Mita Vashisht Instagram – There’s a cosmic connect here…
The beautiful Shubha Mudgal, I met for the first time in Delhi in the early 1990ies….knew her from afar, through mutual friends. She was the cynosure of many eyes…beautiful, talented and the new voice….
In 1999 A phone call from Delhi…’we are shooting a music video’
‘Whose the singer?’ I ask
‘Shubha Mudgal’ — says the voice on the phone, (Shoojit Sirkar was it? or his then business partner Gary..)
I jump inwardly, a surge of such excitement, but keep my voice calm…
Okay…, is all I say
Can you drive a truck? The voice asks
I can drive anything except an aeroplane, I say
Do you have the dates…the voice asks
‘I figure them out’ I cut in …’give me your dates’
I was shooting round the clock and 30 days a month those days, but I wasn’t going to miss this for anything..
‘Mann ke Manjeera’ was the music video….and yes, I drove the truck
It won the best music video of the year, and remains one of my cherished roles…I worked hard to find the gestures and the body to fit the phenomenal voice…
The video also led, strangely, to my work with the trafficked minors in the remand home in Deonar…that would possess my life for the next four years…
Then a few years later (2006) I am asked to sing the recitation part of the title song being sung by Shubha ji for the YRF film ‘Laaga Chunri Mein Daag’
My to- be- sung- lyrics are penned by Swanand Kirkire… I reach the studio nervous as hell….how am I going to sing with HER.???
I am told to my relief (and to my slight sense of deflation) that the recording is done separately…she has sung and gone and now it’s my turn.
I couldn’t help but think that some pretty awesome happenings in my life…like the fabulous music video, and then a first time singing, (and that too for a Yash Raj film are some how connected to Shubha Mudgal…that we are somehow connected by a God up there…
#Mannkemanjeere # laagachunrimeindaag #shubhamudgal #actorslife #bangalorepoetryfestival2023 | Posted on 14/Aug/2023 00:10:46
