‘Shankar’s right up there for us!’

Soumil and Siddharth are one of the youngest music composers in the industry. Oh, and they’re Shankar Mahadevan’s nephew and son respectively. Deepali S Dhingra gets chatting with the musical duo
Ask Soumil Shringarpure who his music idol is and he’ll tell you it’s Shankar Mahadevan. Now ask Siddharth Mahadevan who’s his biggest inspiration and he’s sure to give you the same answer. Soumil and Siddharth are Shankar’s nephew and son respectively.But it’s not just musically, they insist, that the talented singer/music composer inspires them. “Even as a human being, he is right up there for us,” says Soumil.
But being related to Shankar is not the young duo’s only claim to fame. Soumil and Siddharth are currently one of the youngest music composers in the industry (Soumil is 22 and Siddharth has recently turned 18) and are slowly, but surely, coming into their own. They have recently composed songs for a Marathi film and are also working on the background score for the same. Soumil has learnt Western piano, while Siddharth’s training began a few years back when he started learning Carnatic music and moved on to Hindustani classical. But the first stirrings of trying out anything even vaguely professional had its roots in their passion for creating music.
“When I was in college, I used to spend a lot of time in Siddharth’s house and that was the time his dad had brought a computer with the basic music software,” says Soumil. “We used to have fun playing around with it. We would start at midnight and go on till morning and everyone in the house would get disturbed,” he recalls with a laugh. What started off as a game finally got a shot in the arm when in 2009, they got an offer to compose a song for the opening of Neeta Lulla’s fashion show. “It was the first proper song we composed, arranged and recorded along with Loy Mendonsa’s daughter Alyssa,” adds Siddharth. “That was the first time we felt we could compose.”
The duo went through the regular phase of composing music for short films and student documentaries, while also pursuing their studies. “Then a family friend, an executive producer of a Marathi film, heard our stuff and really liked it,” says Siddharth. And that’s how they got to work on five songs for Swapna Tuzha Aani Mazha. “Dad has also sung one song in it and he sang it recently on TV on a Marathi channel. It’s the first time people heard our music and we got a really good response,” says Siddharth, who like his father, is a singer as well.
Being related to Shankar definitely has its advantages and the boys knows it only too well. But the biggest advantage they feel is the exposure they’ve got by virtue of being in his proximity. “Even hanging around in his studio we learn so much,” says Siddharth. For Soumil, the one tip he’s picked up from his uncle is to keep raising the bar as far as their music is concerned. “He always says that the most important thing for a musician is to know what their reference point for music is. He tells us to keep exposing ourselves to good music because then in our own head, we raise the bar for ourselves,” he says. Being around Shankar has exposed them to a phenomenal range of music. Says Siddharth, “We listen to a lot of music, right from thumri to bhaavgeet to hip-hop to rap to ghazals, blues and jazz. We enjoy all kinds of music.” But what about the inevitable, the comparison? “Our work might be compared, but that just gives us an extra responsibility to match up. It sets the bar higher for us,” says Soumil, while Siddharth feels that somewhere, their work will be more critically observed than some of their peers, due to their family name. For the time being, the musical duo is focused on churning out quality stuff, than worrying about comparisons.
“It’s important to be appreciated consistently. We can’t expect people to like all our work. Our aim is to be satisfied with our own work, without compromising on quality,” says Siddharth. For Soumil, the benchmark is none other than Shankar himself. “Our music should be appreciated by his dad,” he says looking at his cousin, while Siddharth adds that fortunately, Shankar’s always liked their music.
“Being with him is a great learning experience because of the kind of person he is,” says Soumil. “His inputs are there. He doesn’t give us too many creative inputs because he doesn’t want us to change our sound but his influence in our sound is there,” says Soumil. And what is their sound, if we may ask? “That’s something even we’re yet to figure out,” laughs Siddharth. And that’s just as well, because these guys sure have a long way to go!