ABP Ideas of India: A show on MTV years back showcasing a young musician playing a guitar and mouth organ together is what inspired young musician Jasleen Royal to take up the challenge of playing musical instruments simultaneously during a performance.
“Ludhiana is a small place and you always do not get what you want. So I called up shops in Delhi and asked them to parcel the musical instruments. That is how the journey began,” said Royal who had impressed judges in the reality show, India’s Got Talent, as a young participant in 2009 and had earned the label of a ‘one woman band’.
Speaking at ABP Network’s ‘Wild Stone presents Ideas of India Summit’ on Saturday, at a special session titled, 'Sounds of Passion, Music and lyrics: Patchwork of Punjab', the young singer, songwriter and composer regaled the audience with some of her hit musical numbers like Ranjha, Din Shagna Da and Love you Zindagi.
Talking about the Ranjha song (from the movie Shershaah), which became a viral sensation having many versions on Insta reels, Royal said, “Before I started composing the song, someone gave a nasty comment about my music and that is what egged me to come up with something great. I used to go everyday to the studio and work hard till I cracked the tune.”
So what does she think about the power of social media? “Nowadays marketing a product revolves around social media and you never really know when and how a song becomes popular. Take the case of Din Shagna Da for instance. It was released twice but couldn’t catch up until it was played at Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma’s wedding,” she said.
The song is now a must on shaadi lists.
“Right from a young age, I was interested in music, especially in musical instruments. I learnt to play different instruments perhaps because of my short attention span. I would go from one instrument to another instead of trying to master one over a long period of time,” confessed the self-taught musician and added: “While growing up I wanted to become a composer. I remember one day while having lunch with my parents I saw A R Rahman getting an award on television. I told my parents I want to be like him and that is how perhaps the idea got fixed in my mind.”
Speaking about her first composition, Panchi ho javan, Royal said, “I heard poet Shiv Kumar Batalvi’s name from my mother. One day I picked up a book of his and found the poem. The words were so powerful that I took only 10 minutes to compose the song.” When asked why she chose to reinterpret Lata Mangeshkar’s song, Laag ja Gale along with Radhika Madan during the pandemic, Royal said, “It is a timeless song. You never get tired hearing it.”
“I too want to make music which lives on…,” she concluded.