What happens when a Falguni Shah, student of SNDT University staying in Andheri, becomes FALU? Answer is: She wins a Grammy! This girl from Aamchi Mumbai has come a long way in 23 years of shifting to New York. Her pet name at home became her professional identity.
Falu credits her son as an inspiration for the award-winning album, A Colorful World. “It all started when George Floyd passed away… looking at a coloured man killed because of his colour, scared Nishaad and his friends. One day he asked me, ‘Mom, should I be afraid because I am brown?’ He was just nine then… today he is eleven. But that one question inspired the whole theme. I wanted every kid to feel safe and beautiful in their skin and colour.” The album was a hit with the children; especially Crayons are Colourful, which talks about how different colours create a beautiful world. It was played in school during art class, in libraries… everywhere in US.
What was Nishaad’s reaction? “Oh… he was like — mom… I love the song, but I didn’t know it had such a fabulous production! Such hard work... He was thrilled that his mom took one idea from his conversation and created an album along with her colleagues. He was a part of the entire process…”
The production was real hard work as the album was produced during Covid and everyone was working from their base — someone from San Francisco, someone from Spain, Falu in New York… etc.
Falu with her son Nishaad |
Falu started singing at the age of three when Kaumudi Munshi, the late Benaras thumri singer, took Falguni in her lap and taught her the first notes of music. Music, therefore, for her was a way to express emotions melodiously. “It was not just that, she told me something that has stayed with me for life — ‘music and life are like river, they just flow and never look back.”
Every guru gave Falu something that made her piece by piece the musician that she is today. Late Gansaraswati Kishori Amonkar taught her for four/five years. “One day she asked me to sing a few notes — ga ma pa ni dha … I started looking at walls, outside trying to find my notes. She stopped asked me look within for the notes and told me all the music was within me!”
While Uday Mazumdar taught her the techniques like not using her full voice to speak as speaking damaged a singing voice more than anything else, Ustad Sultan Khan told her to sing for God. “Khan saab always said — allah ke liye gaa… phir koyi fark nahin padega kaun kya kar raha hai ya keh raha hai…”
Falu’s singing flows, her singing more on a subconscious level. “I don’t think about music. It’s just comes to me. ” And this passion is being passed on to her son Nishaad who trains with her. “I come from Sultan Khan’s lineage… and Nishaad will be the the 13th generation to carry it forward and I hope he does that.”
Though Falu has performed to an illustrious audience often in US and that includes President Obama at White House, she performed in Mumbai for the first time just recently. Why? “I visited Mumbai to be with my parents… and spending time with them was my only intention. But this time, after the Grammy, my team and family said that I must perform to the home crowd…”
Does she miss Mumbai? “Oh yes… every single day!” she admits. “The smell, the breeze, bhel, pani puri… everything about Mumbai”
After having trained varied genres of Indian Classical music, Falu creates her own music which is primarily English songs. “For me, I am a baby of all three — folk, classical, thumri. But I love writing my own songs, which are in English. However, while composing everything that I learnt is a part of the creation. India influences. Right now, in India, my creativity is at its best… sitting on the beach… breeze… creativity just flows.”
Having said that, Falu admits that thumri is the closest to her heart. “If I to die the next minute, I will sing a thumri. The mamta, the motherhood that Kaumudiji gave me while teaching as my first guru, I want to die remembering her…”
For someone who sings for the soul, this seems like an apt end.
