The storyteller of our times

Lyricist, and master storyteller Neelesh Misra in a freewheeling chat talks about his new show, career and more

Storytelling has always been an integral part of Indian tradition. There was a time when All India Radio had audio dramas, and narrations that had dedicated listeners. However, with time the trend faded and narrating stories was a thing of past until Neelesh Misra – the journalist-turned-lyric writer began his radio show ‘Yaadon Ka Idiot Box’ on Big FM 92.7 and ‘The NeeleshMisra Show on Red FM 93.5’ where he would narrate stories. The show was successful much to everyone’s surprise, and with his art of storytelling Neelesh won millions of listeners.

He started his career as a journalist and used to report about insurgency from the hinterlands of the country including the Kashmir. He also covered the Kargil War. About leaving his career as an award-winning journalist (he won the Ramnath Goenka Award For Excellence in Journalism and the KC Kulish Memorial Award) he steered towards music.

He shares, “I think I am very greedy to do new things (laughs). One of the blessings of my life is that I never got to do anything boring. I love creating new concepts. I took six months sabbatical from work to come from Delhi to Bombay to try this. Eight months had passed and my office started calling me asking about my plans.

Then one day I was sitting in a music session at Pritam’s studio and doing some songs and I looked around and said to myself that I like doing this. I went to the parking lot and emailed my resignation. That moment changed my life and radio became the epicentre.”

The radio show, which was such a huge success was an accident and Neelesh recalls, “I was on a sabbatical from work and I came to Mumbai from Delhi to start a band. It was a new format and we were singing with stories around it.

We came up with an album ‘Rewind’ and we were looking for a radio partner to promote the album and they liked it and offered the show. I was never related to radio in any capacity before and it was a new terrain for me. The experiment was a success and as the cliché goes ‘rest is history’.”

“The stories were passed down from the Upanishads and through oral tradition and then it died because we became too busy to hear stories. The idea of narrating a story to a child and having them sleep faded out as we became too busy and the child too became busy watching TV, etc.

Then in 90s economic liberalisation happened with which jobs increased and work time also increased. So, family time also vanished. Grandparents were busy watching daily soaps and the stories were not passed. I think what we are doing is the reinvention of that tradition and it is lovely that we are bringing back that tradition.”

Neelesh has been associated with audio streaming platform Saavn and he was recently in Hyderabad to promote his new show ‘Kahaani Express’, which has been inspired by the Indian Railways. The experiences of train journeys have been told in 12 different stories and have been voiced into three local Indian languages – Telugu, Hindi and Tamil.

“My association with Saavn has been a great success and with ‘Kahaani Express’ we are taking our vision for storytelling even further,” he adds. “Trains are integral part of our lives. There is a lot of amazing nostalgia attached to train journeys. We wanted to document the nostalgia but not by giving up on our narrative which was around relationships, et al. In the ‘Kahaani Express’catalogue, we have stories about marriage, love, humour, suspense, etc,” he adds. “Due to low internet data charges, the habit of listening will only increase. I think oral story telling has a great future. And we must work hard towards it,” he shares.

Neelesh straddled many professions and he also made his foray into Bollywood as a lyricist. He met ace director Mahesh Bhatt while researching for a book and that meeting led to his debut song “Jaadu hai nasha hai” for ‘Jism’ (2003). Subsequently, he penned hits songs like “Kya mujhe pyaar hai” for ‘Woh Lamhe’ (2006) and wrote lyrics for over 20 films. Neelesh also co-wrote the screenplay for Salman Khan - starrer, ‘Ek Tha Tiger’.

“I am working on one more film script, and planning to come up with more shows on audio platforms,” he concludes.