Shreya Ghoshal launches Bengali album “Mon Kemoner Station”

Shreya Ghoshal launches Bengali album “Mon Kemoner Station” in Kolkata After Nine Years
Kolkata, September 1, 2012 (Washington Bangla Radio): She is considered to have the best voice in the nation. She has won millions of hearts across the world with her charmed voice. She has sung in more languages than one can imagine and with equal comfort. She has won uncountable awards for her songs. She is the most talked of the bong beauties in the glamour world. She made yet another beautiful contribution to the world of music on Monday for which she had kept Bengali music lovers waiting for nine long years.

Shreya Ghoshal launched her latest Bengali album, ‘Mon kemoner Station’ on 3rd September in Kolkata ending a wait of over nine years. “I regret not being able to do a Bengali music album for such a long period. Every year I wanted to do a Bengali album but the right connections were not happening. Perhaps only today was destined as that auspicious day”, said the singing sensation on the occasion of the album launch.

“I was more eager to work on my own album as working on movie songs never gave me the feeling that the songs are of my own. So when the opportunity came I just grabbed it.” Shreya said.

“I was waiting for a long time to step apart from the regular stuff like commercial movie songs and all that I have been doing for years and do something I regularly don’t. This album gave me that very opportunity. Even the themes of the songs are new. The subject of every song is different as I did not want to stick to the regular stuff like love and relationship between couples. The songs in this album deal with freedom, friendship, childhood and other subjects. One song also has the city of Kolkata as its subject.” she added.

When the occasion is about the release of puja album then the Puja itself cannot remain out of discussion. When WBRi asked Shreya about her puja plans, she kept the reply short, “I will have all kinds of fun one is supposed to have during puja. I shall visit the pandals, have bhogs and have a blast during the puja.”

Later when Washington Bangla Radio asked Usha Uthup to identify the USP of the album, she said, “Compostion is the USP of the album. It is the equal effort of the four hands, i.e. Shreya, Joy, Srijato and the producing company Asha Audio. So it’s a perfect square effort which is going to be the key to the album’s success.”

The album has eight songs and each is of a different flavor and is not bound by any pattern. Joy Sarkar, one the leading composers from the industry has composed and arranged the songs while the Srijato has penned them.

When asked about how the trio came up together to make such an exceptional album, Shreya said, “I worked with Joy for the song ‘Khola chithi’ from the film ‘Jodi ekdin’ when I found out that our wave-length matched excellently. We had a beautiful chemistry. It was at that time we decided to work together on an album. It was Joy who roped in Srijato. Working with them had been a beautiful experience and the time spent on working together for this album was like a dream journey.”

Shreya seemed to be a bit confused when asked to name her favourite pick from the eight songs. “Every song of this album is a gem. It’s very difficult to pick one song as the favorite.” she said.

Joy Sarkar also rained praises upon Shreya and other members of his team. “It is completely a team work. Sreya wanted to do a different type of album and we have done it that way because of our team work. My programmers Ashish and Sabuj helped a lot. So did my sound engineer Goutam Ghosh. I am now so dependent on Goutam that I cannot event breathe without him.”

Joy shared his experience on working on the album in an excellent way. “We had a lot of fun working together. Just like one of the songs in the album, i.e. ‘ja khushi kor’ we did ‘ja khusi’ during the making of the album but we never lost our co-ordination.”, he said.

He also mentioned Sumit Ramchandram, the guitarist of international fame, has contributed immensely to the album and it was made possible for Sankha, Joy’s lead guitarist.

The album bearing such a unusual name like “Mon Kemoner Station” was bound to make everybody inquisitive about the source of the name. The answer to this particular query came from Srijato who has penned the songs. “Every song may be different in flavor but all of them will make our hearts react in some way. So it was decided to have this name for the album. It was coincidence that we all had the same name in mind for the album.” he said.

Apart from the the trio related to the album, a good number of personalities from music industry were present at the occasion – Raghav Chatterjee, Monomoy, Lopamudra and Usha Uthup to name a few among them.

Usha Uthup’s studio was used to record the album and having witnessed the entire making of the album she declared herself to have become very close to the album. Like everyone else she too seemed to be falling short of words while praising Shreya. ‘Shreya is a gem of Indian music. No one in the country can ever surpass Shreya’s talent. She has worked in every South Indian language and all her works are brilliant.”

“These words are not empty. It is genuinely from my heart” she mentioned.
The press conference was followed by a live performance by Shreya Ghoshal with Joy Sarkar accompanying her. Shreya, as usual, kept the audience captivated in a trance weaved by her magical voice. Each of he songs ‘Dyekho’, ‘Bandhu Kotha Rakhish’, ‘Monkemoner Station’ & ‘Chithhira Chhilo Elomelo’ seemed to nudge emotions and the significance of the naming became quite clear.

Asha Audio once again showed courage to come up with ambitious project braving the piracy which has plagued the music industry. Mahua Lahiri, Director of Asha Audio, later spoke exclusively to WBRi. “If everyone get demoralized then how can be this music industry be saved. We would stand firm and continue to dispose our service to the music industry. The only way to save it is to raise voice against piracy and honestly discourage it.” she said.

On being asked to pick her favorite from the host of puja albums released by Asha Audio this year, she said “Every album has its own quality and it is really tough to pick one from them. Moreover very album is my own baby and I have equal love for them. But still I think Shreya’s album will remain a step ahead as Shreya now has international fame.”

Asha Audio has not confined themselves to music releases. They also had stepped into film production last year and their very first venture, ‘Rang Milanti’ was a grand success. Mahua Lahiri mentioned that they are going to reveal their next movie only after the puja and hinted that they have many surprises in stock.

Her puja album is surely going to add more flavors to the festive season.

washingtonbanglaradio.com by Jyoti Prakash Mandal – Tue, 09/04/2012 – 16:18