Srinivas Steals The Scene

An impressive line-up of celebrities from the music field – Hariharan, Sadhana Sargam, Usha Uthup, Anuradha Sriram- had ushered in each new level of Super Star-2 .They had all  been accorded a red carpet reception . 

But there was something extra special in the spontaneous warmth showered on  Sreenivas, who was in town to cut the ribbon for the 5th level of the star show; the welcome had an edge of pride in it - pride  in the achievements  of  a  native son who was on an aarohana in the playback  circles   of Chennai & Mumbai. Srinivas was  a Keralite whose  musical talent had been kindled by the devotional strains of  bhajans  he listened to, as a toddler on the streets of Trivandrum during the spiritual month of Margazhi. 

Srinivas  who belonged to that rare species  of  singer /composer,  came across other birds of the same feather  on the Super Star sets – Alphonse Joseph & M.Jayachandran and  exchanged notes with them. 

He recalled that it was Deepak Dev who had helped set the keyboard for his very first album ;

considered Jayachandran as a source of inspiration for all upcoming  music directors, while Alphonse thought that the sensitivity & ‘feel’ in Sreenivas’ voice was second only to that of the great Hariharan.  

The contestants listened in rapt attention to his experiences with the maestro, AR Rehman, for whom he seemed to have the highest appreciation & admiration.  

He disclosed a fact not many outside the playback field knew- that while Rehman focused exclusively on composing a song, it was Sreeni who  handled the nitty-gritty of ‘putting together’ the song : the training of the singers,  the overseeing of orchestra rehearsals etc. 

The chemical engineer turned professional playback singer who had worked with most of the best music directors of  the Tamil playback industry, then sang a few of his numbers including the Malayalam hit  ‘Manju Pole’. 

He had very pertinent words of advice for the youngsters, a point  that would stand them in good stead in future performances :

If you make mistakes while singing, don’t dwell on it . Mistakes will happen. For, only if YOU enjoy the song, will the audience too enjoy it.