Ranbir Kapoor and Konkona Sensharma in Wake Up Sid

Seldom has there been such an instance where one song has singlehandedly changed the career of a singer. Till a year back, Kavita Seth was taking singing classes and performing at classical music programmes. But then Iktara happened and the Wake Up Sid song transformed Kavita completely. t2 caught up with the singer, as her new song in Raajneeti — Mora piya moh se bolat nahin (Trance mix) — is making waves.

You have been singing on AIR and Doordarshan for many years. You have also travelled across the world with your Sufi songs. But you have hardly sung in Bollywood before Wake Up Sid...

All I can say is that good things happen after a long time. If you sing thousands of songs and you have a big list with you, that’s not necessarily useful. You should just sing one or two songs and they should be the best. That’s my motto — do little but do well. Jo bhi karo durust karo. After I sang the song Mujhe mat roko in Gangster, I got a lot of offers from Bollywood. But I never wanted to sing just about anything. The lyrics have to be meaningful and the composition has to be nice. I preferred to concentrate on my own Sufi singing. Then I met Amit Trivedi and Wake Up Sid happened.

Did you realise while singing Iktara that it would become so big?

Nahin nahin. Just that Amit had given the scratch for me to practise a month before the recording. So I would hum it all the time. I knew it was catchy. Even my sons would tell me that the composition is really beautiful and touches the soul directly. During the recording, all of us were only trying to make it sound as good as possible. Besides Amit and me, the director Ayan Mukerji and lyricist Amitabha Bhattacharya were there. None of us knew that Iktara would become so big, though.

Kavita Seth

What do you think worked so much for the song?

Many things came together. My voice went very well with the style of the song and it is to

Amit’s credit that he put everything together so well. Also, the way the song was picturised in the film. And even the placement of the song, the moment in the movie when it came.

How is playback singing different from singing in a show?

There’s a lot of difference. When we perform in a show, there is a direct connection with the audience. As if I am interacting with them. Also, I can be as free as I want to, while performing live. In a recording studio, we are told about the situation in the film and so the mood and expressions are generated on the basis of that. We get the results of playback singing after quite some time. But sometimes the results are nice, like with Iktara.

How has your life changed after Iktara?

Ummm, thoda busy ho gayee hoon. The number of recordings has gone up. There is something all the time. I had never sung for ads before. But now I have done that too (Ab kya darna for Kent Water Purifier). And that was a different experience altogether.

Who all do you want to work with?

I would like to work with Rahmanji for sure. I just recorded a song with Vishal-Shekhar for Shah Rukh Khan’s Ra.One. I would love to work with everyone. You never know what happens when and how. Wake Up Sid was being composed by Shankar Ehsaan Loy and Amit Trivedi got just this one song and see what Iktara has done.