Her love for Calcutta is palpable. She talks with a sense of excitement and a glint in her eyes, of the city she adores for its high art and culture milieu. Trained in classical singing, Shilpa Rao has delivered hit after hit, her recent numbers being Mere mehboob and Chuttamalle, and whenever she is performing in Calcutta, the evening becomes memorable. On one such evening, we caught up with the extremely talented Rao, who was in the city for a private event.

What is it about Calcutta that you like the most and is there a song that you could describe it with?

The one thing that has been a childhood connect is always the cultural side of Bengal. Be it music, writing, poetry, or any kind of creativity including the kantha stitch or even with the way they’ll make the alpona. There’s so much art in everything. There will be some painter or musician in the house. And food is a different subject altogether.

A song that can describe my feelings towards Calcutta is Haimanti Shukla’s Thikana na rekhe bhaloi korecho bundhu. This is a very beautiful adhunik Bengali song and it talks about how you keep telling me that you will come but you never visit me. So whenever I come here, I make it a point to stay for another day just for adda and to eat some good food and also take some food back.

What are your favourite foods from the city?

Everything from mishti and mishti doi to kosha mangsho… everything.

You don’t look like you are a foodie.

I am a huge foodie. That’s why we wear black. You can’t see anything, but then there’s a lot. I think it’s an important part of being an artiste because the food that you eat reflects on you. You should be happy eating food.

You have come here for a private event, and you have also performed at big public spaces. Tell us how different or satisfying are these two formats?

Both have their own uniqueness. One is very intimate, close setup and the other is a bigger setup where you have more number of people. However, the connection is the same. When I look into someone’s face, I find the same excitement.

Also, talking about performances and concerts, which is on the rise in India, do you think music has become accessible yet inaccessible or elite in some ways as ticket prices are very high?

You’re not wrong at all. I think it’s always about being seen there or posting about it or going live and putting stories that you are at a concert. The whole point that you know the artiste, their discography, their music, and you have a connection with it, I think that has taken a back seat. So, I think it’s a good time to introspect as to why you’re doing things. Is it just about that picture for your social media? Or do you genuinely have any interest in that particular concert or the artiste or that genre of music?

For the artistes, when we are on the stage we can tell if the crowd is really there for our music. We know there’s one patch of people who’s not really connected with it and they are just there for social media. There are so many times that I actually tell the crowd, put down your phones and now let’s have fun.

Whatever you sing, it becomes a hit. How do you handle or react when a song doesn’t do well?

You all make the song big; all the credit goes to you guys. We sing and leave it to you. That’s okay if a song doesn’t do well; you can’t control everything. The older you get, the more you get used to it. As a young person, you’re really struggling with it but then once you calm down and accept it, then you realise that the effort was just to make the song first.

You’ve been in the industry for so long, tell us how important is riyaaz for you. Is it as significant as it was?

The importance of it never leaves you. Again, riyaaz also changes with your work and the kind of stuff that you do; it’s never the same. As a child, the riyaaz that you do is mainly about voice building, to understand the fundamentals. For that, you need a lot of riyaaz and do the same thing a thousand times, five thousand times.

For me, riyaaz is constant. Whenever I’m listening to something, I am into riyaaz. For instance, listening to Mehdi Hasan sahab is not just listening but my mind starts thinking how has he done this? How can I use this in my singing and how can I get better? My mind is constantly working. There is another part of riyaaz which is you sit down and keep practising it so that you get it right. I think that is the best part where you’re learning something new every day.

Moving on, you’re a Grammy-nominated artiste, you have collaborated with directors in the South, your songs become instant hits. Do you have a wishlist?

No, I have a wishlist for things I want to eat, places I want to visit, things I want to experience. Music per se, I let the system take over. A lot of times you make a plan but it doesn’t work. However, if you’re more open-minded, some other plan emerges in front of you and that turns out to be life-changing.

Any new project in Tollywood?

There’s one song that I am doing with Anupam Roy for a film. I am excited about it.

Your forte is classical music and you love doing Sufi songs and ghazals. On your Instagram, you gave a kind of tribute to Begum Akhtar and even Farida Khanum. Any plans of putting them all together in an album?

This is some food for thought, thank you for the feedback. This genre has been a love that happened when I was around 10 or 11 years old and it just never ends. It’s something that has so much to give in terms of philosophy, in terms of stimulating thoughts. It just touches and also it makes you look at many spheres of life that probably you would not have thought about. That’s what poetry does; any poetry from all across the planet, whichever language… poets have the job to make us think. So, be it Farida Khanumji, Begum Akhtarji, Mehdi Hassan sahab… they’ve been quite an influence on me. Listening to them or singing their ghazals is riyaaz for me.