Without Passion, You Can’t Reach Your Goal - The Raja Hasan Interview
In a freewheeling interview with Shraddha Nigam, telecast on Zee Muzic, Raja Hasan talks about a lot of things - a few we already knew. And a few wonderfully surprising disclosures.
This easily is Raja’s finest interview to date - and in this first part, he talks about his background, growing years and his struggling days in Mumbai before making it big at Saregamapa. To start off the interview, Raja talks about his family’s background in singing and how his family has been associated with the music industry for a long time. One interesting mention was the name of Ghulam Mohammed - the legendary composer for Pakeezah - who churned out some of the finest compositions Hindi films has ever seen - including Chalte Chalte and Chalo Dildar Chalo.
Raja goes on further to talk about how he didn’t really wasn’t into studies, and decided to shift to Mumbai - and in the process had promised his mother - that he will be on television one day.
And then comes the most interesting part - when he talks about his struggling days in Mumbai. In a wonderful few moments, he talks on how he and his friends used to walk miles and miles each day - from one corner of the city to another. He talks about the resort where he sang ghazals, his friends and how they enjoyed their lives thoroughly - in spite the fact that livelihood was a struggle.
There’s also a small mention of Diwakar Banerjee - the director of Khosla Ka Ghosla who asked him to record a song for the film. Raja does also hint that the song was “Chak De Phatte” itself, however it is a bit of a mystery where Raja’s version ended up, or why he wasn’t credited for the song.
And finally he goes on to speak about the his entry into Saregamapa and the tough times he had to put in during the initial rounds before he made it to the main draw. And as usual, he doesn’t forget to mention names of people who had helped him in during these rounds - including his gurus Sanjay Vidyarthi and Mukesh. He also does remember his co-contestants in the earlier rounds, who he feels were equally talented, but still unlucky to get through.
In all, it is an amazing interview and we have it in three parts here. But then, there is more. There is the second part of the interview too - hopefully I’ll be posting that in the next couple of days.
And finally, a big thank you to a few people who recorded, edited and uploaded these videos. Thank you Sudha and her husband who have given up their weekend Thursday holiday on to record, edit and upload this interview. And of course a big thank you to Jugal Bajaj who helped in putting up these videos. Watch out for Part 2 of the Raja Hasan interview soon. It promises to be even more interesting!
Now, I think we need to bug Raffu to give us our prizes. Raffu, are you there????...
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Wowieee.. thanks Sudha, Jugal and everyone involved. I cant wait to get home and see this.
oh wow… interesting… i am soooooooooo excited… cant wait to watch these videos after going home… thanks a zillion… how i wish i could go home and watch right now
im speechless……thanks soo much!!
Thanks a ton Manish, Jugal, Sudha and her husband. So nice to see Raja live after so many months and to hear his songs. Can’t wait for part 2… post it soon, please Manish and Jugal.
raja is so sweet n y didn’t they just put his version of chak de phatte in the movie cuz he sang it way better than kailash
thanks to everyone for the interview clips
Sudha, Manish and Jugal bhai ,
you guys have made my day!!!! This is the best Fan site, all you guys are the best abd our Raja is the KING no doubt.
Music Lover
Raja! You are rocking.
Nice to see our stunning Raja again on the TV. I feel proud of you Raja, you still have your feet grounded. Thanks a ton Mrs.Sudha, Mr.Sudha, Jugal and RHB for posting it. 
great! thank you sudha, thank you very much. raja, u r just the best. i can’t believe that in todays’ world there are people like you, so humble, so loving and so much caring for everyone. god bless you. i wish you go far ahead in life and get everything u truly deserve.
Thanks a lot sudha,manish and Jugal for the video,awsome to see Raja once again,wish i can just pull him out of the computer and let him know how much we all care about him ,hard to hear about his struggling days.I never watched any videos of Saregamapa final and got to see the clip from finale in this interview video when he was singing chak de phatte as for me i dont mind Aneek winning the contest but cant see Raja loosing and i didnt mind Aneek winning the contest because i had full faith in God that Raja will be the winner in real life so let Aneek be happy with that trophy who cares.
Thanks a lot sudha and her husband, RHB and JB for sharing this video. very very happy to see RAJA after long time.
i couldnt see the videos properly.. they were stopping after playing for a minute…
but friends……. Happy Indian Republic Day!!
Yah!! I hope all my fellow Indians are celebrating the big day and having plenty of smiles on ur face.
Hope we see India progess more and more and more and may God bless the country and all its citizens forever!! Amen!
thanks once again Sudha, Jugal and Manish,
feel so good to watch Raja again.
Please keep the good work going.
thanks whoever running this site everybody thanku
may ALLAH bless raja and his all good wishes come true and give him success in all his endeavours
AMEN