Neeti Mohan is loving her stint as a judge on the singing reality show The Voice India Kids. The singer is also excited about the response to her latest number Sau Aasman from Baar Baar Dekho. Speaking of it, Neeti says, “I am loving the response. Amaal Malik has composed it and I rendered it along with Armaan. It’s a sexy, romantic number. I remember after the song was done, Amaal called and complimented me, saying it has come out pretty well. Of course I had Katrina Kaif in mind while singing it, and now that it has worked so well, I couldn’t be happier.”
The singer, who is the eldest of four sisters, says she owes her success to her upbringing. “We come from a middle-class family. We are four sisters and growing up, we’d often hear visitors talking about how it’s ‘so sad’ that we don’t have brothers. My father was always motivating. They usually say, there’s a woman behind every successful man. I say there’s a father behind every successful daughter. Were it not for him, we would not have been able to achieve what we have. I was the driving force behind all my sisters. I was the first girl in my family, who decided to study in a boarding school. Then I also joined the NCC. I even participated in the Independence Day parade. All this made my family proud,” she said.
Speaking of her talented sisters, Neeti says, “Initially, Mukti wanted to become an IPS officer, but later she turned to dancing and excelled at it. Today she has an online store that specialises in dancer accessories. My other sister Kriti took to a back-office job, while Shakti went on to win Dance India Dance. None of us are in a 9-to-6 kind of jobs. Sometimes we lunch in our car, we have to be on our toes working at odd hours.” She continues. “All this has happened, thanks to our father. All I want to say is that every parent needs to support their children, especially the girl child. We women can change the world.”
Neeti’s interests go way beyond singing. She confesses that much like her sisters, she loves to dance too. “Yes, I love dancing.” Among other things, she’s also an animal lover. “I love dogs and fish especially, I like taking care of them. And I am also a big foodie.” She feels that the only way to survive the cut-throat competition is to be open to new things. She tries to do that through her music. “I have been inspired by the folk music of Rajasthan and Punjab. Also, A.R. Rahman is one of my greatest inspirations. I have even tried singing in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada and I play guitar as well. I do not want to restrict myself to any one type. I like to do new things and surprise myself,” she concludes.
Coming back to her father, the singer talks about how much he trusts his daughters. “My father trusts us a lot and me and my sisters have always tried to maintain that trust. I have had a good journey so far in the industry and I can never break my father’s trust. I always feel there is a hidden camera through which he’ll come to know if I do anything wrong or unethical.”
