22 January 2024
Hyderabad

Damini Bhatla, who shot to fame with Pacha Bottesina from Baahubali, has consistently proved her worth across a wide variety of musical genres in popular films like Konda Polam, God Father, Bhaagamathie, Bro in the recent years. Besides carving her niche in the indie music circuit, she witnessed a huge following in her brief stint in the recently concluded season of Bigg Boss Telugu.

In a recent social media post, the singer shared that she wasn’t credited for singing Asha Pasham, a number from Care of Kancharapalem (alongside Anurag Kulkarni). Sweekar Agasthi had composed the track for the film backed by Suresh Productions and produced by Praveena Paruchuri. The song turned out to be a runaway success among music buffs in various platforms in 2018.

Despite regular follow-ups, requests to the music company (Aditya Music), composer Sweekar Agasthi and Suresh Productions, the singer is yet to receive her due for the song. In a conversation with Idlebrain.com, the musician shared her version of the incident and why being credited is quite crucial, necessary in terms of her singing career.

“I and Sweekar worked together with Mani Sharma (garu) nearly a decade ago. He simultaneously began doing a few film projects as a composer. One day, we recorded for Asha Pasham, where I sang about six lines in the song (besides humming). I knew Anurag (Kulkarni) sang a major portion and my vocals provide a contrast to his rendition. I wasn’t aware of the other details of the project.”

Much to Damini’s disappointment, when the song released on Youtube and other music streaming platforms, she wasn’t credited as a singer (across digital service providers). When she reached out to the composer Sweekar Agasthi, he shared that he’d submitted Damini’s name in the vocal credits and felt there may’ve been a communication/technical issue and promised to respond soon.

Many months passed and Damini later took part in a popular singing reality show, where a contestant had crooned Asha Pasham. The singer was in a low-phase personally and the rendition triggered her to break down on television. For the first time, she discussed about being denied credit for the song. Sailaja (garu) and other singers consoled Damini, asked her not to lose faith in her abilities.

Opening up on the reality show paved the way to a lot of social media reels, Youtube videos of the incident. Care of Kanchaparalem’s producer Praveena Paruchuri reached out to her, stating that she was indeed credited in the description box under the lyrical video. However, her name still didn’t find a mention within the (lyrical) video and music streaming platforms.

“Finding my name in the description box is fine, but not many make the effort to scroll down to that section to find a singer. A mention in the video would’ve meant a lot. With songs being rapidly consumed in music streaming platforms, it was also disappointing to not find my name in DSPs.”

When she switched her focus towards independent numbers, a friend from a music streaming platform asked her and the composer to draft a mail to the music company and the producers about the credits issue. Sweekar did his part in taking the initiative forward (in 2023), but their efforts didn’t bear any fruit.

Before Damini was approached for Bigg Boss Telugu, she wanted to make a last-ditch effort at resolving the issue (with Aasha Pasham). Given the reach of the show, she felt audiences would be looking through her discography and wanted Asha Pasham to find a place in the list. Eventually, she spoke to a senior official from Aditya Music.

“They’d stated that I was very late in approaching them and spoke of the practical difficulties in making the changes across multiple streaming platforms and insisted that the communication come from the producer. I felt slightly disheartened.” There was little progress in this issue and in the meanwhile, she wrapped up her stint at Bigg Boss Telugu as well.

After Bigg Boss Telugu, an industry friend had helped her reach out to an official at Suresh Productions. While the contact person claimed she’d wrapped up all the formalities and that they’d sent mails about the credit issue to the music label, the responses started becoming infrequent all over again. Damini tweeted multiple times about the issue later.

“Care of Kancharapalem changed the direction of many careers and the way people look at small films changed. As a musician, the validation is crucial for me. The issue is very simple here - I’d sung the number, my name even finds a place in the description box but it doesn’t feature in the Youtube video and the music platforms.”

As an independent artiste herself, Damini has dealt with metadata, the technicalities of updating the details, altering spellings of artistes whenever necessary and opines that the matter is being prolonged without necessity. “Why should it be so hard to include a name in the singer’s list? I’m asking something very basic. It’s not even a claim, there are substantial proofs of my contribution to the song and it’s disappointing when singers are denied their due.”