He is good with technology so whichever part of the world we are in, we figure out the song and manage to collaborate.
He has a way of breaking the meter, it gets freshness into the song. It’s a challenge to write to songs like Rehna tu and Behka which are meandering and free-flowing. It allows you to write in a different structure.
He plays with spaces in a song, the space between the antaras. The music gets a live jamming quality about it. The way he lets the flute play in Rehna tu is magical, like being suspended in time.
He is like a weaver, a craftsman. He weaves a simple melody like a piece of cloth. Then like you adorn the cloth with embroidery, sequins, he embellishes the melody with layers, makes it intricate.
I have often told him that if I had known him earlier I would have made a song out of the Bombay theme. It’s an incredible use of Carnatic and Western classical score.
