In the first week of September, she got a call from Rahman’s studio, informing Nandy that her version had been finalised for ‘Alaikadal’, a song that she sang two years back. “I couldn’t immediately remember what song they were talking about. It was two years back and whenever I go to Chennai, I sing a lot of scratches within a stipulated time. The sound engineer told me that I had sung this song in forty minutes. I was panicking because generally, an original song takes two to two and a half hours to record,” says Nandy.
Mani Ratnam, who was also present at the time of recording, briefed her on the song’s scenario — “She is a boat woman and she is rowing in the middle of the water body as she sings this song. She is in love with the prince and she is a very strong character. So, the song has to bring all the feelings of love and pain, and there has to be some strength in the song,” Nandy recounts the filmmaker’s brief.
The young singer remembers wondering how she could pull it off as she had not felt the extremes of any of these emotions in life. She recalls, “Rahman sir said “Whether or not you have experienced it, your job as an artist is to make the audience believe you. And that’s the trick.” After the first take, he told me that I was singing the song technically right, but not putting my heart into it. He explained the lyrics line by line and guided me to sing it with emotion. He told me, “the song is like the waves of the ocean.” When I hear all the versions today, I think the Telugu, Kannada, and Hindi ones are more technically sound. But the Tamil version has a lot of emotion, thanks to Rahman sir.”