What Led To The Formation Of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy? New Biography Tells Us

The Musical Maverick is the first and only definitive authorized biography of a talent that emerges once a century— Shankar Mahadevan. Extensively researched and packed with endearing incidents and enduring accounts from the life of an artist who has been hailed as one of the greatest of all time. This biography captures Shankar at his most multifaceted: singer, musician, composer, friend, family man, guru and, ultimately, iconic artist and man beloved by millions.

In The Musical Maverick, Shankar reveals that he trained to become a veena artiste in his childhood. While teaching him to play a kriti, his veena guru told him to also sing it in order to execute it well, thereby setting off his interest in singing. This eventually led to the formation of the legendary composer-trio: Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy

Here's an excerpt from Ashis Ghatak's The Musical Maverick

The camaraderie between Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy has often set benchmarks in the industry. Mahalakshmi has a different take on why they work so well together. She said: 

Let me tell you that these three people have the most courteous sense of humour. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy are those kind of people who will laugh at their work without any ego. They will write stuff and they will create music and they will ridicule their own work without any ego, and it is very magnanimous of these people to do that because in our industry so much is all about ego and one-upmanship and all that kind of stuff. And there are these three people who can sit back and look at their work and confess that they did not do a good job for a particular song. They are very large-hearted. 

For them, their relationship is like a marriage where each one gives space to the other. They have got their own way of solving differences. 'We fight every day and we make sure we fight all the time,' says Ehsaan. Shankar says, 'We have boxing gloves just under the chair every day. We are not doing synchronized swimming here, as we are three individuals. So, we also fight? Loy says with laughter, "They have boxing gloves and I have the baseball bat so I always win. It is interesting to look back at the time when they were unsure of getting any further assignments of writing music for Hindi films. When they received the R.D. Burman Award on the Filmfare Awards night in 2002 for Dil Chahta Hai, the trio said something funny. They said: 

It feels great to receive the Filmfare R.D. Burman award for upcoming talent in music especially since the veteran's name is attached to it. Frankly speaking, the award was unexpected. We waited and waited. When nothing happened until halfway through the show we thought, 'Chalo let us just enjoy ourselves and go home. Filmfare Awards had always been a TV affair for us. It was great to be invited this year and also get an award. In that sense, it has been a year of recognition for us. Dil Chahta Hai has changed our lives. We have finally broken into the film circle. But we will get the ultimate high the day we work in a film like Daku Lakhanpal Aur Kali Shaitan and make a success of it.

Incidentally, nothing of the sort came their way to prove their mettle. But, in retrospect, Amitabh Bhattacharya's words sum it all. He said, 'I credit SEL with one thing. A.R. Rahman in Chennai was found very interesting. But in the mainstream Bollywood music it was SEL here who gave a makeover, a new millennium makeover, a new facelift. That changed the game, changed the face of it. That changed things for everybody? 

Shankar pointed out another very interesting aspect of their music-making. It is all about how three individuals bring their own personal and subjective views to the table and none of them has any specific or defined role to play. He said, "The way Ehsaan looks at Indian classical music or I look at jazz music and Loy looks at folk music makes it very interesting. For instance, Loy observed Indian classical over the years and combined them with jazz and then his [way of] composing classical was completely out of the box. This brings the wow factor.' 

Even though Shankar has left his incredible legacy in multidimensional fields of music, he believes that Bollywood music is the artery of the country because of its reach across the globe. Shankar says: 

When we would be driving down the roads of California and listen that our music is playing all over, we get a great feeling. I feel lucky that despite being a South Indian I have got an acceptance in mainstream Bollywood. If you see the history, it is extremely difficult to make a mark if you are not in the same line. There could have been putting me into a category of a classical singer saying that this is only what he is good at. Maybe I am an exception to be accepted in this way. I could have easily been branded but that did not happen and luckily I got this place with Ehsaan and Loy. 

A sense of gratefulness is undying in him. Upon receiving the Padma Shri, he was ecstatic to call Sangeeta and graciously acknowledged the importance of Ehsaan and Loy in his journey. 

Extracted with permission from Ashis Ghatak's The Musical Maverick: The Authorized Biography of Shankar Mahadevan; published by Rupa Publications