Aastha Atray Banan (MID-DAY; July 23, 2017)

Singer and musician Tushar Joshi has watched Jagga Jasoos 50 times. And no, he isn’t a Ranbir Kapoor fan. He is his voice in the film. If you have seen the movie, you know that Jagga, the character Kapoor plays, stutters. To avoid this stutter, he resorts to singing in order to communicate. Joshi’s repeated watching of the movie was, hence, to get into the character and get modalities of tone and emotions right.

Joshi came to Mumbai in 2009 from Jabalpur. He had studied classical music, and the son of a schoolteacher and bank official, had always had the filmy keeda. “My upbringing was strict and movies weren’t really a part of my childhood. But thanks to my friends, I got interested,” says the 30-year-old.

In retrospect, he remembers having a penchant for singing in different voices and trying out songs that portrayed a myriad emotions. After pursuing a sound engineering degree at the School of Audio Engineering, he took up freelance projects and eventually found himself at Pritam’s studio, as his creative assistant. “His sound design assistant referred me, and there I was. The work on Jagga had already started, and the first six months I did nothing but observe.”

Anurag Basu heard a chance recording that has Joshi singing a dialogue. “In the beginning, every time Anurag Sir came in, it was just not clicking. The voice either had too much singing or too much drama,” he says. Joshi then started paying attention to the direction Basu was giving. “He told us don’t take this seriously, and not to sing 100 per cent. This is the voice of a normal guy. We needed to focus on getting the expression right.”

When Joshi’s voice was finally finally selected, there was barely a month left for the film’s release. The whole movie had been filmed using reference tracks, and now the voice needed to be filled in. Sleepless nights and exacting prep went into getting it right, even though Joshi still can’t believe he has managed to pull it off. “I paid attention to how Ranbir talks. Our frequencies match. He speaks softly, and then usually at a lower tone. I would stand near the mic and speak at my lowest. I just made sure I got the emotion right.”

Along with giving the voice, Joshi has also sung two full-length songs in the movie — Musafir and Khaana Khaake. “I learnt that if you channel your emotions and be yourself, that translates on the mic.”

Despite this sudden success, he is content working as Pritam’s creative assistant. “Pritam Da is passionate, and I learn something new every day. So, for now, that is enough.”