Sonu Niigaam Ji and Bickram Ghosh at work

Guess what Bickram Ghosh and Sonu Niigaam Ji were doing recently? Well, the musicians were penning lyrics for their forthcoming album! Bickram, who returned home from Mumbai on Sunday, is only too happy to have finished penning seven songs with Sonu Ji.

 “Our untitled album is a very challenging project, both in terms of rhythm and sound. Sonu Ji and I decided that it would be easier for us to pen appropriate lyrics for the songs since both of us are so much into the project. Sonu Ji’s Hindi is exceptionally good and English is my forté,” says Bickram, who has earlier penned a Hindi song (zara si yeh dhoop hai) for his album titled Samaa and a portion of an English song for the music of Dulal Lahiri’s forthcoming film titled Brishtir Chhayachhobi.

While the idea of spending hours on end at Sonu’s gym to write the lyrics was fun, Bickram insists that the decision to turn lyricist was, by no means, governed by any dearth of good lyricists for basic albums. “We’ve such great lyricists in Gulzar, Javed Akhtar and Prasoon Joshi in Mumbai. In Kolkata, we have the likes of Sanjiv Tiwari and Rakesh Tripathi. But Sonu and I felt that we needed to pen the lyrics ourselves because we were talking about issues that have been important to us,” says Bickram about the album that might have a song by American singer-songwriter Chaka Khan.

While on Sonu Ji, is Bickram aware about the debate over the former’s new ponytail look? “Oh! I don’t see that as a problem at all. I didn’t even bother to ask him anything about it even though he was flaunting his new look when I met him in Mumbai. In India, people do raise a lot of hue and cry about the changing looks of men, but hardly bat an eyelid when women experiment with their looks. I’ve spent too many years in the West to not appreciate any radical ideas,” he says. Does he see himself ever flaunting two ponytails? “I might not,” he says, as a parting shot, adding, “It all depends on the comfort zone of the individual who will have the attitude to carry it off. Twelve years ago when I sported a goatee and wore my Gandhi glasses while performing, even Pt Ravi Shankar had his reservations. But I thought it was funky. When I started wearing accessories that I’d got from Africa, people thought I was a loony since it was hugely experimental for any classical musician to do such a thing then. Today, all this has become too commonplace to even merit any discussion.”