Shweta on singing S Janaki’s compositions: ‘One of the biggest blessings of my life’

For playback singer Shweta Mohan, the opportunity to lend her voice to all four melody-driven love songs in an album composed by S Janaki was nothing short of a blessing. “Around a year and a half ago, I visited Janaki amma at her house in Hyderabad. There she told me that she has created many tunes over the years and that she would like me to release them in my voice. I was absolutely thrilled to get that offer from such a legend,” Shwetha recalls, adding that she considers it “one of the biggest blessings of my life”.

‘The recordings were made maybe 20 or 30 years ago’From a list of around 25 songs, Shweta had to shortlist a few of Janaki’s compositions she would release. “She was casually playing rough recordings she had made with her tape recorder maybe 20 or 30 years ago. The recordings were in her voice and were beautiful to listen to. She played around 25 songs, all written by her. Many of them were written in collaboration with PB Sreenivas sir. I chose four and took the help of two Kerala musicians—Sachin Balu and flautist Josy—to work on them.”



‘JANAKI AMMA SEES GANGAI AMAREN SIR AS HER LITTLE BROTHER’Though Janaki had written all the four songs in Hindi, Shweta knew the songs had to reach the legendary singer’s core audience in the South. “I requested of her that most of her fans are speakers of southern languages, and so to make these songs in Tamil as well.”

This led to Gangai Amaren coming onboard to write the Tamil lyrics. “She told me to ask Gangai Amaren sir to write the lyrics. I called him, and he was over the moon. He said he would love to write the songs for no remuneration. He did it just out of his love for her. Janaki amma sees him as her own little brother, and she knew he would do it for her.”

‘HER TRUST IN ME AND MY SINGING IS BIGGER THAN ANY AWARD’Shweta shares that she was touched by Janaki’s trust in her capabilities, saying, “Her telling me that if I sing these songs, it’ll come out well… it made my day to hear such words from her. Her trust in me and my singing is bigger than any award. During our sessions, she taught me line by line, and that never really happens in song recordings nowadays.”

She adds, “I’m totally smitten over Janaki amma . She even played a lot of Lata ji ’s (Lata Mangeshkar) songs that she had recorded in her younger days. Janaki amma sounded just as magical singing those songs as Lata ji .”
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