Sameer Yagnik Bhai ho to aisa

He’s the surprise packet of Dil Le Gaya Ajnabi. Singapore-based General Manager (Operat-ions), Tata Technologies, Sameer Yagnik is the younger brother of Alka Yagnik. He confesses that this is his first interview ("There have been some press reporters who have talked to me for 30 seconds!") and has no objection to DLGA being called his first album, that is, he won’t mind more albums, but not the run-of-the-mill kind, thank you. He loves soulful melodies, old and new, and it is the song that "stirs me up," so he does not have any favourite composer, thanks again. Our Singapore-Mumbai doordhwani conversation goes something like this:

Your sister tells me that you were always into music.
I guess I had a natural talent for rhythm inside me, and Didi and I would win competitions together in Calcutta, with me playing the tabla and the dholak. In any case, the atmosphere in my house was always musical with my mother being a singer. I would also be with Didi in the music sessions of Kalyanji-Anandji. I studied Mechanical Engineering at IIT and there too we had musical sessions among friends. And finally I wooed my wife by singing at my sister’s wedding - she was her husband Neeraj’s neighbour!

Still, wasn’t it a challenge to record professionally, especially about singing on tracks?
You see, I have never considered myself a great singer but everyone, even my in-laws, feel that I have a really good voice and sing well. We recorded some songs at Didi’s studio just to try out and everyone again felt that I sounded very nice. "Kuchh karo!" they said. And Sameer Phatarpekar and Manohar Iyer were really enthu about the whole thing! Personally, I think I just did it. I was quite relaxed at the studio - koi producer khadaa hain, aisa to nahin tha! I did not even know that we would do anything with the songs!

How do you keep in touch with music in Singapore?
Oh, we have these music sessions with Indian friends over here too. Besides, I am frequently travelling and that includes to Pune, where our head office is. That involves a stopover in Mumbai almost every two months. In fact the four songs that I have sung were recorded on different trips down here!

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