Seema Farswani - Born To Fly

Seema Farswani blends soft-rock guitars, sitar and layered vocals into a big and uplifting sound

“Born To Fly” feels like a song gradually opening the doors and letting the whole room in. It starts from a fairly intimate place, with her vocal sitting close to us, before the guitars begin pushing everything wider. Rishabh Sharma’s guitar work gives the song its rock backbone, while Ananya Wadkar’s sitar adds these bright and unmistakably Indian tones that sit surprisingly naturally beside the guitars.

Then the vocals start stacking up. Shania Tan’s backing parts help give the bigger sections that almost choir-like lift, while Wadkar’s Hindi vocals add another melodic layer. The verses feel reflective, the pre-chorus starts pulling upward, and then the chorus finally opens out. That gradual climb suits the songwriting perfectly.

It’s hopeful, and the guitars, sitar and layered voices give it so much optimism that “Born To Fly” feels built to grow with every chorus.

Interview with Seema Farswani

“Born To Fly” began as a song for your own daughters before expanding into something intended for girls and women much more broadly. What changed in the song when you realised its message could reach far beyond your family?

It began from a very personal instinct, penned for my girls that they should never allow fear or expectation to define the size of their dreams! But as the song developed, I realised that this was not only something I wanted my own girls to hear. There are so many girls and women whose possibilities are still shaped by circumstance, culture or access. The emotional centre remained personal, but the voice became more collective. It evolved from a mother speaking to her daughters into one woman standing beside many others and saying: your dreams belong to you.

The song emerged from The Voices Unseen charity concert in Singapore. Did performing it in that setting reveal a different meaning in the lyrics than you had when you first wrote it?

I did not perform Born To Fly as a finished song at The Voices Unseen, but the experience became an important catalyst for what the song would eventually represent. The concert supported visually impaired girls pursuing education and professional opportunities, and being part of that setting gave the idea of “flying” a much deeper meaning. It was no longer simply about personal ambition; it became connected to access, dignity and the freedom to imagine a future beyond the circumstances into which you were born.

You wanted a world where guitars could sit naturally alongside sitar and Indian vocals. What was the biggest challenge in making those elements feel like one musical language rather than simply placing Western and Indian sounds next to each other?

The challenge was ensuring that neither tradition felt decorative. I did not want the sitar to appear simply as an “Indian moment” or the guitars to overpower the song’s emotional sensitivity. I wanted the interplay between the vocals and instruments to create a genuine dialogue between East and West. The instruments needed to respond to one another. Ananya’s sitar carries emotional vulnerability, longing and hope, while Rishabh’s guitars bring strength, scale and forward motion. Their sounds are different, but emotionally they are part of the same conversation. That is what allowed East and West to meet without either losing its identity.

Rishabh Sharma’s guitar and production give the song much of its rock scale, while Ananya Wadkar’s sitar creates a very different texture. How did the two of them change your original conception of the arrangement?

My original conception held the message and emotional arc, but Rishabh and Ananya helped give that world dimension. Rishabh understood the scale I was reaching for and built guitar textures that move from restraint into something expansive and cinematic. His production gave the song its lift and power. Ananya brought a deeply emotive quality through both her sitar and soaring Hindi vocals. Together, they transformed the arrangement into a dialogue between strength and sensitivity. Working with gifted collaborators also requires trust; they each heard something within the original draft and added their own emotional colour to it.

The song begins with a softer, intimate feeling before expanding into a much larger cinematic anthem. Did you structure that growth deliberately around the idea of a girl finding the courage to “rise,” or did the musical dynamics develop first?

The emotional idea came first. I wanted the song to begin almost as an intimate reassurance; one voice speaking directly to a girls and then gradually open into something larger and more collective. The arrangement mirrors that internal movement from uncertainty to courage and, finally, release. By the time the song reaches its fullest scale, she is no longer being told that she can rise; she is beginning to believe it herself.

Your catalogue has moved through blues, synth-pop, electro-pop, acoustic fusion, Afro House and now cinematic soft-rock. What makes a completely different genre feel like the right language for you each time you start a new song?

I tend to begin with the emotional world rather than a genre. I ask what the story needs—intimacy, movement, tension, space or power—and the musical language develops from there. Blues allowed me to express rawness, synth-pop gave me nostalgia and freedom, Afro House brought movement, and cinematic soft-rock gave Born To Fly the strength and emotional scale it required. Although the genres change, the thread connecting them is my voice, my perspective and my instinct for building a visual and emotional world around each song.

You describe “Born To Fly” as a song about freedom to dream beyond the horizon. Was there a particular limitation—personal, cultural or social—that you had in mind when you wrote those words?

As I penned the song for my girls, and later the draft elevated as we were performing for visually inspired and women empowerment! I itched ten draft to Rish, Ananya and Shania we stood in solidarity with one message! There are still many cultures holding the visible and invisible boundaries that begin shaping girls very early, on what a girl child or a woman should should become, to not be able to voice out their opinion and which dreams are considered realistic for them. I have also experienced beginning a musician life later than convention might expect! The horizon therefore represents any boundary that appears fixed until someone finds the courage to move beyond it. The song does not deny those limitations; it asks us not to let them have the final word.

You come to music from a background in fine arts and spatial design as well as songwriting. Does your visual/design thinking affect the way you construct a large musical space like the one in this track?

Absolutely. I often experience music spatially and visually. I think about proportion, contrast, texture, negative space and how the listener moves through the song. In Born To Fly, the intimate beginning feels like a close interior space, while the guitars, sitar, layered voices and cinematic dynamics gradually open the horizon. It is very similar to designing an environment: every element needs its own place, but together they must guide the listener toward a larger emotional experience.

Ananya contributes both sitar and Hindi vocals, while Shania Tan adds contemporary vocal textures. How did you decide where Hindi should enter the song and what the additional voices should contribute around it?

The Hindi vocal scat needed to enter at a point where the song was emotionally opening outward. I did not want it to feel like a translation or an inserted cultural reference; it needed to deepen the feeling. Ananya’s voice gives that moment a soaring, rooted quality, while Shania’s contemporary, neo-classically informed vocal textures add light, atmosphere and another dimension to the ensemble. Rishabh’s backing vocals strengthen that collective presence as well. The additional voices help the song move from an individual declaration into something shared: four voices becoming one sound. I created the sonic world, melody and composition, and Rishabh brought that vision to life with remarkable sensitivity, giving each texture and note its own space and individuality while allowing the four voices to have their own identity along with instrumentation and come together as one.

The title “Born To Fly” is extremely simple and universal, while the arrangement is quite layered and culturally specific. Did you intentionally want the message to remain immediately accessible even as the music became more ambitious?

Yes. The production could be layered and culturally detailed, but the central message needed to remain instinctive. “Born To Fly” is something a child can understand immediately, yet it can carry a different meaning for a woman reclaiming her voice or finding the courage to believe in herself. I loved that contrast: a simple, universal phrase held within an ambitious musical world. The accessibility of the title gives listeners room to place their own story inside it.

You’ve released songs in English, Spanish, Arabic and French, and your musical identity has increasingly crossed geographical boundaries. What does working across languages and cultures allow you to express that staying within one musical tradition would limit?

Each language has its own rhythm, emotional temperature and way of holding a feeling. Arabic can carry a particular intensity, Spanish has warmth and movement, French brings another kind of intimacy, while Hindi connects me to heritage and memory. Working across cultures allows me to express different aspects of who I am Indian-American, raised in Dubai, moving across cities and now based in Singapore—without reducing that identity to one geographical label. I do not experience these influences as separate worlds. They coexist naturally within me, and music allows them to meet.

“Born To Fly” carries a message of courage, hope and possibility, but your previous “Sketches on the Walls” also dealt with rejecting other people’s judgments and choosing to live authentically. Do you see these songs as connected chapters in the same artistic conversation?

Very much so. Sketches on the Walls is about stripping away the labels and judgments that other people place upon us and choosing to live more authentically. Born To Fly takes the next step: once you stop allowing those judgments to define you, what becomes possible? One song is about reclaiming identity; the other is about using that freedom to rise. They are different sonic worlds, but both are part of the same artistic conversation about courage, self-belief and becoming unapologetically yourself!

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