BENGALURU, 8 MAY

Singer Sonu Nigam's apology is not enough, he must also face repercussions for saying such harsh words, said Kannada director K Ramnarayan on Thursday. He said this while announcing his decision to replace two songs by the singer in his upcoming film 'Kuladalli Keelyavudo' with track versions.

"Connecting Kannada pride to the national tragedy that happened in Pahalgam is a very grave mistake. He must pay a price for that," said Ramnarayan.

'Kuladalli Keelyavudo', expected in theatres from 23 May, has already released three songs, two of which are by Nigam.

"He sang the title track, which is a tribute to the most famous Kannada song, featured in legendary actor Rajkumar's 1965 film 'Satya Harishchandra'. The original ‘Kuladalli Keelyavudo’ is also sacred for the Kannada film industry. How can this song be sung by someone like Nigam who thinks so lowly of us," said Ramnarayan.

"Track singer is Chethan Sosca. We actually liked the track versions of both the songs that we had sent to Nigam. Now, we are fine tuning them, so we could release them with Chethan's voice," added Ramnarayan.

A "track singer" refers to a singer who initially records a vocal performance for a song as a demo.

While 'Kuladalli Keelyavudo' has already been removed from YouTube by the makers, Nigam's version of 'Manasu Haadtade' is still available on his YouTube channel.

"I have a very long association with Nigam, who has sung more than 1,000 songs in Kannada," reminisced Ramnarayan, who wrote scripts and lyrics before he started directing.