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 The
"Mugangal",
a pop musical album released by Anita Chandrasekaran and Mahesh
Shankar's team, is apt for musically inclined youngsters.
The team comprises of proficient
youngsters residing in United States. Anita did her BE at Sri
Venkateswara College of Engineering (Chennai), and her Masters
of Fine Arts (MFA) in Film and Television at Loyola Marymount
University in Los Angeles. She recently got married to Udeep,
who works for Cisco Systems Inc. in San Jose, California.
Mahesh did his BE at Sri Venkateswara
College of Engineering, and his Masters of Science (MS) at North
Carolina State University in Raleigh. He is married to Shuba and
lives in Hayward, California.
Mahesh and Anita represented
their college at a lot of music competitions, and won prizes.
They have remained good friends since. Mahesh met Ramesh, Deepak
,and Nandakumar while doing his Masters at North Carolina and
now all of them have become a good team.They inisist that they
all work as a team and have no leader as such.
According to them "Mugangal"
is a profluent and profound emotion which one encounter's in different
aspect of life. The lyrics are affluent realizations of enriched
emotion which has been en-captured beautifully. The music is a
conspicuous blend of carnatic and western. When the album has
been competing successively in the pop-market, we have inhere
an exclusive interview of the pop-stars who compactly speaks about
the Mugangal they encountered , amidst their busy schedule.
What is the reason in selecting
the theme 'mugangal'?
We wanted to do a theme-based album.
As we thought more about it, we wanted a theme that would appeal
to everyone. What could be more expressive than the medium of
expression itself - emotions.
People wear different faces
to express different emotions. Since this is a Tamil album, we
decided to call it 'Mugangal'.
Who inspired you’ll the most?
Actually, no one in particular. The
album was born out of our interest in music and we got all the
support and encouragement from our family and friends.
Among all the emotions why is it you’ll have selected the six
emotions?
After we had decided the theme, we wanted
to portray simple, yet powerful emotions, which we experience
at some point in our lives. We felt that this would help listeners
to relate to it on a personal level. Once we had identified what
we wanted to express, we came up with six emotions - Love, Happiness,
Apprehension, Courage, Sadness and Stubbornness.
How did you capture the emotions beautifully?
Is it because of anyone's experience?
All these emotions were born out of
our experiences, and the experiences of people around us. Since
the theme was simple, yet powerful, we wanted the lyrics to play
a similar role in expressing the emotions. As such, the lyrics
tell simple stories, with simple words that highlight the emotion.
In fact, we gave the lyrics so much importance that the music
for the songs was composed only after we decided on the lyrics.
Similarly, we wanted the music
to cover a wide range of styles, thus enhancing the portrayal
of the emotions. A lot of thought was put into the instrumentation,
and the confluence of all of these - the theme, the lyrics, and
the music - is what the album is about.
Why are your songs more of Carnatic-oriented?
We have been exposed to Carnatic music
right from our childhood. We wanted to make sure that the album
brought out our musical influences. At the same time, we were
also influenced by rock, pop, funk and western classical. So we
wanted to blend all these influences together, while keeping Carnatic
music as our base. We wanted to create an interesting mix of popular
genres that we felt would appeal to people with varied tastes.
Dont you think the song 'Pidivatham'
misleads the youngsters as you'll have said 'pothum ubathesam'?
Actually no. Like we said earlier, we
wanted each song to tell a story to portray an emotion that exists
in our daily lives. The emotion in Pidivaadham is stubbornness
and is something that everyone experiences as a part of growing
up. This song is about the way kids and parents often disagree.
We are not taking sides in this story - just depicting it. Also,
if you notice, towards the end of the song, the kids agree that
the parents only mean well, but they still want to do things their
own way which is exactly what stubbornness is all about.
Can you tell us something about the
other works?
Mahesh has been playing for recordings
and at concerts since his college days. Some of the people he
has played with, include Sivamani, Ganesh-Kumaresh, Vikku Vinayaka
Ram and Selva Ganesh. This album is his first independent venture.
Anita has been singing since
childhood, and has performed and won prizes at various competitions
and cultural meets. Recently she finished recording a song "Azhagiya
Asura", for the movie "Whistle".
Anita is also working on the script
of a movie for her directorial debut.
9) What is your ambition?
Anita wants to become a film director
and Mahesh is balancing a career in computer networking and music.
11. How is the response
for mugangal?
The response for Mugangal has been very
encouraging, both in India and abroad. While the cassettes are
being sold at leading music stores in Chennai, the CDs can be
purchased from our web site at
http://www.mugangal.com
It's very heartening to see
our music being enjoyed by people with diverse ethnic backgrounds
and varying age groups. The guestbook entries on our web site
affirm this.
12. Have you received any harsh criticisms?
How do you take criticisms?
We haven’t received any harsh criticism
so far - only constructive ones. Music, like any other art form,
is subjective. Keeping this in mind, we continue to make the best
of every remark and use them as stepping stones to better ourselves.
14. Living in USA for so
many years, how do you manage to keep in touch with our traditions?
And do you feel the cultural shock? Do you feel any bond with
India?
We were all born and brought up in India.
We came to the US to pursue our studies, and we have been working
here since. Living in the Silicon Valley, which has an ethnically
diverse community, appreciation for other cultures overpowers
any cultural shocks that we may have. Having been born and brought
up in India, that's where our hearts are. Like they say, home
is where the heart is.
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