It all began with a call from Hariharan. He had called me to say that there was a [good] singer from Delhi, and asked if he could send him to me. I told him to do so. This young boy had a great persona and voice, and was in awe of me. He’d often say that he dreamt about the fact that I would make his debut album. I would tell him [it was impossible] as I was busy doing jingles at the time, and albums then were not [given importance]. Soon, I started to call him [to record] the jingles I was working on. That’s how people heard of KK.

One day, I collated his jingles and took them to Sony, [suggesting] that they consider signing him on. They liked his voice, and asked me to compose his album. Initially, I refused, but they said that if I wouldn’t [compose] it, they were not sure of getting him on board. So, I decided to go ahead, and that’s how Pal (1999) was made.