Creating a niche for herself in the musical world, Sneha Astunkar has been blending classical music with modern influences. In an exclusive chat with The Pioneer, she speaks about her latest Mohabbat Baaki track and her musical influences.
Tejal Sinha
Sneha Astunkar, mentored by ghazal legend Talat Aziz, has risen to fame in the music world by blending classic musical genres with modern influences.
After captivating the audience with her mesmerising voice and poetic imagination with songs like Rehna Tu Kareeb, Meherbaan and Bas Yun Hi, Mumbai-based musician Sneha Astunkar has released her latest monsoon special, Mohabbat Baaki.
With lyrics by Priya Saraiya and composed by Hriday Gattani, it was no less than a rewarding experience. Being a collab, Sneha shares, Mohabbat Baaki allowed her to learn, discover and experience different styles of composing something soulful while at the same time being modern and contemporary. “Working with Hriday and Priya has enhanced my understanding of looking at a common expression of a song from a unique perspective,” she begins in a chat with The Pioneer. “Mohabbat Baaki is all about love that’s never complete. Even if it’s in your life as a whole, something always remains incomplete about love. The song speaks about two people trying to tell each other how much it would mean to complete it in some way if they reconnect with each other.”
A lot of emotions have influenced the lyrics of the song. She’s one of those who tries to give meaning to things and situations. “I try to make sense out of a lot of things that happen around me because I believe that there’s always a reason for every single thing that happens to you or around you. The emotions around this particular song are a collective feeling of thoughts that revolve around love, people and situations.”
Explaining the precise reasoning behind the phrase Mohabbat Baaki proved to be difficult for her. In order to conquer the issue, Sneha began by clarifying her thoughts and creating a clear expectation of the result.
Though not from a’musical family’ background, she comes from a family with music lovers, thus bringing the best of the support. “My parents gauged my inclination towards music in my early childhood and gifted me the opportunity to choose to learn and grow with music from an early age. I could do my academic masters in Hindustani classical music and learn music full-time,” shares the talented singer, as she began doing shows while learning and eventually travelled to Mumbai, where she found her way towards independent music”.
Having always admired, respected and loved the grace that Indian classical music carries, her natural musical language had become that. Having said that, “I have also loved the pop culture that evolved in the 90’s in the music industry and I started listening to more of it. That is when I discovered that I am inclined towards playback and playback is more about how experimental your sound can be. That’s when I started trying to blend my natural taste in music with pop.”
Just like any music lover who enjoys the good old-era songs, Sneha finds her musical influences in Shobha Gurtu, Shobha Mudgal, Begum Akhtar, Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Talat Aziz, Hariharan and Shreya Ghosal and she enthuses, “When I used to be a kid and sing in an orchestra, I used to sing Kishore Kumar, Mohammad Rafi and Manna Dey Ji’s songs solo. I used to prefer singing Mohammed Rafi Ji’s songs over Lata Ji’s songs.” In the future, she will perform a lovely song created by the highly skilled music composer and producer Sagar Dhote, with whom she started her solo music career. She has also recorded a lovely ghazal written by Talat Aziz, which will be released soon and is also involved in some exciting music projects for certain production companies.
