On a musical high

There are no big twists or turns in Zonobia Safar’s story to start it dramatically. She had always loved music, as a child winning prizes at school, as a teenager being part of college bands and now as a working mom, singing when time lets her at a studio. Zonobia is making small dreams come true, singing for the first time in a feature film — Queen — and a couple of ad films.

“I saw a Facebook post calling singers – fresh female vocalists – for Queen. My colleagues said I should send a demo,” says Zonobia, who works with IBS at Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram. “Dijo, the director, is an ex-IBS guy. Friends at the office helped a lot. And a month later, Jakes Bejoy, the music director, called me for a voice test in Kochi. Two weeks later, we recorded the song,” she says. ‘Saare’ is that song. Soon after Queen, she got to take part in a Music Mojo session for Kappa TV, singing with a band called Meet the JD, made of Justin James and Benjamin Joe.

Before all this, Zonobia used to record her songs at home. But when the Queen call came, she made a demo by going to a studio. Now she tries to record all her singing in studios. A cover of the Kadal song ‘Ennodu Nee Irundhaal’ became popular. “Like a lot of singers, my ultimate aim is also to perform with AR Rahman one day,” she says.

She will slowly reach there, but it is not going to be easy, she knows. She already has very little time for music, with a full time job and a two-and-a-half-year old at home and another little one on the way. For a reality show by Santoor, she became a finalist, tagged by the show as ‘an IIM graduate, computer geek and super mom.’ Zonobia went to IIM Indore, after her engineering days at NIT, Kozhikode. 

Zonobia, now a Thiruvananthapuram resident, has been mostly outside the city – growing up in Muscat and UAE till her class X. “I came to Thiruvananthapuram for class XI and XII for the whole entrance exam rat race,” she says. After B.Tech, she got married. She took music along with her but just didn’t think of it as a profession. “I’d like to be a full-time professional some day,” she says.