Sonu Nigam on Society Achievers’ September cover: Surprise?

Kirti Azad has been there. If cricket and politics can make you a society achiever, why can’t singing? Society Achievers continues the legacy of late Nari Hira’s Lana (La for Lalu Bajaj and Na for Nari) Publishing Company, which has undergone several changes since its formation in the early 1970s, as Lana Publishing Company, Magna Publishing Company, HiBa. Hi for Hira and Ba for Bajaj, his partner, a swimming champion and the man behind Bandra’s Otter’s Club. HiBa not only launched magazines like Stardust, Society, Savvy and Showtime, to name the four Ss (Aces). Of these, I had occasion to contribute to Showtime.

HiBa diversified into making video feature films in the mid-80s, and made some 16 of them. Yours truly had the ‘honour’ to play a Sindhi (the community to which Hira belonged) in his film Scandal, a choice I made, not the director, and I put on the required accent too, with help from spending 10 years of college education in a Sindhi-run college. In the new Millennium, he diversified into feature films, with little success. Society has a new moniker, Magnate Publishing Pvt. Ltd. Society Achievers is edited by Andrea Costa Bir, a low profile, approachable woman. Hira died two months ago, at the age of 86, but his team, lead by old faithful, Ashok Dhamankar, continues to publish his titles.

Sonu Nigam, Siddhant Gill, Dr (Hon) Anusha Srinivasan Iyer (PR Manager) and Andrea CostaBir, Editor, Ashok Dhamankar and Simran

Sonu Nigam landed in Mumbai from Delhi as an 18-year-old, who wanted to carve out a career in singing. Both his parents, Agam Kumar Nigam and Shobha Nigam, were singers (his mother is no more) and there was a kind of vacuum, with the passing away of the giants Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar, in the 80s. After a brief struggle, he reveals, “I have been told that I have been loved by people of three generations, since 1995, when ‘Sa Re Ga Ma’, the show I hosted, was telecast for the first time.” Two songs that probably personify his entire 6,000 song catalogue are, ‘You are my Soniya’, from Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham and ‘Har ghadee badal rahee hae roop zindagee, Chhaanv hae kabhee, kabhee hae dhoop zindagee, Har pal yahaan, jee bhar jeeyo, Jo hae samaa, kal ho na ho,’ the title track from the hit film, composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, with lyrics by Javed Akhtar. The song earned him his only National Film Award, his second and last Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer, as well as a third IIFA Award for Best Male Playback Singer.

A great devotee of Mohammed Rafi, Sonu Nigam will be performing on RafiSaahab’s birth Centenary in Mumbai. He was four years old when he sang RafiSaahab’s classic from Hum Kiseese Kum Naheen, ‘Kya hua tera vaadaa’. Besides singing for hundreds of films, Nigam has sung songs for social causes, such as "Tik Plastic" and "Mumbai River Anthem". Nigam was the first Indian singer to launch an NFT. NFT stands for non-fungible token, which is a digital asset that represents art or other content stored on a blockchain. NFTs are unique and can't be replaced, making them popular with collectors. NFT series, which included his single "Hall of Fame", and pages from his personal diary.

Sonu, a Padma Shri (the first step in a hierarchy of civilian honours bestowed by the government of India) now lives in Dubai. Time was when he termed the practice of ‘Azaan’ in India as religious ‘Gundagardi’. The singer later deleted his Twitter handle, after facing a backlash in 2017, saying that it was a nuisance. However, Sonu has expressed his gratitude to UAE government for granting him the Dubai golden visa, and said that Dubai, an Arab Emirate, has been like his second home, notwithstanding the Azaan, a call to prayer given five times a day by the mosque’s muezzin.

Sonu’s attire for the cover launch occasion might have appeared strange to the uninitiated, but made a great fashion statement. One learns that it might have been designed by the Delhi-based, much sought-after designer, Asma Gulzar, who was present on the occasion, probably the only person in the Mumbai suburban resto-bar, after Sonu, who made people’s faces turn.

Compère Simran, dressed in a pink, tight fitting dress, apparently thought she won’t be paid if she does not go really over the top, and went completely gagagagagaga a hundred times in one hour. At the end of a two-hour session, as they made for the exit, the audience was treated to a ‘peg’ of pure, un-distilled, fresh lime and soda.