Shankar Mahadevan: Pandit Shivkumar Sharma's music didn’t make masses feel disconnected

A still from Dekha ek khwab

When you are handling a mainstream subject like a Bollywood movie, there is always a discussion around classy music and massy music. Creating a piece that satisfies both, the maestro and the masses, is not easy because the latter may not understand Indian classical music. But Pandit Shivkumar Sharma had the ability to do that. If you see his work in Silsila [1981] and Chandni [1989], you can see that the classical music that he used had depth, but wasn't so difficult that the masses felt disconnected.

In a mainstream song like Dekha ek khwab from Silsila, there is a beautiful santoor section. He raised the bar of Indian music, and was an example for a musician like me who wanted to imbibe [those qualities] and use Indian classical music in mainstream compositions. Not many people know that he also played the tabla in so many legendary songs that were sung by Lataji [Mangeshkar].

His contribution to film music is only a fraction of all that he has achieved. The santoor was not traditionally known as an Indian classical instrument. The Kashmiri folk instrument was [alien] to the Indian classical music world, and he popularised it all over the world. Indian classical music became popular via the santoor, because of him. He made people take the fact that the instrument was associated with Indian classical music, for granted. With the word santoor, no other name except Pandit Shivkumar Sharma can be associated. He will be remembered forever.

As told to Sonia Lulla