oham Chakrabarty hails from Kolkata and has been doing jingles for some years now.

His breaks have all been courtesy music director Pritam. “It was in Dhoom that Pritamji made me sing the scratch of Abhijeet’s Dilbara and promised me a song soon. He fulfilled the promise with Dil lagaa na in - as it happened - Dhoom:2, the sequel to the film. “I sang the mukhda with Sukhbir and 4-5 lines in the antaras in which there were also Jolly Mukherjee, Mahalakshmi Iyer and others. So it was technically my first song. But Inn dinon was my real break and first solo and I remember Pritamji summoning me for the recording at around 2 in the night.”

From that time (literally) to the Screen Awards’ night, the daze has heightened. “Pritamji told me that he wanted to try out the song as he had recorded the same with several other names and had not got the Sufi-meets-rock feel right,” recalls Soham with a hint of justified pride. “It was over in 15 minutes. I am trained in Hindustani classical music and felt that I could improve some segments of my vocals, but the consensus was ‘Don’t even touch the song now. It’s perfect.’ Pritamji even confessed that he had tried the vocals himself but was not satisfied.”

So Soham ended up singing playback for his own music director and mentor. Laughs Soham, “Yes! You could say that! I was not a part of Band Metro and do not have a rock background and just to get me attention so that people would not think it was Pritamji’s voice, I also was featured in a special promotional song that was made!”

The payoff, says Soham, is incredible. “I was jerked out of a daze by Pritamji at the awards function when my name was announced. He was thrilled. For me there was an unreal sensation as I walked to the stage. The trophy is an inspiration! I am really motivated to do better and better now. No one sings to win awards, but when you do get one you become incredibly charged.”

Ask Soham why he thinks he succeeded when other singers did not in the song and he says, “It was a high-pitched song and maybe they liked the harkats I took. A Sufi song cannot exist without harkatein. Since I am trained in Hindustani classical, it was easy, because if you learn it it is not very difficult to sing anything.”

Soham’s gurus are Ustad Mohammed Sagiruddin Khan and Pandit Jayant Bose. His idols are Mohammed Rafi and Mehdi Hasan for their sheer gaayaki and singing styles. “The nuances they put it are amazing. I like to approach a song with such gaayaki-oriented thoughts.” Soham agrees that today most songs do not need skilled nuances but feels that the process of returning to melody has begun. “The popularity of Inn dinon or Main jahaan rahoon(Namastey London) proves this,” he feels. “Melody jaati nahin, but sound changes every time. And trends come in phases.”

The singer has recorded a full-fledged romantic song for Makrand Deshpande’s Dream Man under music director Shailendra Barve. “I have also sung for a White Feathers film and a few more songs for Pritamji,” he adds, though the doors have not opened wide as yet. Isn’t that because there are 25 new entrants struggling together?

Soham disagrees. “If I start thinking about competition, I will never be able to move forwards. My approach is that I sing in a way in which everyone connected with the song and film love it. My inspirations are Shah Rukh Khan and Akshay Kumar, who have made it so big without a godfather or connections and just by sheer merit and hard work.”

Since the young singer speaks more Hindi than English, we express surprise at his clear and unaccented Hindi and Urdu. Has he put in any special efforts for this? “Sahi pakda aapne!” he smiles. “When you come in from the East, West or South, the alfaaz can be a problem. I loved to sing and from the time I was in standard six, I had decided to turn singer. So in a planned way I exposed myself in a big way to Hindi and Sanskrit, read Hindi newspapers and listened to and watched news readers on television.I started getting ready in every sense for playback singing!”