Baloch, Pakistani Sufi Singers For Rakeysh Mehra’s Mirzya

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Mirzya is a full-blown musical with composer Shankar Mahadevan  along with his partners Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendosa,pulling out all stops to make the legendary love tale  of Mirza andSahibaan as epic in proportion as possible.

The title song alone involved the blended talents of Sufi singers from India, Pakistan and  Balochistan.

While Daler Mehndi and the upcoming young Sufi singers The Nooran Sisters , Jyoti and Sultan from Jalandharcomprise the Indian contingent of singers for the title track,from Pakistan came the legendary Sufi singer SainZahoor who sings predominantly at religious shrines.

That isn’t all.The internationally celebrated Balochi folk singer Akhtar Chanal Zahri also flew in to pitch in for the title song giving a kind of epic heft to Gulzar’s lyrics.

Quite a full house, one must say.

Says Shankar Mahadevan , “Sain Zahoor is an interesting character ! His look itself is so amazing . He is so innocent and truly immersed in his own music and world .Until 2006 he never put his voice into a recording studio. The unique thing is, when you teach him the lyrics of the song , he draws pictures instead of writing syllables !!! Amazing ! And that’s how he remembers the words.. Truly a delight to work with .”
Shankar is equally taken up by the Baloch singer Akhtar Chanal Zahri. “Akhthar bhai also is so much fun to work with and had an amazing voice texture which represents Afghanistan ! We had to compose the pieces around these two exquisite singers’ voices  so that their presence doesn’t look forced into the song .”

Approximately 300 hours of music has been recorded by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy for Mirzya. Out of this a large chunk has been used in the film. In fact there are two separate love stories in Mirzya and one of them is told only through music and songs.