Shayan's <I>Deliverance</I>

"I just love what I do which is why I would rather give every single thing I’ve got, every drop of blood I’ve got, to make this work because the only way you’re ever going to make a difference is if you set to achieve the impossible,” Shayan Italia told Jasleen Kaur Gupta of Hi! Blitz, the exclusive in-flight magazine for Kingfisher Airlines (April 2006). (The article in the magazine was brought to Parsiana’s attention by reader Rashid Khosravi.)

Italia’s appearance on the international music stage has prompted an understandable question: "Is another Freddy Mercury in the making?” Song writer, composer and artist rolled into one, Italia is poised to launch his first album, Deliverance, in the UK. According to an e-mail message from the crooner-composer, the album will be available for download in 25 countries from July 25, 2006. The pricing for the album, he notes, would be standard as featured on iTunes, Napster, eMusic, HMV Digital, Virgin Digital and all other digital providers.

As quoted in the magazine, the album comprises 11 unique songs: "It works as a story, it works if you are taking it into a musical or a film.” And to raise the funds that made it all possible the "tech junkie” sold his shares on ebay.com that entitled investors to earn a quarter percent share on his lifetime earnings, writes Gupta, adding, "This novel idea got him £ 9,000 from three investors in the very first week of his website postings.”

He has recently won the GO 92.5FM First Stage competition in Bombay where original compositions were invited in any genre or language and listeners responded with over 200 entries, notes Hi! Blitz Seven were short listed and Italia is said to have emerged the winner in the live performance that followed.

The fair, glowing young man of 27 had performed at the dinners hosted by the Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe (ZTFE) during the Eighth World Zoroastrian Congress in London in June 2005. Clad in open collared shirts and jeans, a Celtic necklace round his neck, his intensely emotional performance had been lustily applauded, especially by the younger members of the audience.

Son of the Dr Fareed and Mahrookh Italia of Hyderabad, Shayan lost his parents in quick succession, his mother to cancer, his father to multiple sclerosis a little before and a little after graduating in international trade practices and procedures from Nizam College, according to Synergyz, Journal of the World Zarathusthi Chamber of Commerce (November 2005). He told Hi! Blitz, "I only started writing songs after my mum passed away, year two of my bachelors at exam time. I didn’t want to finish my degree but I was told to finish it and during that time my dad really deteriorated and passed away a year later.” His deep commitment to his family is reflected in his having selected the birthday of his brother Dynshaw, finance manager of Cobra Beer, to launch his maiden album. The Italia brothers and Cobra’s Karan Bilimoria are cousins.

Italia: "to make a difference”

In their passing, Shayan’s parents seem to have gifted him with the creative urge — the gift of song — of which he says he had no intimation earlier. Opting to capitalize on it, Italia is said to have realized that it was a vast industry he was dealing with and needed to know the techniques that sustain it.

Working his way through a Higher National Diploma in audio engineering at Alchemea University, he followed it up with a masters in Music Business Management from the Westminster University, London. Every time he faced a slump he says he read Paul Arden’s It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be.

Inspired by travel and simple things in life like the sight of a couple holding hands – also women of all types – Italia gave Gupta his own version of what makes a hit song: "If someone said, ‘I heard your song once and I love it,’ that means the next week he’s going to get sick of it. If someone told me, ‘I heard your song and I heard it the third time and I started listening to what you’re saying, the melody captured me and then I started listening to the words,’ the song will live forever.”