RISING ABOVE ALL ODDS

Singer Harrdy Sandhu ’s break into music was a rather unpredictable one, but with his songs and now his Bollywood debut in ‘83, he shows how, with perseverence, nothing is impossibe to achieve

- JIGAR SHAH

A phoenix is a long-lived creature that cyclically regenerates or is reborn from its ashes. A phoenix falls to the bottom of the pit and rises to stake claim over what it believes belongs to it. In that sense, Harrdy ‘Hardavinder’ Singh is no less than a phoenix.

Today, the world knows him as a successful singer, as the man behind songs like Soch, Backbone and Kya Baat Hai, but very few know that he was an accomplished cricketer before he made a career in music. He represented India at the U-19 World Cup and rubbed shoulders with the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Ishant Sharma, Piyush Chawla, Rohit Sharma, Cheteshwar Pujara, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, and many more in his short career. His dream was to play cricket and represent India at an international level. But destiny had different plans. His cricket career began in the late 90s, and it was cut short because he suffered an elbow injury to his bowling arm. He visited the best doctors, but things were never the same again. Apart from cricket, the only thing he was passionate about was music. So, he decided to try his hand at singing.

This phase changed Sandhu’s view about life, he reveals. “When people learn about my story, they tell me it inspires them to keep trying. The one lesson I learnt was that life doesn’t move forward in a straight line. It's like a rollercoaster. Life has a variety of colours and one should enjoy each one of them. Today, I’m prepared for anything that life has to throw at me. I’m sure I’ll be able to survive and come out triumphant.”

He continues, “It is not like I haven’t seen ups and down in my music career. The struggle has been constant. In 20132014 after Soch