Sandeep Chowta always dreamt that his music would be heard around the world some day. In 2008, that dream will come true beyond his wildest expectations when one of the tunes he?s helping to compose becomes the theme song of the Beijing Olympics.

Chowta?s winning streak began earlier this year when he headed for New Jersey to work with semi-classical musician Sanjay Chitale on a jazz album. Chowta wanted to put together an album that would have tracks by some of the world?s top jazz musicians ? Chitale thought it was a tall order.

But Chowta got his way and soon he was working with jazz greats like John Scofield, Bunny Brunel, Eddie Daniels and Jay Oliver on American Passage. That?s when he hooked up with Jay Oliver and Ricky Gannaway of AO (the ancient Polynesian word for light). Says Chowta: ?Ricky really liked what I was doing and Jay and I started exchanging notes. They wanted to create a bank of world music. That?s how I became AO?s third member.? Chowta admits he was terribly excited during the first meeting and kept shooting one photograph after another. ?My studio is full of black and white photographs,? he smiles.

For the director, the next few years will be busy ones. Chowta is heading to China next year to study the Hunan tradition of music. ?The Olympics is about nations coming together to compete, so the music for the event has to be a melting pot of different cultures. Though the theme is predominantly Chinese, the people in China want a world music sensibility ? a conglomeration of cultures right from India and Ireland to Africa,? says Chowta.

What?s on the agenda for Chowta and AO in the coming years? They?ve already recorded a four-and-a-half minute rough draft of the theme song which will have to be refined and, finally, approved by the Olympic committee. Besides that, they have to put together other tracks that will be used on other occasions while the Games are on.

How is work divided between the AO threesome? That varies from time to time and score to score. Oliver plays the piano and the keyboard and he also composes. The second member of the team, Gannaway, is a vocalist and composer and plays the mandolin. Chowta plays the guitar, keyboard and is also a vocalist besides being a composer.

For Chowta, it?s a great feeling being part of a group that?s going to create history. ?I am glad I got to be the one. I want the world to know our music ? every sound, every harkat, every modulation. A Westerner is always left spellbound by our music, so we are taking the raw form and moulding it to his taste.?

Chowta, along with Oliver and Gannaway, who are visiting India for the first time, is looking for children who sing in choirs ? language being no barrier. ?We want to create a combination of sounds from the world. There has to be an Indianness to the album,? he says.

It has been a long journey for the young musician-turned-composer who used to sneak out of the house to play as a substitute guitarist in a hotel band. He left home with barely Rs 5,000 to last till his first pay packet and a dream of setting tinseltown on fire. ?I wanted my music to be heard and did my rounds with my demos till I reached a stage where I was frustrated. But then I believed in my music and in what I was doing,? he says.

Chowta?s first score was for the Telugu film, Chandralekha, which put him on track to the big time. His luck ran out, however, when the music company that was supposed to bring out two of his albums, Maya and Don?t Marry, shut down. The lean phase continued when Dus was shelved after Mukul Anand?s death. Says Chowta, ?The reaction from people around me was that I would eventually fall back on my family because I came from a wealthy background. And I was determined not to prove them right.?

A dejected Chowta moved down South, where director Krishna Vamsi took him on for the Telugu film, Ninne Pelladatha. This Nagarjuna film had a youthful feel, and Chowta scored big-time with his fresh tunes. His first break in Bollywood was Ram Gopal Varma?s Satya, where he did the background score. He soon became a part of the Varma camp, and enjoyed a string of hits in the form of Koun!, Mast, Jungle and Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya, soon becoming known as the ?Ramu guy?. The tags came thick and fast. Next he came to be known as the ?item number guy? with hits like Khallas (Company), Babuji (Dum) and Laila Laila (Samay). And when involved in the Channel [V] Popstar hunt, he was known as the guy discovering new talent.

Not content with these tags, Chowta wanted to try his hand at direction. He says: ?I started shooting my own music videos. One thing led to another and now I?m working on a film to be released next year.? He?s tight-lipped about the script, but says it belongs to the ?eerie genre?.

Chowta has had his own brush with the supernatural. ?Often, when I was up at nights working in Chitale?s massive house in New Jersey, I?d get these bizarre images,? says Chowta. And those would be? ?An old lady going round and round on her skates in the huge dining room. There was also this presence I used to feel behind me when working on the computer, late at night, with only the screen lit up.?

Chowta has also completed a 10-minute documentary called Deadend on drug abuse. And he promises that in all the 10 minutes of the film, boredom is something you wouldn?t have to contend with. But he does not intend to don the cape of direction permanently. For as he always emphasises, ?Everything for me is an extension of music.?

Photograph by Prem Singh