Mani Sharma was in Washington DC when Anupama Gopalakrishnan
caught up with him for a exclusive short chat for
miindia.com. Meet the “Okkadu*” (chosen
one) who became a Pokiri* (meaning wayward), and who
will soon be your Athidhi* (guest)
[ * Okkadu, Pokiri and the yet
to be released Athidhi are telugu films starring yesteryear
superstar Krishna’s son Mahesh Babu. Mani Sharma played
a very significant role in creating a youthful image
for this star son who is now the craze in Andhra Pradesh]
If there is Sa Re Ga Ma - then I would attribute the
“Ma” to Mani Sharma. The music director who has brought
South Indian music to a global level by churning out
hundreds of hits in Telugu and other Indian languages
will be enthralling the Michigan audience with his
first original “Live” concert in Detroit on Saturday,
July 28th.
Swarna Brahma Mani Sharma has won several Filmfare
awards in consecutive years proving to his audience
that though there is struggle, with hard work and
determination, success is inevitable. Performing live
in Michigan, Mani Sharma is a music director who was
the first to introduce fusion with our Indian film
musical patterns by giving regional Indian music the
respect it truly deserves. From Ganges to Great Lakes,
it has been an incredible journey for this young top
music composer who has become the pride of the Telugu
Film Industry across the world.
As Mani Sharma subtly explains “this journey was never
expected”. I never anticipated any reward while doing
my job. I enjoy the work as much with or without awards.
To be successful is to be humble in living and in
spirit, he exclaimed.
Mani Sharma started his career as a keyboard player
in late 80s under the guidance of renowned and popular
music director the late Satyam. Mani Sharma was a
freelance key-board player for many musicians including
one of Andhra’s best M.M Keeravani and has given several
live performances with renowned playback singer SP
Balasubrahmaniam in India, USA, U.K, Australia, Europe,
South Africa, Singapore, Sri Lanka and UAE. With several
titles and awards behind him, Mani Sharma opined that
as a music director, “performance is critical to any
artist”. He prefers to go live in front of the rib
tickling audience rather than be in closed doors within
a recording studio.
Speaking about his favorite genre of music – fusion
– Mani Sharma articulated that “music comes in all
forms and shapes; it is left up to a true musician
to mould and sculpt.” Mani Sharma loves to blend the
classical with the contemporary.
Mani Sharma was the first musician to introduce
this blend in the mega star Chiru starrer
Choodalanivundiin 1998. “Yamaha Nagari”
sung by Hariharan became a super duper hit and since
then for nearly a decade, all the films that boast
of Mani Sharma carries at least one number that either
has melody infused with rap, jazz and huge orchestration
blended with soothing ragas and so on.
He truly conveyed the message that “fusion is good
as long as there is no confusion”. Morning Raga is
a classic example of Mani Sharma’s innovative blend
of Modern with the traditional. Having raked a few
international awards, this experiment worked wonders
as many believed that the true hero of the movie was
the true Carnatic music with beautiful compositions
that sounded super cool with unique beats and echoing
vocals.
According to Mani Sharma, the fusion concept has always
been there and he was lucky to have received several
opportunities in experimenting the blend. Queried
about his favorite number, he claimed that most of
his favorite numbers are not hit numbers. For instance,
he truly loved the song from the 2001 Balakrishna
and Simran starrer Narasimha Naidu. He hummed
with his b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l voice the Udit Narayan
and Sujata number “Kokkokomali”.
Talking about the quality of his stage shows, Mani
Sharma mentioned that his US tour was first started
last year and he really liked the fact that he could
connect with his audience. “For a true musician, there
is nothing like it”. Live stage show with quality
sound and special effects, live rhythms, live instruments
and original vocals form the crux of Mani Sharma’s
concerts. “Nothing will be compromised”, he said.
Speaking to Mani Sharma was like speaking to a world
class musician and so he is! Mani Sharma was talking,
walking, speaking and conveying the animated passion
and focus he has for his only love “music”. According
to Mani Sharma, his musicians adapt to the “Kutcheri”
standard [ “Kutcheri” is a classical terminology attributed
to the meaning and structure of music that happens
in a disciplined fashion] and vouched for the fact
that “as an audience you will definitely feel the
drums in your heart”.
Mani Sharma was solely responsible for carving out
images out of simple actors. The case in question
is Mahesh Babu who relies on Mani Sharma for all his
films, Allu Arjun, Pawan Kalyan and Chiranjeevi and
others have always maintained that it was Mani Sharma
who made them contemporary dancers with his heavy
mesmerizing mass dance beats, to the extent that Mega
Star Chiru’s son Ram Charan Tej debut film Chirutha
will have Mani Sharma making the star son dance to
his tunes.
As Mani Sharma subtly puts it, “there is always a
limitation while working for the image of the stars.
One cannot be creative as the star actors have already
established their image with the masses. The biggest
challenge is to “create and incorporate the music
to suit the star image”. He noted that it is very
important to provide consistent quality good work
because as a music composer, part of the film’s success
depends on the musician. He further pointed out that
with the new breed of music directors, it has become
increasingly competitive to produce good work because
according to him, people will remember good tunes,
but one failure and it is all over as you have to
start from scratch, such is the life of the music
director.
As I question him about the role of the film director
in the creation of the film music album, Mani opined
that directors do play a very critical role in the
imagination and the creation of a song. Mani acclaimed
the work of Puri Jagannath among others for his instant
judgment and innovative concepts.
We see a lot of singing competitions in various channels
aired in the United States, if you are an aspiring
singer, Mani Sharma animatedly exclaimed that competition
alone does not determine a great singer. There are
lot of singers who are not competition material but
have carved a name for themselves. As Mani Sharma
suggests, “a good singer should have the basic classical
background, should understand and be aware of
the musical trends, know at least five classical tunes
and group singing to him was mandatory”. During sound
check, he often spots some unique talents. Point in
case - Ranjith, Naveen, Mallikarjun and Murali were
all singers who started of with group singing. Mani
Sharma pointed that Karunya is a naturally talented
singer and that this young Hyderabad boy has a great
future.
AR Rahman has often mentioned in many interviews that
Mani Sharma was the only musician who has a knack
of creating mass songs so easily. Mani Sharma jokingly
quipped that mass was in his blood and that it was
part of his growing up. He has been attributed to
getting into the skin of the characters to determine
if the star image was slanting toward a romantic song,
an action hero intro song or a fantasy with scenic
locales.
For all you private album listeners, do not fret as
Mani Sharma is working on an original composition
- his own private album that will be released next
year. This will out and out be a “mast” filled album
with varying tunes and rhythms that will reflect his
personality.
Talking about the remix culture, he strongly asserted
the fact that a musician should respect the original
and should not degrade the quality or the meaning
behind that work. He loved creating the remix version
of “Superstar Krishna’s Gala Gala” for Pokiri. He
justified the need to keep the tempo and the rhythm
classy. “Don’t create something just to be different
and to make a statement- do it if you strongly feel
that the original can be enhanced with innovative
experimentation”, he said.
Telugu industry’s hot shot composer Mani Sharma loves
listening to all kinds of music as it provides a spectrum
of tunes that can be experimented upon. He listens
to a lot of Ghulam Ali ghazals, all of Ghantasala’s
music, fusion devotional songs et al. He finds “rap”
to be very interesting while blending with melody.
He loves NT Rama Rao and has special admiration for
Megastar Chiranjeevi.
With all that said, audience across the United States
were enthralled with this magnetic, mesmerizing composer
who performed a medley of super hit songs in cities
like Washington, Chicago, Dallas, Memphis and others
. Mani Sharma has assured the Michigan audience of
one lovely spectacular night of quality music. With
day and night rehearsals in full swing, Mani Sharma
requests us to buy the tickets and to expect quality
music and most importantly, to show support so that
the South Indian Film Fraternity can keep Michigan
in their radar for future star shows and music concerts.
Mani Sharma specially thanked Devi Jewellers in Chicago
for giving him a 2000+ audience and also thanked Jagadish
Boddapati and Venkata Pala, the chief organizers from
Michigan for making this possible for the Michigan
NRI music community.
Please contact Jagadish at
614-296-0621 or Venkat at 248-761- 6789 for tickets
to this spectacular musical extravaganza. Mark your
calendars for this exclusive first time Live Concert
of Swarnabrahma Mani Sharma on Saturday, July 28 at
7:00p.m.
Click here for details
Venue: Walled Lake Northern High School, Commerce,
MI
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