ROOP INKA MASTANA

I was actually just bumming around doing odd jobs when the Indi-pop scene started heating up. I was singing with some other people and my sister was doing the same thing. One day my sister said let's make an album together. We signed up with Magnasound recording company and made Q-Funk, but it was Roop Inka Mastana, a remix album of R.D. Burman's songs that brought us into the limelight. I think people started thinking of us in the same way they looked at Zoheb and Nazia [Mehdi Hassan]. Ofcourse all this while we were clueless and weren't sure if Indi-pop was the way to go. But suddenly, with Made in India, Indi-pop became the mainstream music everyone was beginning to love, so we ended up being in the right place at the right time. [Tanha Dil] was from those days when all my friends were looking at making a living and many had gone or decided to go abroad and I was trying to look at the dilemma faced by someone who has to leave his homeland and go away to make a living. I couldn't say fera desk pukhare wapas aa, yahan bhi roti milti hai (your country calls you come back ... you will find your livelihood here too), because it was not true. They were leaving because they couldn't find that livelihood here. I meet enough people while I'm working, but it's really good to come home to someone who you know will keep you grounded. We've known each other a long time. I find it very strange when I see even the wives or girlfriends of celebrities sucking up to them and telling them what they want to hear and not what is the truth. We keep away from Hollywood parties and spend every spare time I have together with the family. I feel that material success and fame are very temporary things. It is very easy for me to see, if I look around, that there are many others who are more talented than me. I was just fortunate enough to reach where I reached and I accept that with all humility and gratitude.