SONALI
 

Words have always been very important to my life – reading them, listening to them and writing them. During my childhood and teenage years, I attended Saturday Speech & Drama class with my siblings. It was there that I discovered the magic of poetry – such powerful words in a short succinct structure. I was also accused of being verbose in my English GCSE class, so the concept of using very few words to express something meaningful was both desirable and challenging. This inspired me to start writing my own poetry, and opened up a new world to me – a world which was otherwise restrictive for a disabled teenager with perceived impaired speech. The new world gave me the freedom to express thoughts and feelings that had been dancing around and around in my mind, under the lock of both typical Teenage raging hormones and the effects of being a disabled teenager in a non-disabled majority world. So it began, lyrical short verses, inspired by the conflicts constructing the lived reality in which I was embedded – love vs hate, life vs death, wealth vs poverty, head vs heart, dreams vs real life and dying young.
 

Some of my written verses were publically recited at drama festivals looked on by proud parents and tearful teachers; others were published in an anthology that never comes out of hiding, but most remained securely hidden from public view as they were only written for me to make sense of the games life was playing!
 

Music was equally important to my life as words. 80’s music was constantly in my ears when growing up - on my journey to school, at school discos and on Radio 1 for two hours on a Sunday evening. Pop and rock Idols covered my bedroom walls – initially singers such as Madonna, George Michael, Nick Kershaw and then moving on to soft metal groups like Heart, Def Leppard and Guns’N’Roses which, along with my new peer group, influenced the development of a positive self-identity.

 

However, as a first generation British Indian, I should not forget the impact of Indian classical music had on my musical journey. My mother was an Indian classical dancer and singer in a former life. Initially she aspired for her children to follow suit. Although this did not happen, her singing of Gujerati songs as she made our dinner or helped us get ready for bed, coupled with old Indian songs we heard at family weddings, inspired the fusion of East-West music that can be heard on the second album, especially the song Creator – a song about my mother’s strength and courage, I wrote when she was recovering from cancer.
 

A critical turning point in my musical journey came when I went to a week-long musical theatre residency in Pembrokeshire, with the one and only Share Music in 1995! From then on I wrote song lyrics instead of poetry, and in 1997, won a Prince’s Trust grant to produce my first album, Phantom in my Dreams. I am no singer (except when driving my car or not being watched), so I hired the fabulous Shirley Novak to work with me – to listen to my words and melodies, and add vocals and music. Phantom in my Dreams is a collection of six songs inspired by the emotions triggered by saying hello and waving goodbye during the major transitions in my youth – 6th form college and university, and musical summer residencies where I met some amazing singer/songwriters who supported me to write some of the songs in the first place.
 

The second album, What Game is Life Playing, come twelve years later in 2013. Unlike the first one, the musical inspirations for this album were not typical 80s idols but female singer songwriters like Tracey Chapman, Joni Mitchel, Thea Gilmore and Emeli Sandie. The album of 10 tracks reflects various thoughts and feelings generated by observations and personal insights of love, loss, imprisonment, oppression, secret smiles, limits of time and the games life plays with the human mind. This album was also sung, arranged and produced by Shirley Novak. Although we lost touch after the first album was complete, she reappeared into my life like an angel to help me fulfil my dream again.