You have really achieved a lot at a young 40.
It only seems as if all my achievements have come too soon, but that’s because the focus is what I have done: like 60 assorted albums in 20 years across classical, Sanskrit spiritual, Hindi and Marathi bhaktigeet and abhang, bhavgeet, about seven or eight playback songs including in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Godmother for which I won the National Best Male Playback Singer award, and some other works besides of course live performances. The downtown Mumbai music store, Rhythm House, has for a long time, kept a separate shelf for my work - since 1993 in fact!
So to answer your question, people see the quantum of what I have done but I look at it differently: for me, it’s been 30 years of sadhana and tapasya and goodwill. Three decades of patience and the consistency and persistent pursuit of perfection are not easy to sustain, so for me to become a luminary at 40 hasn’t really happened early, but after three long decades of hard work!

Besides your hard work, what would you say are the reasons for your dream run and who and what deserve credit?
I am going to give you a very long answer for this! (Laughs). First, I must say that God has blessed me. It is only God who can give you the pratibha (artistic skill) and creative thought and ability. So I salute Him. Again people tend to say, “Kya gaata hain!” or “Kya awaaz hai inki,” but none of that is possible unless you are gifted with that quality. If I can elaborate on a raag or a khayaal better than another trained artiste, it’s His doing, right? Because in that spontaneous moment of extempore creation, everything comes from that source!
That said, I must mention my mother Smt.Shobha Abhyankar’s immense contribution and again it’s a divine blessing to be born to a Doctorate in classical music and to a father who is in business in Pune but loves music as well.
Most importantly, she is also one of my gurus, and the others are Pandit Pimpal Khare and Padma Vibhushan Pandit Jasraj. And here I must mention one important point: every artiste, even if immensely talented, needs a perfect guru - a guru who’s right for him and not necessarily the most well-known! The aesthetics must match, otherwise the greatest guru cannot be a good teacher to a specific student. If the batting approaches of different cricketing legends are different, then their trainers or teachers need to understand the innate quality and sensibility.

Are there other aspects that are important?
Yes, and there I come back to my contribution. It’s 20 years since I came out with my first album. God blesses you in abundance, but in return takes a few things away from you too! (Laughs again). I have been a strict disciplinarian in my lifestyle and diet. In my individual case, the power above has gifted me with allergies to deep-fried foods, bananas, apples, curds, shrikhand and pickles, and I have not touched them for 20 years, which is more difficult than you think because I have a very wide circle of friends and relatives and these are all common items in vegetarian households! Another disadvantage is that I cannot sometimes go for their functions - not just because I am tied up but because after a show (in which I sing for three hours solo), I have to give rest to my voice for two days. During that time, I cannot even have a friend visiting because I will strain my voice, so I have to do with a five minute chat on the telephone. During such a phase, I skip riyaaz too. Maybe lack of discipline is the reason why so many other artistes do not have a long career despite so much talent.

Your core expertise is pure classical. How easy or difficult is it to control your tendency for vistaar or elaboration when you sing lighter music?
That’s a very good and pertinent question. Yes, it does require some effort, but I have developed a switch-on-switch-off mode by now. It’s like playing a Test match, in which it might be politic to leave a ball when needed, unlike in a 50-50 or T20. Secondly, I always am clear that when I am singing light music, which till now has always been composed by others, that I am just the executor. The creator is exploiting me as a machine that can shape his idea. In classical, I am also the creator, so the sky is the limit.

Why have you never composed light music?
Maybe I can do it, and maybe I will someday. But you must remember that a light composition needs a different skill. The greatest batsman may not be a really good bowler. But more importantly, as an artiste it is important that I expose myself to a different musical swar-chitra or perspective, which adds variety to my work. Incidentally, most of my outside songs have been composed by either Kedar Pandit or Ashit Desai. In film playback, it’s been mostly Vishal Bhardwaj, though I also sang for some others like Rahul Ranade in Nidaan, which was my first film, and for Himesh Reshammiya in Banaras. I also contributed pure classical backing vocals to Surender Sodhi’s background score for Banaras.

Let’s talk a bit more about your playback work.
I love working with Vishal - he is an aesthetic composer whose work is soothing, and his approach is different because he is an intellectual kind of person. My first recordings for him were two songs in Sansodhan, which never released. Godmother won me the National award and since then I have done Maqbool, Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar and others. What I like about Kedar, Ashit and Vishal is that they have never called me because someone else is not available, but only when they felt that for certain reasons I could do justice to a composition or created them with me in mind. Like Vishal called me for Kitne boond boond mein because he wanted a meend - which is a fluid transition from one swar to another, as seamlessly as the colours of a rainbow. Vishal puts in a lot of thought in his work - he wanted a meend because the lyrics were about water and water has no form.

You recently had a rare feat to your name - three albums released on the same day.
A good composition becomes better with time, like pickles! Some of my compositions in two of these albums - Urmi and Swakruti on Times Music - were composed as early as in 1996. Then I keep singing them and exploring them in my shows, and a composition always matures with elaboration over the years. To me, longevity is very important, and my album must remain on the music store shelf for 25 to 30 years. I am in this case like the jewellery designer or painter who waits for a few years before he puts up an exhibition of his works, like a complete set!
But of the three, the closest to my heart is Matrurinn, which is a collection of my mother’s compositions in Raag Chandrakauns and Bhopal Todi.

You have not been much into collaborations, especially with Western artistes.
I have done jugalbandis with Shankar Mahadevan - a concept of North meets South, and have worked with Kala Ramnath and South Indian ace flautist Master Shashank. As of now, Western music has not happened. But I do not look down on it. The musical notes are the same, but we have a lot more freedom, though they too have genres like jazz where they improvise.

Finally, what difference would you say is there between a recording for an album and a live show?
There’s nothing as satisfying as a personal vibration. It’s the difference between looking at the photograph of a beautiful girl and meeting her in person!