Shilpa Rao, who is noted for her popular songs Bulleya (Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, 2016) and Manmarziyaan (Lootera, 2013), says she started her career with advertisement jingles rather than film songs for a reason.

“The first time I came to Mumbai, there were two people I knew— Hariharan ji (singer), who was my guru, of course, and Shankar Mahadevan ji (singer-composer). I loved what he (Mahadevan) told me when I met him: ‘Do one thing; just go and sing jingles for three years. Go to the recording mic, see what it feels like to record, learn that process’. Afterwards, he gave me my first song in Salaam-E-Ishq (2007),” she recalls.

The 37-year-old goes on to say that no good comes out of tags such as ‘overnight sensations’. “Fame, if it comes quickly, goes away quickly too. Life doesn’t come to you overnight, maybe once, due to beginner’s luck. You relish the process because, after working for a certain amount of time, it becomes like a job. The whole point is to enjoy,” Rao says.

She adds, “He (Mahadevan) got me on the path of doing things from the foundation instead of doing an overnight song and becoming an ‘overnight sensation’. The process of learning was not just to make me see it but to apply it for the rest of my life.”