Shreya Ghoshal on releasing her very first single Dhadkane Azad Hain

Shreya Ghoshal doesn’t need an introduction. From Bairi Piya in Devdas to the recently-released Hans Mat Pagle from Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, the singer has now clocked 15 years in the playback industry. What better way to mark the occasion than to do something that she’s never done before. On a breezy evening, Shreya gets candid about foraying into independent music production with her first single, Dhadkane Azad Hain, that features her in the music video. Excerpts...

Why did it take you so long to come out with a single?

I have no idea (chuckles) There’s always something that will happen at a time when it’s supposed to happen. And, I think I have only focused on the fact that I have to do music full-heartedly. Films have been the primary source of music in our country and I have always been connected to Bollywood music. So there has never been such a big need for me to think, ‘what next?’ and honestly that should not be the way for an artiste to think. I think now I’m at a certain point in my life where that is happening all the time. I’m doing concerts, I’m doing things over and over again. I felt I needed a change in the role I take up in life. I could have done a single in any good film, or done it with a label but I thought that I would do it myself and I’ll know a few things in the process. I’m kind of re-discovering this whole process of making music out of the boundaries of a film and story. In the past I’ve done one album which was purely a ghazal album and this time I thought I would do something which is not so classical, or very niche in its sound. It’s more of the kind of music that people like to hear.

You’ve never featured in a music video in all these years. Why now?

I think I was just too shy earlier. Or maybe I wasn’t too sure. I was just thinking that you need to have a voice and that is all that’s needed for putting across your emotions but when it comes to independent songs, then the visuals come in play and everyone said that I must feature in the video and so, finally it made sense.

The teaser of the video has a very Chandni meets Gerua kind of feel, with the flowing sari and snowcapped mountains in the backdrop. Did you ever have hidden aspirations of being a Yash Raj heroine? Any plans of acting now?

(Laughs out loud) See that is the precise question that I’ve answered through all these years and now, I’m in a situation where I’ll be asked this again for a very long time, because now I’ve done it. But I think it makes more sense if I do it in my videos, in the nature of my own work. Then again, I would say, never say never. I’d like to keep that purely exclusive to my videos because I think acting is a very difficult job. It needs a lot of focus and concentration and honestly, I don’t have that much time to shift my focus to it completely. And I can’t do something half-heartedly. I like to give time to whatever I pick up.

Can you tell us something about the next single?

The second single, which will be released in the next few weeks, is very different from this one. It will have a little classical touch to it. If I really have to give a genre to the next one, it would be a modern symphonic thumri.