I watched Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003) for the first time in my life, only a year ago. Among the many things to like and love in this beautiful film, I am gonna speak about how ‘Maahi Ve’ helped me come to terms with my dilemma of musical twins, Madhushree and Sadhana Sargam.
Yes, as we all know, both Madhushree and Sadhana Sargam almost sound the same albeit with some minor differences in their voices. If you want me to pick one, I would easily pick Madhushree all the while agreeing that Sadhana Sargam has the better playlist.
Coming to ‘Maahi Ve’, when I listened to it for the first time, I was overjoyed to hear Madhushree voicing the female portions. But when I came to Spotify for repeated listening, I glanced at the credits which rolled in Sadhana Sargam’s name. Tbh, I was kinda disappointed. Because it felt like I fell into the trap of their similar-sounding voices. After a day or two, another awakening happened.
I was this late to find there are two female vocals in that song. Sadhana Sargam’s voice is for Jenny and the vocals behind Naina was another singer. When I saw the name, it read Sujata Bhattacharya, a name I never heard of. Since I thought the voice felt like Madhushree’s, I immediately googled to find out who’s that singer.
Voila! Turns out that Sujata Bhattacharya is Madhushree’s birth name. Man, what a roller coaster ride ‘Maahi Ve’ gave me.
Coming to that dilemma question, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy helped me find what is so beautiful about both their similar voices. Madhushree’s voice has that youth fervour and Sadhana Sargam’s voice is the mature one among the two. And because of that youth and mature factor in their voices, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy probably used Madhushree’s voice for Naina, the daughter and Sadhana Sargam’s voice for Jenny, the mother.
And now, every time I listen to ‘Maahi Ve’, I can’t prevent myself from spilling a happy tear about how I got to witness such a delicate experience of two great female singers showcasing why their voices are the way they are.
Apart from this song and ‘Naina Milaike’ from ‘Saathiya’, the fact that there are no other songs with these two voices in tandem, I am so damn clear that it is our biggest loss that we missed this pair from recording many more songs together.
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