would i rather sing i think they are both integrated for me playing a piano singing and composing are like perfume in the airyou cant differentiatein a short span of time you have garnered many accolades including a national award how do you look back at your journey so fari look at it with a lot of humility when i look back i look at a lot of sacrifices i look back at a middleclass family being thankful to god and to the fact that somebody coming from a tier ii or tier iii city gets somewhere because of the sacrifices made by a family my parents have worked very hard to make me reach where i am today my wife and friends have worked hard for me i look back at them and my work with humility and responsibility to create only great art i dont want to let them down by making something that is mediocreyou received a national award for your background score in uri the surgical strike what made it stand apart from the otherswhat made my background score in uri the surgical strike stand apart was honesty humility and the fact that although it was a small film everybody made it into a huge deal by appreciating it and watching it multiple times only for the score it was also a dreamcometrue for a lot of other musicians and artists because a person from a tier ii city and a middleclass family had come to mumbai and made music from very little resources and stood out from amongst the music that released that year it was number one for a long time and made me release how not everything needs to be pushed published and marketed if you have an opinion then people are there who would listen it gives me faith in my workdid you receive the sort of welcome that you expected when you first entered the music industryi think these questions are better answered in retrospect i am too new to say if i have been welcomed or not in the industry i feel if anybody can actually welcome you it is the audience if i make great music and they appreciate it ill feel welcomed but if i make something mediocre and i am rejected if people dont listen to my music dont dance to my songs then i will feel that i have not been welcomed so let me answer that when i am a 65yearoldwhen did you first decide to dedicate your life to musici started learning music when i was three years old and my guru ustad ramzan khan sahab started teaching me hindustani classical music i learnt from him for 21 years and then moved to pune where i learnt western classical music for 10 more years i have been learning classical music for a long time as far as my production skills are concerned i am selftaught music runs in my blood my parents started teaching