Though she’s very happy with her Grammy nomination for the collaborative album with Kronos Quartet featuring the songs of R.D. Burman, songstress Asha Bhosle is none too pleased with the way the album was released in India. “The less said about my experiences with music companies the better,” she said. “My Kronos Quarter album was released by an inexperienced company (Virgin). But it’s been greatly appreciated abroad. I’m asked to perform my Kronos Quartet songs at concerts all over the world. In fact, I’ll be at Carnegie Hall (NY City) on April 9. Then I might go to China and Japan with Pancham’s songs. I love the experience of singing live on stage.”

This isn’t the first time one of her albums has got a raw deal. “I had collaborated for a ghazal album of Pakistani compositions. That got submerged in politics. Main politics mein ghiri hui aurat hoon. I had done an album of ghazals written by Mahadevi Varma with composer Jaidev in the late 1970s. It disappeared from the market. Then I did an album of Ghazals with Ghulam Ali. Even that didn’t get the push it deserved. Later I collaborated with Hariharan for a Ghazal album called Abshaar-e-Ghazal. That too got lost.”

Asha is very pleased with her Grammy nomination. “This is my second Grammy nomination. I don’t know whether I should attend the event. Everyone says I should go. Let’s see.” The songstress isn’t sure about her next international move. “I don’t know what other plans Kronos Quartet have. Maybe they’ll go to China or Japan for their next album. If they ask me to work with them again I’d be more than happy. It was such a pleasure re-living Pancham’s songs in such a unique way. Besides film songs like Piya tu ab to aaja and Dum maro dum they also selected Pancham’s Bengali songs and selections from his non-film album Dil Padosi Hai. They called Pancham ‘the Mozart of popular music’. They said Pancham’s arrangements couldn’t be done by anyone except Mozart.”

Subhash K. Jha