Bollywood has helped independent musicians: Durga Jasraj

NEW DELHI - Durga Jasraj, music legend Pandit Jasraj’s daughter who started her career as a classical vocalist when she was only seven, feels Bollywood is providing big opportunities to independent musicians and artists.

Contrary to the clich that Bollywood music is an obstacle for upcoming artists and bands in India, she believes it has been a boon.

“Bollywood isn’t really against independent musicians. In fact, it has helped many of them. Vishal Dadlani, Mohit Chauhan and Shankar Mahadevan are fine examples of this. Bollywood has really helped introduce several independent musicians to the world,” Durga Jasraj, 45, told IANS over phone from Mumbai.

The singer, who is best remembered as a host of popular TV show “Antakshari”, strongly believes that even though Bollywood music has become more contemporary, a lot of numbers still find their roots in classical music.

“Shankar Mahadevan’s song ‘Sapnon Se Bhare Naina’ is actually in Raga Bhairavi and even a lot of Amit Trivedi’s music has contemporary elements,” she said.

Jasraj, who launched the Indian Music Academy (IMA) in 2006, feels it is the innate appeal of classical music that still has a connect with contemporary songs.

“Classical music was for long patronised by royalty and is so beautiful that even though it isn’t widely publicised by the media, it has still reached such levels and Indians all over the world take pride in it,” she said.

Though Jasraj stopped performing a long time back, she has been keeping herself busy with music-related ventures.

“I stopped performing a long time ago; I’ve just been so busy with everything, but I am happy doing things for music, it gives me joy; and to see my dream shape into reality feels just so great!”

Jasraj has tied up with Reliance Broadcast Network, part of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (R-ADAG), for the BIG Indian Music Academy Awards 2010.

“We were in dialogue with Reliance for more than a year, and now we are having this event. It has five categories ranging from classical to traditional to contemporary world music.

“Every category will be judged by a panel of experts like Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Jagjit Singh, Hariharan will all be judges,” she said.

She has other dreams too.

“I used to think that this was my goal but goals keep changing with time; as life evolves, so do your goals, I think the ultimate goal will always keep changing.”