Shilpa Rao gets candid about changing her name from Apeksha at the age of 15-16

Navigating two names and many worlds Shilpa Rao has existed in a state of contradiction mdash classically trained yet instinctively contemporary intensely disciplined yet emotionally fluid present everywhere in popular memory and almost invisible as a personality Her voice has travelled further than her face from the haunting minimalism of Tose Naina in Anwar 2007 to Chaleya from Jawan 2023 Sitting down for middayrsquos The Bombay Film Story the National Awardwinning singer speaks about choosing music as a way of life rather than hobbyExcerpts from the interviewYou were born Apeksha Rao So how did Apeksha become ShilpaShilpa Rao I was actually born Shilpa Thatrsquos what everyone at home always called me Apeksha came later when I went to school and had to fill out official forms So that became the name on my school records and 10th standard certificate But when I got my passport made everything officially became Shilpa Rao again Apeksha literally means expectation It felt heavy Irsquove always been someone who prefers being in the background doing things at my own pace and not carrying the burden of expectations Shilpa felt lighterYou hail from Jamshedpur That city has produced Imtiaz Ali R Madhavan Priyanka Chopra and Abhishek Chaubey Whatrsquos it about that cityRao Jamshedpur is a unique place Itrsquos a Tata township and most people there are professionals mdash engineers doctors teachers The only flex parents have is education That creates an environment where ideas matter You have XLRI Xavier School of Management Loyola School film clubs and theatre culture We grew up watching classical maestros like Parween Sultanaji and Ustad Bismillah Khan sahib There were no phones no distractions just conversations Thatrsquos what shaped usWas music internal or external to your homeRao It was my first education before the alphabet My brother Anurag is the better musician hersquos a jazz pianist He knew what he wanted at three years old I didnrsquot want to do anything But music became my safety blanket My father always said lsquoThere are two lives mdash one with art and music and one without Always choose the one with artrsquo Even if you donrsquot make a career out of it it enriches your life Music becomes a friendYour father S Venkat Rao trained you Was he a taskmasterRao He could be strict Once he tore down posters of Led Zeppelin and Leonardo DiCaprio in my room because I hadnrsquot practised for a week He said lsquoThe point is you didnrsquot even realise you hadnrsquot practisedrsquo What truly made him happy wasnrsquot success or awards but my desire to learn He believed music isnrsquot a hobby Once I had said music is my hobby and he was furious His thinking was that anything that would deter me from pursuing my music should not exist in my life Your father isnrsquot a professional musician yet he trained you deeplyRao He is an engineer he also has an MA in music He heard Ustad Amir Khan live in 1972 and it transformed him He believed in being an educated musicianAt 13 you met Hariharan That was your first Bombay film story wasnrsquot itRao Yes we were visiting Mumbai on a holiday My mother got his landline number through a friend and called him It was my birthday and he invited us home No industry connection mdash just kindness I sang a ghazal he had composed in Raag Durga written by Bashir Badr He corrected me line by line teaching me the ebb and flow of the ghazal right there For a 13yearold it was magical At that time my stand changed That meeting made me start taking my music seriously