Morning Stars | Shankar Mahadevan: ‘I like to wake up early, I never let go of the morning’

Shankar Mahadevan won his first Grammy earlier this month when his band Shakti bagged the Best Global Music Album award at the Grammys 2024 for This Moment. An iconic figure of the Indian music scenario today, Shankar is renowned for his multifaceted talents as a singer, composer, and musician.

With an impressive repertoire spanning various genres, including classical, folk, and contemporary, Shankar has left an indelible mark on the music scene. Alongside his solo career, he is also a prominent member of the acclaimed trio, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, known for their Bollywood chartbusters.

Over the years, Shankar has been loved for his vocal prowess, but his compositional brilliance also shines through in his ability to seamlessly blend traditional Indian melodies with modern arrangements, captivating listeners with each creation.

In an exclusive conversation with Moneycontrol, he talks about his love for mornings, his family, his work and more. Excerpts…

Shankar Mahadevan.

Are you a morning person? What do you do first thing in the morning?

Yes! I am a morning person. I get this strange feeling that, many of us, use the most beautiful part of the day sleeping away and we waste that essence of the morning. Even if I have slept really late, I like to wake up in the morning and experience it. Later, I might go for a nap but I never let go of the morning. It is a very beautiful place where you just feel gratitude for all that you have got. Feel good for your family, feel good for others. Just sit and introspect a little bit. It’s a great time.

How do you motivate yourself to get out of bed when you have slept late the previous night?

I don’t need to motivate myself because I am always motivated when I get out of the bed. Once I wake up, I am 100 per cent fresh! My family also wonders, sometimes, that even if I sleep late, how am I that fresh in the mornings. Once up, I walk straight out and never sit on the bed grumpy or lazing around.

What do you like to see on the breakfast table? What are your favourite breakfast foods? Would you ever skip breakfast?

I love a good breakfast. Top of my list is all the south Indian breakfast items like idli, dosa, uttapa, upma...it all depends from day to day. But yes, there are also many instances where I have skipped breakfast. It’s not that I am very hard-bound routine person and so, while I enjoy my breakfast, I can also very easily skip breakfast if need be.

What are mornings like after an achievement, like your recent back-to-back concerts globally and in India?

After any concert, achievement or award the previous night, when you really feel artistically satisfied, the next morning is very beautiful because you think about the previous night or the previous concert. And the love and positivity that is brought in from the audience and your near and dear ones is precious and you just sit and introspect on the beautiful feelings with a cup of coffee.

When you were a child, what were mornings like for you?

Like every other child, we also had to get up early in the mornings in those days. I remember the early morning Akash Vani, and the beautiful signature tune. We would listen to the Vande Mataram on the radio, while getting ready to go off to school. I did not enjoy going to school that much in those days. Many times, when I didn’t feel like it, I was allowed to not go to school. My father was one of the most lenient persons on this planet, so I had to just tell him and he would not pressure me.

When you are on a holiday and have no work, what is your favourite thing to do in the mornings?

For me, every day is just like a holiday. When I don’t have to go to the studio for work, I plan my day and for me it is a very precious day because I am completely free, and I am very excited about the day in the morning. I plan what to make for breakfast with my staff and for me, spending time with my wife Sangeeta, is the most precious thing for me. Meeting and spending time with my sons, listening to music, just chilling at home and planning lunch, watching a movie or a TV series. Every minute is important and  it's like preserving every minute of that day – that’s important for me.

Do you have a favourite morning song? Is there anything you like to listen to in the morning?

I have got a devotional playlist which I created and which I listen to in the mornings. Sometimes, I just listen to a lot of chanting in the mornings by traditional pandits who are singing the rudram, chamakam. At other times, I listen to Atharva Shirsha, these are beautiful Sanskrit writings written possibly thousands of years ago and I am just fascinated by the way it is written, the metering, the writing, the emoting, the diction is just fascinating and shows how wonderful our country is.

What is your preferred way of getting news - your smartphone or the newspaper?

Nowadays you can get all the news easily on your mobile handset. But there is nothing like holding the newspaper, the smell of the crisp newspaper in the morning – that is a different feeling. I like to read general news, not too much into Bollywood news at all. I am very selective about what I read.

Which famous stranger/s would you like to have breakfast with?

No, no. I would not prefer to have breakfast with any strangers, however popular that person is. I like to have breakfast only with my family.

Do you get inspired to create music in the mornings more than at night?

There is no particular time for creativity. Sometimes, in the mornings when I wake up I don’t even want to listen to music. It is just the silence that contributes to the music, the sound of the birds and nature around. I have a terrace and I go and sit there and that is my absolute ‘me-time’. I look at the birds and the sky and I can hear morning chants wafting in from a nearby temple. You may create a beautiful song in the most horrible environment in the middle of traffic or in the dead of the night. So, there is nothing like ‘the morning helps your creativity’. The morning definitely refreshes your mind.

Is there something that you absolutely can't do without every morning?

I just can’t do without greeting my family to have a wonderful day. That is something I need to do, first thing in the morning.

What's your favourite fitness activity? What's your least favourite workout?

I love to walk in the mornings and I have an hour-long playlist that I listen to. My least favourite workout is any kind of sport.

What else takes up your mornings?

A lot of thinking takes up my mornings and also a lot of singing and recording and my work. My calls to morning people, who prefer to discuss stuff in the morning, takes up my mornings. There are people like Gulzar sahab who is an early riser, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, my partner at my academy, Sridhar Ranganathan, they are morning people. A lot of discussions, thinking, ideation happens in the mornings.

Please tell us about anything you're reading or watching right now that you're excited about.

I am trying to read and trying to learn some compositions of 17th century Indian classical Carnatic music composer Oottukadu Venkata Subbaiah Iyer, he has some amazing works. I read all kinds of things right from Phantom comics to lots of varied books.