MUMBAI: Playback singer Shruti Pathak, who has given hits like Mar Jawaan and Shubhaarambh, opened out about her experiences in the music industry.

Born and brought up in Ahmedabad, Pathak has been practising classical music from a very young age. She later moved to Mumbai to pursue her career in singing. In Mumbai, she started first with jingles. Salim-Sulaiman happened to hear her and they gave her her first break.

Pathak’s singing talent was first recognized by her father as he was a music lover and he realized that she carried talent. He encouraged her to sing and made her listen to legendary music. Pathak reveals that she grew up listening to the artists like Bade Ghulam Ali khan saab, Mehdi Hassan saab, Jagjit Singh, ustad Amir khan,  Asha Bhosle, Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Mohammed Rafi, Hari Haran, Sonu Nigam, Kavita Krishnamurthy. Classical singing has always been her base. Most of the singers have that one inspirational singer whom they look up to in their journey, but in a deviation from the norm,  Pathak says, “For a singer it’s never that one person. Each one of these legendary artists are an institute by itself. They all have different genres of music and each one of them have contributed to my learning process.”

Pathak has worked with duos like Sachin-Jigar for MTV unplugged as well as appeared in three seasons of Coke Studio. She says, “Everybody has a different style of working and they all have different music. During Coke Season one, I performed with Shafqat Amnat Ali for a song from his album which created a total different feel and it was different from my singing style as well. He is a wonderful person and encouraging as well. Working with Karsh Kale in the second season was completely different. He's one of the finest musicians. In the third season working with the legend Hansji and Hitesh Sonik..  just share the space with him, was a totally Incredible."

Elucidating further about Coke Studio, she says, "Working with Sachin -Jigar in MTV unplugged, one of the most talented duos in the current times.  they reworked on One of their songs called "Gulabi" and asked me to collaborate with them, something that I happily agreed to do. They are young, their approach is quite youthful as well as their music is really beautiful. Sachin-Jigar have been my friends for a very long time. But working with them is an amazing experience. Even with DJ Nucleya for The Dewarists,  it was a totally unique experience, this was the very first time that I performed with a DJ In this manner. And the song did extremely well.

Though 2018 is quite a way off, most people have New Year resolutions and try following them, don’t they? Shruti Pathak says that she is going to remove time for herself and travel to a couple of places as she just loves traveling. She has been to Japan, NASA and did a road trip to Punjab this year. She has also decided that she will come back with a song from each trip.