Remo
sings Gayatri Mantra
Sandesh Prabhudesai
16 January 2003
Remo
has done it again, this time by singing the Gayatri Mantra,
but in his own fusionist style and with the spiritual flavour.
Thanks to the Times Music, India's English pop singer has
now gifted yet another spiritual album to the music lovers
- 'Symphonic Chants'.
Following his first 'spiritual' album 'India Beyond' in December
2001, Remo now sings Gayatri Mantra as well as the
equally famous Jai Jagdish Hare, in both Indian and
Western domains.
Symphonic orchestral sections, Indian raags, choral passages,
folk interludes, Spanish guitars, all seamlessly weave in
and out of each other in a soothing, elevating tapestry of
sound, in these two tracks of 18-minute long each.
"It took me a lot of courage to dare sing in Sanskrit.
In spite of all efforts to meticulously learn the correct
pronunciation and getting it rechecked from experts, however,
I am sure my good old accent from Goa has managed to slip
through. I take comfort in the thought that the Gods in heaven
love us Goans too, and understand us as well as they do learned
Sanskrit scholars," says Remo Fernandes.
As usual, Remo has played all the instruments on the album
himself, except the tabla by Dayesh Kossambe, besides handling
the recording and mixing engineering on his own. To sing Jai
Jagdish Hare, he has picked up 14-year old Goan Samiksha
Bhobe while sang himself the Gayatri Mantra.
"These are two of the most beautiful and meaningful
Hindu devotional chants ever, and they came into my life in
quiet, soft, magical ways", says Remo, while narrating
how he and his France-born wife Michelle experienced it separately
in their Siolim village house, when it reached them from the
temples early morning.
They bought several copies of the CDs, and played them continuously
everywhere, in the house, in the bedroom, in the offices,
in the cars… and eventually decided to record his own
versions to try and put across a little of the mysteriously
peaceful mood, he narrates it further.
For Remo, it is not a mere experimentation but the music
of his soul. After entertaining the adults, teenagers and
children alike with foot-tapping hits with meaningful messages
for two decades that made their bodies dance and minds think,
this is a successful attempt to touch everyone's soul, undoubtedly.
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