(From top) Rahul Sharma; the cover of his latest album Maya — The Illusion

After Richard Clayderman, Kersy Lord and Louis Banks, it is the turn of Sunidhi Chauhan. Santoor player Rahul Sharma is collaborating with the Bollywood singer in his new album Maya — The Illusion, brought out by Sony-BMG.

“Have you seen the music video? In that world of illusion, I am the creator. As evolution begins, I give birth to flowers, fruits… Then Mahamaya appears and tries to seduce me. But she gets destroyed in the end.”

A complex metaphysical positioning of the self, but Rahul believes he has to be witness to such experiences, created in the Maya video through a mix of animation and live action, though he must not become part of it.

There has been something different in each of Rahul’s 35 albums, but Maya stands out for the use of an Egyptian instrument called Quanoon (“It’s a string instrument played with a finger”) and more so, his use of a vocal artiste.

“I did sing in Time Traveler” (an album released earlier this year) but that is because the song Manzille Manzille suited my voice,” shrugs Rahul, reluctant to dwell on his own singing.

“Doesn’t every composer sing through an instrument? I also record my songs in my own voice to let the singer pick up the tune. Only that one time my voice stayed in the final recording.”

But this time, with a female force taking centre stage, he had to seek a different voice. “Sunidhi sings pitch-perfect. Sometimes my instrument plays the mukhra and she continues with the antara, while at other times it is the other way round.”

Sunidhi has collaborated with Rahul for two of the scores in the album. “We finished the recording in one day,” says the musician who has a date with suburban Asansol in January.

It is important for Rahul to reach out to different kinds of audiences. A year ago, a Santoor Fan Club was started by a girl in New Foundland, Canada, which is growing in numbers from across the world. “It’s a young bunch. They have put up 11 pages of messages in the guest book on how the santoor has influenced their lives.”

Rahul is touched, as it was his grandfather Pandit Umadutt Sharma and then his father Shiv Kumar Sharma who brought the santoor, the folk dulcimer of the Kashmir valley, into the spotlight. “I owe it to them (the santoor fans) to keep composing and playing my kind of music,” he says softly.

Not that he needs an excuse. “Times have changed. When my father started playing, there was one radio channel, not even Doordarshan. So who do you take your work to? So many avenues have opened up now. This is the age of multi-tasking. If I can both play and sing, I’ll do it all. ”

And even when it comes to playing, Rahul insists that his collaborations with other genres of music do not affect his classical base. “I enjoy listening to different kinds of music (Beatles, Pink Floyd, Sting, Enigma, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Ustad Amir Khan...). When I play at a Dover Lane Music Conference in Calcutta or the Sawai Gandharva Music Festival in Pune, I know what audience I am playing for. But you are trained so strongly that even if you are composing for a different audience, that does not hamper your base.”

So Rahul will take a speedier trek down the path-breaking ways of his father, who composed for Hindi films with Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. “My music for (the Hrithik-Rani-Kareena starrer) Mujhse Dosti Karoge was well-received and I was offered Hum Tum by Yashraj Films. But I had to refuse as they brought the film forward. That would have clashed with my concert dates. Doing a film takes at least five months. That’s why my father could not do more than seven-eight films all his life.”

l said and done, when he has to choose, Shiv Kumar Sharma’s 34-year-old son sides strictly with the santoor.