Did You Know That Shankar Mahadevan Started Playing Veena At The Age Of 5? Check Out The Journey Of Musical Genius

Ace music composer and singer Shankar Mahadevan is one of the most talented people in the music industry. He has sung over 7,000 songs across languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, and Marathi. He started singing in the year 1993 and started composing for Bollywood films along with his partners, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa around the year 1999. Ever since then he has composed for more than 75 projects, both solo and as the Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy trio. As the singer-composer completes more than two decades in this industry, let’s take a look at Shankar Mahadevan’s journey.

First encounter with Music

Singer Shankar Mahadevan says that his first encounter with music was when he was around three and a half years old. He said, “I saw an instrument lying there, and I straight away started playing the instrument.” In fact, the singer was so blessed that he actually played a song on the instrument the first time he ever held one. Later he said he expressed interest in learning the Veena because “it looks beautiful”, and actually started playing the instrument at the age of five.

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Job v/s Music

Although Shankar was always inclined towards music, it wasn’t his first choice of job. Shankar was born and brought up in Chembur, Mumbai, and like any other middle-class Indian, wanted to have a stable secure job. Thus, he studied Software Engineering and started working in a company. Meanwhile, he also used to get calls from studios and shows for dubbing and singing.

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However, Shankar stated that the sheer “joy”, “peace of mind” and “involvement” he had while going to the studio was just not present in his other job. But quitting didn’t come easy. That’s when his wife Sangeeta entered his life. Shankar quotes the one thing she said that changed his life was, “There can be a million engineers, but I think there can be only one Shankar Mahadevan.” And that’s when he quit his job and began his musical journey.

Rise to fame and accolades

Although Shankar started working in the industry in the early 1990s, his rise to fame began with his 1998 album Breathless which blew away the mind of everyone in the music industry. He then started composing music as Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. He also started his own academy called, ‘Shankar Mahadevan Academy’ where people can learn various forms of music from Classical to Bollywood. Until now, composer Shankar Mahadevan has won four national awards, a Padma Shri for his contributions to Film Music and many more accolades.

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