Guru Dutt daughter joins pop brigade

Speaking about her slightly late entry into the world of music when everyone else seems to be cutting albums left and right, Nina claims she has had no time to do so until now. “Marriage and motherhood took up most of my time, and music is something which requires single-minded dedication and time, which I couldn’t spare till my children grew up a bit. I’ve always loved music, had formal training in it, though it’s not a classical base that I have.”

Nina says the lyrics for her album have been written by Mumbai-based copywiter Manoj Triparia as she wanted a young, contemporary touch. Others in the team are Naushad, and her teacher Rajendra Kandalgaonkar. Under Tutun Roy’s direction, the songs were recorded at Trinity, Mumbai.

“They are basically frothy, light numbers, some romantic, some folksy. There’s an experimental number called Baarish which is very different from the standard definiton of a song. This song stretches up to a point without relief and then climbs half a scale higher. Then there’s Friends are forever, which describes the constant nature of friendship in an ever-changing world, Pal or moments of life; there’s even a beach and rap number.”

Being a celebrity kid has its advantages and pitfalls. But how does one get over losing a father at the age of two and mother at 10? “My brothers and I got over it quite fast, and for this I must give full credit to my uncle — producer-director Atma Ram — and his wife. We went to live with them after my mother expired. They had a little daughter, we blended in wonderfully, and it was a blissful, normal, non-filmi childhood.”

About her parents, she says, “I don’t remember Dad at all, since he passed away, when I was two. All I know of him is that he was a legend. I heard and saw him only through his films, his family and friends. Memories of mom are misty too, but we remember spending our evenings with her, popping in and out of her room, as she went about her riyaaz. She’d hired a teacher for me, but that was all the link I had with the world of music then. I never accompanied her to recordings and shows. We were kept away from the glamour world and spent a lot of time in my naani’s home at Linking Road, playing the usual childhood games, climbing badaam trees and so on,” she says.

“An outstanding memory of childhood is one of the time we spent with my mother somewhere near Mathura. The details have blurred but I remember sitting on an open terrace with my brothers and her. She was a beautiful woman, my mother: generous, spontaneous, affectionate, someone who truly loved people.”

Regarding the inevitable comparisons with a singer of her mother’s awesome calibre, she says, “I guess I can take them in my stride. But I have a very bass kind of voice, unlike her. I sang quite a few of her numbers, including Waqt Ne Kiya and Chale Aao in school and college, and when you sing someone else’s numbers it’s natural to try and sound like them, but I am a different voice altogether.”