Medical technologist croons to uplift fear of Covid-19

In a sing-song kind of way, Prem Murti has uplifted the spirits of both, his ilk, the medical fraternity, and those living in fear of Covid-19. A Medical Technologist in operation theatre of Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, Prem recently uploaded a video of him singing a few lines of the old song, Ik pyar ka nagma hai, which has gone viral.Wearing medical scrubs, Prem, a musician by passion, shot the video as a tribute to those in the frontline of fight against Covid-19, the medical fraternity. “As an anesthesia technologist, my duty is usually in the ICU ward, that is where I recorded that video,” says Prem, adding, “Though the original song is longer, I found these two lines, Toofan ko ana hai, akey chale jana hai, badal hai kuch pal ke, cha kar dhal jana hai, apt for the current situation when we are fighting this pandemic. I hoped it would bring some cheer to the world living under the coronavirus cloud.”

Following the popularity of the video, music labels have started scouting for Prem. “A famous music label from Mumbai approached me to remake their cover songs and another web series has offered me to sing their title track,” says Prem who has also been signed by a leading a Punjabi film and music production house.
Since he was absorbed as an employee at PGIMER in 2012, Prem, who hails from Bihar, nurtured music as a hobby and began accumulating musical instruments aspiring to be a music composer. Having come into Chandigarh in 2007 as a student at PGIMER, Prem pursued formal training in musical instruments, with tabla as his preference from Pracheen Kala Kendra in 2010. “I wanted to become a music composer not a singer initially, so I learnt the instruments. It was only later when people started suggesting that I have a good voice that I began singing,” he says.
Prem’s first break came in 2013 when he was offered a jingle on a radio FM channel. “Since 2015 I have also been singing Punjabi singles, besides Haryanvi, Bengali, and Hindi,” says Prem who sings cover and original songs now. Ask him if being from Bihar, language is barrier as a musician in Punjabi and he says, “As a composer, language doesn’t matter, only the emotion does. The lyricist explains the meaning of the lyrics to me and that works,” says Prem adding, “I collaborate with his friend, Maninder Dhillon who has a studio at Manimajra.”