From songs to food

Prashant Ingole first came into the limelight after he penned the popular tune Party on my Mind for Bollywood film Race 2. Since then there was no looking back, as he has gone on to write songs for much acclaimed films like Mary Kom and Bajirao Mastani.
But before films happened, Ingole previously trained as a chef. And now, he is all set to pursue this other love of his further and set up a restaurant in Goa soon.
"The name of the restaurant will be 7 with the tag line - Madness of India. The concept will be very crazy and unlike any other restaurant in Goa right now," says Ingole, who is still on the look out for the perfect place for this venture. "I have always been connected with the number 7 and in fact I am born on the seventh. I also realised that the number has a lot of value to it- there are seven colours of the rainbow, seven surs, seven gods. Besides the number looks quite fancy and stylish," he continues. " Once the Goa restaurant is in place, I later hope to open it in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Bangalore. I am looking at opening the sixth one in Spain as I have always felt a special connection to the country."
Ingole also plans to move to Goa soon. " I love Goa because it\'s so laid back and has a charm and beauty about it. Also, being a writer I love the greenery and water. Plus I love dancing and there\'s a lot of music that I like here like Latin, Spanish and Jazz," he says, before surprisingly adding, "I hate dancing to Bollywood music. I just can\'t dance to it. In fact I can\'t dance to my own songs!"
A regular visitor to the state, Ingole in fact conducted a lyric writing workshop at the Goa Marathi Film Festival last year and admits that he came away impressed.
" The talent in Goa is mad! What I discovered was that the people who live away from the commercial tourist areas especially have a very pure soul. The way they write, their visuals are quite crazy and I have already referred a couple of them for a Marathi film," he states.
Speaking further about the art of lyric writing, Ingole believes that for a song to be a success you need a lot of patience, perseverance, dedication, luck, a huge chunk of knowledge and a great vocabulary.
Research, he says, is paramount for every song he takes up. " Firstly I look at the language. And then I sit with the director to understand the character so as to get a better idea into the character\'s mindset. A biopic of course requires more research as it is based on a particular person and the lyrics have to be very apt for that character. Also, it is important to follow the language of the era," he says.
And though remakes of old tunes seems to be quite the trend in Bollywood right now, Ingole is not a fan of this at all. " I hate it. It gives the impression that there is no talent here," he says.
And while his songs have been made famous by noted singers in the industry, Ingole doesn\'t have plans to turn singer himself. " My sister always wanted me to, but no " he says chuckling. " I do want to cut an English album though and I have written some songs for it already. It\'s pretty amateur stuff right now but if it falls into place I would like to take it ahead."
But in the meantime, Ingole is also expanding his horizons by recently venturing into the Marathi film industry and has penned a tune Dil Khulas for the film Lapachhapi, a horror film which has already won awards. "As I am very finicky about the films I choose I asked for a narration of the film and the director instead showed me the film. I immediately grasped the situation that the director wanted me to write about and had the lyrics ready in three days," he says. "This being my first Marathi song I was very careful about writing the lyrics. I wanted to keep it a bit contemporary and smooth."
Besides this he is also working on the lyrics with upcoming film Daddy starring Arjun Rampal in the lead, which is based on gangster turned politician Arun Gawli. " I am also coming up with a Marathi film and have done the script for it. The film will be based on human mentality," he says.