Nama Sankirtana is a term used in Indian classical music to describe the congregational chanting of a prayer. A singer renders a line, then urges listeners to repeat it after him. It's therapeutic, collaborative and interactive, says Shankar Mahadevan. Where did the composer employ the technique, you ask? He did so to create Amitabh, Abhishek and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's revered item song, Kajra Re (Bunty Aur Bubli), where the track's hook line sees the male vocals come chiming in after those of the female.

It's not conventional, he admits, to employ devotional music techniques for an item song. Yet, he asserts, "you can be inspired by anything". In a bid to highlight the role that his solid background in classical music played in defining his success as a commercial music composer, Mahadevan draws many a similar example. In conversation with frequent collaborator, lyricist and CBFC chief Prasoon Joshi, at Music Concept's recently concluded India Music Summit, the musician highlights how writing and composing run hand in hand. Jogging our memory as he sings the lyrics that Joshi had penned for the title track of Taare Zameen Pe, he talks passionately about how the melody of the introductory lines needed to be at stark contrast with the concluding one — Kho na jaaye ye, taare zameen pe. The latter, he says, needed to sound like a warning; distanced and distinct from the remaining stanza.