While favouritism continues to be a raging topic in film and music industry, playback singer Shalmali says that even though her voice has been removed from many songs, she refrains to tag herself as a victim and says creating opportunity beyond film music is the way forward for her.

"I keep away from that controversy because I am rather focussed on making music, writing songs, finding various avenues to channelise my creativity. What else should I do? Pointing fingers on people will not do any good to music," Shalmali told IANS.

She added: "Having said that, favouritism exists in the Bollywood music scene, but what are they trying to say? They do not want to work (with some people)? Okay, let them be. I am here for making music. I am not just here for making music in Bollywood. I look beyond that."

On the occasion of Friendship Day, she released a song called "For you", written by Asmyth Prabhudesai. The song is composed by Rishabh Joshi, Shalmali and Asmyth Prabhudesai.

She also released her first ever English number "Regular", which she has also written and composed. She said this was a longtime dream.

Has she ever been a victim of favouritism? "I am quite naive that way. I get to know that the song I have recorded has not been released when the album of the film releases. Many times, more than one singer records the same song. At the end of the day, the music director takes the call on whose voice to retain in the final album. Yes, my voice has also been removed. I will not take the name of the song, but it is okay, I moved on," answered the singer.

Despite delivering superhits in Bollywood like "Daru desi", "Shuddh desi romance", "Lat lag gayee", "Baby ko bass pasand hai", and "Beech beech mein", she said that after facing such experience, she takes every film song recording as an audition.

"The way I want to look at it, when any music director calls me to lend my voice for a film song, I think I am going for an audition. Because that way I feel good in my heart, it humbles me. It keeps me grounded to know that even though I have songs like ‘Balam pichkari' and ‘Laat lag gayee' in my kitty, I am going through an audition process. If they keep my voice, it is great, if not, it is okay. At least I learnt something new," she smiled.

(Arundhuti Banerjee can be contacted at arundhuti.b@ians.in)