Sanjeeta Bhattacharya on bagging the role in 'Jawan', working with SRK, and her first love

She is a Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter. She is one of the power puff girls in Shah Rukh Khan’s gang in Jawan. She is also the wide-eyed trainee journalist Juhi Shergill in The Broken News. And now Sanjeeta Bhattacharya is basking in the success of her latest single ‘Ratiyaan’—her 15th independent track.

‘Ratiyaan’ was born out of a restless night and a hook that kept playing in her head, Bhattacharya tells Bazaar India. “It speaks of forbidden love. A kind that leaves you obsessed but you can’t express it and every moment without them feels like forever.” Bhattacharya’s intent with ‘Ratiyaan’ was to blend her Indian classical influences with a contemporary pop element, using languages that resonated with her upbringing in Delhi—Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi.

For the 28-year-old, music is the purest form of self-expression. “It’s deeply intimate and an affirmation of my reality. It’s cathartic to wear my feelings on my sleeve and have fun doing it. I can only hope the world relates to it,” she says. She first tasted success in 2015 when she paid a heartfelt tribute to musician AR Rahman at the AR Rahman Meets Berklee concert in Boston Symphony Hall. “Videos (of the concert) went viral. When I came back to India, people would recognise me from it,” recalls the Berklee College of Music alumna.

Acting happened very organically, says Bhattacharya. It was a domino effect—she started off with acting in her music videos, then auditioned for an advertisement, which led to the Netflix series Feels Like Ishq (2021) and finally Jawan (2023). Asked about her experience of working with Shah Rukh Khan, she says, “I realised that the most successful people are also the humblest.”

Coming back to music, Bhattacharya says she gets inspired by her gurus—Pandit Birju Maharaj, Sunanda Sharma, and Siddharth Das. “I love surrounding myself with people who I believe I can learn from.” As for her upcoming projects, Bhattacharya says she is working on a few more singles that will see a blend of Hindi, Bengali, and Spanish. Asked her about a dream collaboration, she laughed and said, “A film with Timothée Chalamet and have my music on the soundtrack. Yes, I dream big!”

All images: Sanjeeta Bhattacharya, Indian singer and songwriter

This article originally appeared in Harper's Bazaar India, August 2024, print edition. 

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