Of Flutes and Nav(i)eens

A R Rahman has been largely responsible for making the Tamil/Indian film music scene a place where many talents bloom. In the pre-Rahman era it was very hard to find more than two male singers per film music album. In fact two was usually too much and occurred only when the movie involved more than one hero and had a song where both heros had to sing together. Such was the dominance of the few successful singers that there were only few successful singers.


Post the phenomenal success of Rahman's debut Roja, a number of interesting things happened. One was the appearance of many fresh vocalists. Another was the prominence given to the instrumentalists who worked on Rahman's tracks. The first musician to come to mind is drums Sivamani who has collaborated with many musicians over the years. The one who caught my attention the most was Flute Naveen. Remember the haunting theme music of Bombay? There is a certain lack of cockiness in the way Naveen's flute flows. No matter what the genre is, his playing manages to be both assured as well as humble.


Some years ago, Naveen brought out an album Fluid, which, for a period of time, used to be my mainstay background score when cooking. One track in particular, Mohana, remains a favourite and I listen to it from time to time. It never fails to cheer me up. Naveen's second album Cafe Fluid came out a few months ago (Note to Self: buy Cafe Fluid)


I have always had the impression that Naveen is camera shy and was therefore quite surprised some months earlier when he made an appearance in the popular Airtel Super Singer Junior season 2. There were quite a few types of flutes that he played on in that programme, one, interestingly, looked like a flute stuck on a keyboard. And what was even more interesting to me was that he looked so much younger than I remembered him. Imagine then what I must have done: look him up on google. Only to realize that like a good Indian masala movie with double trouble, there were two flautists with the same name - one Naveen, one Navin Iyer. The former, the Fluid man, the latter & the younger, the one that came on the Airtel show. Incidentally, both have played for Rahman. And Navin Iyer is an interesting musician too.