that my daughter loves. This seemed like something for us, who sing, but don’t know how to go about it. They assign a mentor to you — who guides you and helps you arrange your music. The Raga Labs team produces and releases the video on the Raga Labs Channel.

So like excited children, we applied and sent our voice samples (I remember that hilarious session that we had trying to get it right! mostly wrong!) As luck would have it, Mahesh Raghvan was assigned our mentor — someone we follow and admire.

What followed were (no, not some Berklee level sessions, but) two insanely hilarious practice sessions (with lots of chaat and chai, of course :D) In those, Mahesh quickly understood what kind of voices, quality and stretch each of us had. Given that we are quintessential ’90s kids, we picked out 2 hits from that era (popular in both Tamil and Hindi) — Ooo Lalala from Minsara Kanavu and Kadhal Sadugudu from Alaipayuthey.

The famous chaat that made it to Mahesh’s Insta feed :p

And as for us? Oh my goodness. The best week of our recent lives. Simply put, it felt like college cultural practice once again. Practising, muffing, correcting , egging each other on. In person, over hangouts, individually, as a group. And making fun of each other, of course. We also co-opted Anupam Joshi, my old batch mate from B-school, to play the guitar and worked remotely, only to meet at the studio in Mumbai. (mic drop)

One of those serious :p practice sessions

Yes. that’s right. We recorded in a Youtube Popup studio at Mumbai. Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine that — the opportunity just presented itself. The IndianRaga team reached out with, ‘Folks, YouTube is giving us a space to record — you want to use it?’ It felt like going to a cultural event away from home (remember those times?)! We booked an AirBnB, plonked there…and had some insane moments…

At the AirBnB in Mumbai or a time machine back to college days? Also pls note Rahul’s spikes.

…Like the makeup lady who put it on as we travelled to the studio (in a cab — not a makeup van alas!). Rahul getting spikes in his hair for the first time. Sreeram concentrating on procuring all kinds of street food instead of focusing on the actual song. AND ultimately, 4 folks who knew NOTHING about acting, stage presence or anything of any sort, trying to act like pop divas and failing reasonably miserably.

The selfie, of course, after the recording

Some moments, when they happen, you remember exactly when and where you were… in this case, Sreeram and I were at Phoenix Market City at Bangalore, when Mahesh sent us the audio file of the recording. We both did exactly the same thing, pulled out our earphones and looked at each other in disbelief. Do we sound like this, or is it Mahesh? Correct answer is the latter, of course :)

‘Don’t follow people, follow your passion, and you will find your people’ -JM Storm

Aishvarya Murali

Written by

Tam freak. Grammar Nazi. Friends geek. Running aficionado. Graf over Seles. Mom of two bundles of awesomeness.

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