Shravan Rathod (of Nadeem-Shravan), passed away on Thursday due to Covid 19. The composer is survived by two sons. He was 66.

Shravan died of Covid-19 complications in Mumbai's S L Raheja Hospital on Thursday evening (22^nd April). The veteran musician was diagnosed with Covid-19 recently as he had attended the Kumbh mela and contracted the virus there. He also had multiple medical problems. He was kept on ventilator support. Confirming the news, Dr Kirti Bhushan of Raheja Hospital said that the cause of death is cardiomyopathy with multiple organ failure due to Covid-19. 

While fans around the world stand in mourning, let’s rewind the tape and rediscover the decade defining duo of Nadeem-Shravan and their archetypical music. The duo began with the bestselling superhit soundtrack of his 1990 romantic film ‘Aashiqui’. Era defining, as the songs of the film were, the duo behind it knew little that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Nadeem-Shravan had miles to go with their dholak pop and ghazal-esque songs. Not to forget the trendsetting Jhankaar Beats the duo brought into focus: a cookie cut octapad treatment to songs of all genres.

This zany phenomenon of N-S brought them into the vogue and distinguished them from other music duos of the 90s like Jatin-Lalit and Anand-Milind. Opening the 90s with a Filmfare hattrick (for the soundtracks of ‘Aashiqui’, ‘Saajan’ and ‘Deewana’), Nadeem -Shravan are largely credited for the career fillip of Kumar Sanu, the Arijit of the 90s. They regularly teamed up with Sanu (who they lovingly called ‘Tiger’) and the lyricist Sameer, creating a formidable team churning out hits by the day.

Controversy bogged the group post T-Series founder Gulshan Kumar’s murder and Nadeem, a key suspect went abroad. Nevertheless, the group continued churning out hits till well into the 2000s [their last album together was ‘Dosti’ (2005) followed by David Dhawan's ‘Do Knot Disturb’ (2009)]. And like all memorable duos, N-S parted ways to make way for individual careers.

Nadeem went abroad to pursue a perfume and bag business and Shravan took the backseat, focussing on the music career of his sons Sanjeev-Darshan [most notable for scoring the Aamir Khan starrer ‘Mann’ (1999)].

Shravan was also brother to another 90s singing sensation Vinod Rathod and the ghazal singer Roopkumar Rathod. With Shravan's death, coronavirus has plundered the second Bollywood music duo. Not even a year ago, Wajid Khan (of Sajid-Wajid) had passed away due to coronavirus complications.