Samyukta, Raghu collaborate on a 'Tsunami'

Singer-songwriter Raghu Dixit and actor Samyukta Hornad have collaborated on an album, titled ‘Tsunami’, that released in Hindi and Kannada on October 6 on YouTube. It also features 100-odd pictures of people with their pets from across the country. It is sheer coincidence that brought us together, feels Samyukta.

Raghu had lost his pet Thunti in January. It has been five years since Samyukta lost her pet Gunda. Raghu had written a song for Thunti in which he talks about the unconditional love between humans and dogs and it was around the same time that Samyukta shared a post about Gunda.

“Every year, Gunda’s birthday is celebrated for a month, during which I do a small campaign to save stray dogs. The campaign, titled ‘Gundagiri’, talks about how strays are abused and sometimes killed. It looks into the issue of illegal dog breeding and promotes the adoption of pets. This post and my many pictures with Gunda caught Raghu’s attention,” Samyukta tells Showtime.

It was during the pandemic that Raghu discovered tunes that he had never strummed on his guitar before. “I was missing Thunti and I wrote a song. I found that this tune perfectly blended with the lyrics. It was a love song with a lot of emotion and feeling. I had never worked on a love song before and this seemed like a perfect start,” explains Raghu.

“It’s about the unconditional love Thunti offered. Every time I walked through that door, she would jump on me and her love almost felt like a Tsunami. The extent and depth of which never changed with seasons or time,” says Raghu.

He adds, “I saw Samyukta’s post on Gunda and it struck me that she and I share similar interests. I called on her and asked her if she would like to collaborate with me on this song. She agreed after much persuasion,” says Raghu.

Samyukta attended a month’s voice lessons before she was ready to record the song. “During the making of the song, we thought we should invite our friends to share their experiences with their pets, just like Raghu and I did. We were overwhelmed when we had over a 100 people sent in pictures with their pets,” says Samyukta. Among those who have shared pictures with their pets include the public figures Ramya, Tovino Thomas, Tejasvi Surya, Vishal Dadlani, Danish Sait, Adah Sharma, Pearle Maaney, Manvitha Kamath and Pranitha Subhash. Raghu has composed, sung, recorded and produced the duet with Samyukta. The Hindi lyrics were written by Neeraj Rajawat and Raghavendra V Kamath has written the Kannada lyrics.