SAPNA AWASTHI
The journey so far

A bold voice with a folk flavour, that is how you could describe Sapna Awasthi’s voice. Born as Basavi Upreeti, the eldest of four daughters of a Lucknow-based Sanskrit lecturer, she started as a singer at an early age, under the guidance of Pandit Amarnath of the Kirana Gharana. After doing an MA in Sanskrit, and earning a Visharad in Indian classical music from the Bhatkhande Sangeet Mahavidyalaya, she played a major role in starting a drama group called The Awadh Theatre Group with her husband. The group even performed in the Delhi Theatre Festival’s - Greece’s National Drama Festival as Indian representatives.
In Mumbai, initially she was content playing a housewife and a mother of two kids. But things happened for the better. She got her first break in playback singing in the film Dushmani, which had Anand-Milind as the music directors. Her song Banno teri akhiyan became popular and thus the music industry saw the rise of a new voice. She was able to earn herself a name as a folk singer even while there were already a few strong names dominating the scene. In the meanwhile, she had been doing a lot of non-film singing. Sapna has many private folk albums to her credit. She has had a long association with Venus and so far she has cut seven albums under the label of Venus, in Hindi as well as Rajasthani.

“Champakji has been very supportive right from the begining and I share a good relation with the company,” she says. Her current album Pardesiya is again with Venus. The uniqueness of this album is that it has more of romantic numbers than the usual folk songs that one would expect Sapna to come up with, though one can sense the earthy feel. “This album proves that I can be a romantic singer as well. So far because of songs like Chhaiya chhaiya (Dil Se), Pardesi pardesi (Raja Hindustani) and the other folk numbers, people labelled me a folk singer. An image was created that I can sing only folk and this album is my effort to break that image,” she says with an eagerness to be accepted as a versatile singer and not just a traditional folk performer.

The video of the song Pardesiya, chali re chali purvaiya is a love story between a Pakistani girl and a Rajasthani boy, where in the end the lovers are seperated because of social reasons. The song in the background creates an appropriate atmosphere, as it opens with a serene piece of music using a tabla and a dagga-effect, and Sapna sure does convey the emotions.

The songs in the album are written and composed by PK Mishra. There is a good variety of songs in the album. There are fun songs, slow romantic numbers and also teasing numbers. There are also duets with Mohan Kumar and Ashwin Giri. A variety of instruments, both Indian and western have been used in the orchestration, which is a blend of both live as well as programmed music, in all the ten songs.

Sapna’s previous albums Chakori, Chhabilee and Sun Chhaila with Venus have been successful she claims. “I started as a singer, willing to sing all types of songs and I have the capacity to do so. This album, I hope, helps me to come across as something more than just a folk singer,” she concludes.


LB

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