Abhijeet Bhattacharya On Not Wanting To Sing For South Films: Creativity Khatam Ho Jaati Hai

Popular playback singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya, who has sung over 6000 songs in his career spanning over 40 years, recently spoke about not wanting to sing songs for South films. The veteran singer who has sung in multiple languages over time including Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Nepali, Bhojpuri, Punjabi and Odia among others talked about not singing much in the south films, calling it a "labourious job."

Why did Abhijeet Bhattacharya didn't sing many songs for South films?

In a recent interview with Bollywood Hungama, Abhijeet Bhattacharya was candid about the challenges he faced in singing songs in different languages. For the singer, the issue lay in pronunciation.

He said, "Nahi gaaya maine multiple languages mein. Likte hai, lekin gaya hua woh malum nahi.”

He continued, “Jaise Assamese (called/pronounced Ahomiya) mai gaya hai, maine Oddisha ka gaya hai, maine Nepali gaya hai aur Bengali toh mera mother tongue hai. Lekin karta tha. Uske baad nahi hota kyuki humara bhav bahut bhad jaata hai."

It loosely translates to: "I haven't sung in multiple languages. I have sung in Assamese, Odia, Nepali, and Bengali which of course is my mother tongue, for these languages I have sung, but after that, it didn't happen."

When Abhijeet lent his voice to Nagarjuna's films

In the same interview, the veteran singer further elaborated on his issues in singing songs in different languages.

He said, "Fir lagta hai nahi yaar yeh nahi, aur mehnat bhi bahut lagti hai. Hindi bolenge, khatakhat gaa ke chala jaunga. Bengali bolenge gaa ke chala jaunga. Baaki ke languages mein bahut problems."

"South mein mereko bahut try kiya logo ne. Mere khayal se 1-2 Nagarjuna ke liye maine gaaya tha lekin nikalta nahi hai. Aur main utna lagan, mehnat karke bhi main pronunciation de nahi paata hu. (It’s a) very laborious job, creativity khatam ho jaati hai.”

This loosely translates to: "I don't feel like singing in different languages, it seems like a lot of work. If you will ask me to sing in Hindi and Bengali, I'll happily sing it but then there are too many problems in singing in other languages."

He added, "In the South, several people tried to make me sing for them. I have sung a song or two for one of Nagarjuna's films but it's hard to sing. And despite putting in a lot of effort, it's difficult to get the pronunciation right. It is a very laborious job, creativity ends here."

South songs sung by Abhijeet Bhattacharya

In 40 years, Abhijeeti has sung the Tamil song Thaanguma Kanaakalin for the 2001 film Samrat Asoka and Telugu songs Koila Koila for the 2000 film Azad and Neeku Manasista for the 2003 film Idi Maa Ashokgadi Love Story.