Kshitij Shilpa Rao | en

Shilpa Ray is, through no fault of her own, one of our unsung great artists. Having made her bones with the gothic Sturm und Drang of Beat The Devil and moving forward to the blues erosion of “…and The Happy Hookers” Shilpa Ray has been, armed only with an incomparable voice and harmonium haunted by the ghosts of dead lovers, perpetually crying in the wind, hoisting both middle fingers in the general direction of god. It’s not a life a wise man would choose. Shilpa Ray kicks against the pricks but the pricks keep coming. But, again, what can you...

This up-and-coming singer who has lent her voice to songs such as ‘Saiyan Re’ (‘Salam-E-Ishq’), ‘Tose Naina Lage’ (R 16;Anwar’) and ‘Woh Ajnabi’ (‘The Train’) is definitely on the roll. She won the Screen award for Best Femal Singer for "Khuda jaane" from Bachna E Hasseno. It was her father, S.V. Rao, who initiated Shilpa into the world of music. A post-graduate in music, he gave Shilpa the grounding needed to be a fine singer. But it was Hariharan, however, who discovered the innate potential in her and encouraged her to fine tune her skills. And fine tune her skills...