music to the ears: Saheba at Beldih Club, Jamshedpur, on Sunday. Telegraph picture

She’s a 19-year-old beauty who rejected an acting offer from TV diva Ekta Kapoor. She knew that her place was not in front of a camera but behind a mike at the recording studio.

Dulcet-voiced Jamshedpur girl Saheba has a mature head on young shoulders. And as she gets her first entry into Bollywood’s playback industry with IPS officer-turned-filmmaker Y.P. Singh’s untitled film on bureaucracy, she knows she made the right choice in giving up being a dolled-up telly bahu.

“Music has been my first priority in life. This break marks my baby steps in the music industry. I am not allowed to reveal anything but the director has assured me that I would sing the title song of his film. I am elated as becoming a playback singer has been my dream,” Saheba, who is currently pursuing economics from a distance learning institute, told The Telegraph during a chat at Beldih Club.

Singh, who’s seen as a whistle-blower after his novel Carnage of Angels (2003), which exposed the rot in the police force, also made it into a well-intentioned film titled Kya Yahi Sach Hai. It tanked at the box office.

But as it happens often in Bollywood, the songs of a film take on a life of their own. Famously, the Abhishek Bachchan-Sonam Kapoor starrer Delhi 6 was a dud but Rekha Bharadwaj’s song Sasural genda phool — music by A.R. Rahman — a superhit.

Saheba, an alumnus of St Mary’s School and a student of Jamshedpur’s renowned music mentor Chandrakant Apte who died last year, has sung a couple of songs for telefilms too.

On Friday, she also created history of sorts in her hometown by winning Sa Re Ga Ma, a music contest hosted by Tribal Cultural Society, Tata Steel, among around 500 contestants of which 18 were shortlisted for the final round. Industrialist S.K. Behera of RSB Group was so enthused by her talent that in an impromptu gesture, he handed a cheque of Rs 1.01 lakh, biggest ever prize money for such an event.

So what did she sing?

“Lataji’s Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai from Guide,” she smiled.

And what made her turn down a likely opportunity from Balaji Telefilms? “Ekta Kapoor had interviewed me online and offered me a role. I rejected it as I think I am only meant for singing. I did not even bother to ask the name of the serial,” said Saheba.

It is not that this girl has not known failure. She was a contestant at the TV reality show Indian Idol in 2010, but couldn’t make much headway. But this daughter of computer engineer M.R.A. Khan stuck to her guns, er, gana.

“She has got a such a fine, melodious voice. I’ll bet that in the coming two or three years, she will make her mark in the Hindi music industry. She has already sung for my telefilm on female infanticide, which turned out beautifully,” said Shiv Kumar, who came to know about Singh’s decision to take on Saheba for her Bollywood debut.

So will she become another Shilpa Rao, also a Jamshedpur girl who made it big in Bollywood as a songstress? Rajdeep Chatterjee, another teen singing sensation of the city, recently made his debut in Salman Khan’s smash hit Bodyguard.

Incidentally, both Shilpa and Rajdeep, like Saheba, were students of Apte.