SHANKAR MAHADEVAN BHAJANS SOFTWARE
But it was after years of working as a software engineer that he decided to enter the music industry. At the age of five, he was reproducing melodies on the harmonium then he turned to the veena because “it looked cool”. Mahadevan is glad that his family and teachers spotted his talent and kept him focused. “If you wake up a child at 5am and make him sit by the lake to sing, he or she will surely run away,” he reasons. So, he endeavours to make music lessons at his academy “fun, cool and joyful” in addition to tech-savvy. But there was a lot of love underneath that strict demeanour and I knew that,” Mahadevan says. “I would bunk classes, sometimes because of my cricket, I would not remember lyrics, I would not do riyaaz. TR Balamani, for instance, would call the “mischievous” Mahadevan “absolutely useless”. That doesn’t mean his gurus were easy on him either. These maestros stay in the background but keep releasing talented students one after another,” he says, wistfully. Later, he innocently told me he didn’t even realise that he was speaking about me. I expected him to speak about his life story and contribution to the field of music, but, no, it was about me – ‘Shankar is like this, he’s like that’. “This was after I had gained some recognition. He recalls how at a function organised to honour the Late Pandit Shrinivas Khale, who he used to “hang out” with as a teenager, “Khale kaka” spent “80 per cent” of his time talking about none other than Mahadevan himself. Staying humble is a life lesson he learnt from his own gurus, so it’s fitting that the 51-year-old is here for the second edition of Guru Kripa Awards, that his academy instituted to honour music exponents.
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On a Friday afternoon, he is at his eponymous academy in the city, making jokes, recording staffers on his phone, drumming tables, clicking selfies, meeting up with music students and teachers who’d turned up despite the rains, and moving around without an entourage. Singer-composer-actor Shankar Mahadevan wears his fame lightly. He’s played mentor on TV shows, but the musician himself owes much to teachers, he tells us