MUMBAI: I got scars upon scrapes, I’ve got bruises on breaks Masochistically committed to see how much of this I’ll take Three years under water, and I ain’t even got the shakes I’m going deeper and deeper and deeper

Try humming these lyrics to understand why it took Sonal D’Silva three weeks to compose a tune for the song they are a part of.

“Masochistically is the most difficult word to break down! If you’ve cracked that, you’ve cracked the song,” says D’Silva. This Carmichael Road resident is one of six finalists in singer John Mayer’s songwriting contest in the August 2005 issue of Esquire magazine. Branded the ‘sexiest import’, D’Silva is the only winner outside North America.

While working on his new album, the Grammy-winning Mayer invited readers of his regular column with the magazine to “give his orphaned lyrics a home”. By September 30, he had received 2,212 entries composing music for his lyrics.

While the grand prize was an autographed electric guitar, the runners-up have their compositions streaming off the Esquire website and their names will appear in the January 2006 issue. “The biggest prize, however, is that John Mayer heard my music!” exclaims D’Silva.

A psychology graduate from St Xavier’s, D’Silva, 26, is a big fan of Mayer and follows his columns in Esquire regularly. “His lyrics are not the usual ‘I love you baby’ stuff. Nor do they end in rhyming words like regular pop songs,” she says.

Her composition draws from the hip-hop genre, which she enjoys. “Mayer wouldn’t want 2,000 entries that sound like him, so I did not adopt his style,” D’Silva explains. She composed the song on her guitar and synthesised it on computer “staying up two entire nights before the deadline”.

D’Silva has composed the music for Bhangra Tourist, her husband Elvis’s digital short film that was shown at the 0110 Digital Film Festival in Delhi and Mumbai recently. She works on her music only at night. In the tradition of struggling musicians everywhere, she has a ‘regular’ day job. She is a freelance journalist writing on music, television, and lifestyle besides composing music for short films, CD-ROMs, corporate films, and websites.

“In an interview, musician Joe Satriani told me, ‘Never give up your day job’,” recollects D’Silva, before running off for another day at the recording studio.