Poetry in songs has died down, says Tochi Raina
Singer-composer Tochi Raina says poetry in songs has died down, deteriorating the quality of music being produced. Tochi, who has sung popular tracks like 'Ik Tara' and 'Kabira', in an interview, says anyone can play two strings on a guitar and write a track but they lack depth. "The poetry is dead today and without it, the music can never be good," Tochi said.
"In older times, people were inherently philosophers who would train in music and then compose songs. Today, the generation doesn't know philosophy," Tochi said. Tochi recently sang 'Rab-e-Illahi' a Sufi track for Drishyam Play, an initiative by Drishyam Films to promote fresh music from different parts of the country. The song was composed by Band Of Bandagi comprising him and his brother Neeru Rawal.
Hailing from a musical family, Tochi ran away from his home in Nepal, where his father, a CPWD electrical engineer, was posted. "After 10th-grade, I ran from my home with Rs. 100. I went to Patiala and then came to Delhi. I slept on road and then I met Pandit Vinod Kumar, who was the discipline of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan," he said.
"I was a tabla player so I took up a part-time job in a school where I used to get paid Rs. 500. I simply wanted to understand music," Tochi said. He then began learning classical singing and later joined Osho in Pune in 1991.
Around 2003, Tochi came to Mumbai to start his career and changed his name to "Tochi Raina" from "Trilochan Singh". "I then got a telephone directory and called Dev Anand. His son Sunil called me. Then Dev sahab called me and within three years I met almost everyone in the industry," he said Tochi made his singing debut with 'Bulle Shah' from 'A Wednesday'.
"In 2011, I decided that I have to compose music too and that's when I made the writer write 'Rab-e-Illahi' and here I'm today, as a singer, composer, as someone who ran from Nepal and is still on the run, searching for something," Tochi said.
