A meeting with Lydia Nadhaswaram when the latter was five years old extended into a relationship that percussionist Sivamani holds close to his heart. “He is a phenomenal musician, and an extraordinary piano player. But, when we began to shoot for Atkan Chatkan, we realised he has another talent to show the world,” he says of the now 14-year old, who made his acting debut with the web release.

The tale of an ambitious young boy who battles all odds to practice music is one that resonated with Sivamani, who says the script “matched my life-story”. As music director, he hence left no stone unturned to bring the offering to life, roping in an array of artistes like Amitabh Bachchan, Hariharan, Sonu Nigam, his wife Runa Sivamani, and Uthara Unnikrishnan to create the soundtrack.

As has been with several artistes ever since the lockdown was imposed, the percussionist found himself at the mercy of technology to compose his tunes. His first tryst at doing so was for AR Rahman’s lockdown song, Hum haar nahi maanenge. “I had to call my sound engineer to guide me through the process. Now, I can record my drum sessions [using digital software]. I have also done online-concerts with my keyboard player. It helped that we live in the same building, so we could work on the concerts [seamlessly]. Apart from that, I have also done a few [virtual gigs] with Runa.”

Having found himself in the midst of shifting into a new home when the lockdown was announced, Sivamani is glad that even though the kitchen and living room was undone, he had his music room set up suitably. “Now, I am working on another movie that rolls in October. There are surprises linked with that,” he says elusively.

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