Our beloved 'Basanti' is all set to debut as a singer on Janmashtami, with a full-fledged eight track bhajan album 'Gopala Ka Samarpan' at the Iskcon temple in Mumbai, on Aug 13. “The entire credit goes to Narayan Agarwal, a Krishna bhakt, who is known for bringing out the best of Jagjit Singh and Anup Jalota bhajans. When Narayanji asked me to sing eight tracks for his album, I was hesitant to sing as I am not a professional singer, and didn't want to do anything in a half-hearted manner. But he insisted that I should listen to all the compositions first, before taking the final call.”
A professional, she practiced for almost 6 months, and was trained by Guruji Gagan Singh. Hema got so involved in the project, she even wanted to incorporate the Braj language as a prelude to all the tracks and requested Ravindra Jain to write down a few lines. “You don't get to share platform with legends like Pandit Jasraj ji, Hariparsadji, Rajan Sajan ji and Shiv Kumar Sharmaji that often. And when such stalwarts have composed the tunes, then it was a tremendous pressure on me to perform well. Besides every track is differently composed, keeping the mood and situations in mind,” Hema said.
Hema sang for the first time in 1977 for Kishore Kumar in a Bengali album 'Gun Gun Kore Je Mon'. It released during Durga Puja which had become a chartbuster.
