The singer who jammed with a bird

Masakali guy Mohit Chauhan jams with birds, feels for the dying tiger, and connects to the globe-trekker in his debut solo album, Fitoor

We knew him as the guy who sang Dooba dooba rehta hoon aankhon mein teri, with the other members of his band, Silk Route, playing their instruments submerged in water.


And then he disappeared. Masakali from Dilli 6 brought singer Mohit Chauhan back on our radar, and this time he's out with his debut solo album, Fitoor (a kind of madness).

He's been composing tracks for as long as he can remember, and some of them, like Main Hoon Badal, that feature in here, first struck chord with him seven years ago.

"I just had the first line of that song in me without the rest of the lyrics. When I saw Fitoor taking shape, I sat and wrote the rest of it."

Why do travellers make their way into your songs?
Having grown up in Himachal Pradesh, I have loved trekking. In the mountains, you meet travellers who have stories to tell. While in college, my friend and I used to call these guys who seem to lose themselves in nature, "Babaji". So, the track Babaji discusses one of them.

When I was strumming that song in a meadow one day, a bird started chirping alongside, strangely matching my every note. We jammed together for a full two minutes, and you have a recorded version of this in Babaji's opening.

Uff Yeh Nazara came about when I was stranded in an old, wooden house high up in the mountains once. It rained continuously for three days. When you watch the clouds come down and envelop you like that, how can you not exclaim, "Uff, yeh nazara!"u00a0

Do the songs go on to become metaphors?
Most of them draw from my own personal journey. In Uff Yeh Nazara though, when you notice the chaand and the chakor, you know I am talking about love and of two people deeply attached to each other.

Jeene De seems like the odd track...
It addresses the issue of tiger conservation. It is, in a way, talking of things that are soon going to disappear, and so, the tiger is symbolic.

Fitoor is available from Universal at all leading music stores for Rs 150

To watch Fitoor's video, log on to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ocKLgiNFZs