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].