Don`t get offers to sing in Bollywood: Hariharan

New Delhi: After singing in the Hindi film music industry for three decades, veteran singer Hariharan says he does not get many playback offers these days in Bollywood.

The 57-year-singer, who lent his soulful voice for films like ‘Roja’, ‘Bombay’ and ‘Taal’ with composer AR Rahman, however, is happy that young talents are doing well in the industry. "I keep myself busy with my projects from Southern film industry and concerts. Unfortunately, I don`t get offers to sing in Bollywood because a lot of young talents have emerged and directors want to experiment with them. "But I have no regrets about it because I had given my thirty years to the industry with AR Rahman. And I feel the industry is in the safe hands of young talents because they have introduced many new genres of music like sufi, pop and trans," Hariharan told PTI. He has recently cut his fourth studio album `Colonial Cousins Once More` with Leslie Lewis after a gap of 10 years. The music composer duo is members of fusion band `Colonial Cousins`. "Our new album is like going back to our roots. It has got many groovy tracks but at the same time they have the rhythm of folk in them. In one of the songs, we have used Assamese folk by incorporating their dhol in it. It`s a fun album," he said. Hariharan said they had to wait for 10 years to launch the album because there was no market for independent music in the country back then. "When you release an album, you always want a good release. You want that people should listen to your creations and a decade ago, the scenario of music was different. People were not exposed to other genre of music," said Hariharan, who is also working for the second part of his ghazal album ‘Haazir’ with Zakir Hussain. Born in Kerala and brought up in Mumbai, Hariharan was exposed to Hindustani music from a very young age through the songs of Mehdi Hassan and Jagjit Singh. The singer said that the Bollywood music industry has gone through sea change. "When music was composed in 60s and 70s everything was thought-oriented. After some years, songs used to be entertaining with high energy point and now are the time when it has become experimental. Many new genres of music have come up," he said. Hariharan`s son Akshay is also venturing in to Bollywood as he is composing music for actor-director Mahesh Manjrekar`s forthcoming projects. "I am happy that Akshay is also making his foray in Bollywood. He is a programmer and composer. I do guide him sometime. He has learnt Hindustani music from me," he added. PTI