Winning a Filmfare Award is like recharging my batteries. It’s an inspiration to be supported by a magazine like Filmfare. It also keeps me on my toes and pushes me to work harder. I’d like to thank the Almighty, and my friend Subhash Ghai, Anand Bakshi, and the musicians involved with Taal.
It’s my 11th Filmfare trophy this year for Taal. Working with Subhash Ghai for Taal was like working for a person who knows the pulse of the commercial cinema audience. He knows exactly which tune will be a hit.
In Taal, the nuances in the music were totally Northern. When I did Rangeela, it was highly stylized and technical. When I met Ghai, in end-1994, I realized that the lyrics were important too. And I’d make a complete mess of things if I didn’t grasp the nuances of the language.
Ghai asked me to learn the language. Then I took him seriously and learnt Urdu and started listening to more of North Indian music. I was transformed. This newfound knowledge was reflected in my music Pukar and Thakshak too. There’s an influence of pure North Indian Hindi in these films. The learning process started in 1995.
During Taal, it only became deeper. Ghai explained each word to me and made sure it registered in my head. Although my mother tongue is Tamil, I can’t speak the language fluently, because I studied in an English medium school. Most of my friends here and abroad converse in English. I think in the Tamil language but to express I speak in English. I can read and write Tamil and also read Hindi.
Music is beyond language and boundaries. For Subhashji, what matters was the end product. He didn’t mind it when I worked during the night. He told me that if I was comfortable at night, I should continue to do so.
I can’t say that I vibed 100 percent with Subhash. There were differences and fights. Because it was schools of thought coming together. He’s more conservative in his approach, whereas, I go wild, which is sometimes good and sometimes a bad thing. For the second half of the film, Ghai asked to play safe, and give me simple but trendy tunes.
The first song Kariye Na gave me trouble. It took me a long time. Ghai would brief me to go about it in a particular way and then all of a sudden, just when the tune was finalized ask me to change it. For Kariye na, I’ve fused elements of North and South Indian folk and Indonesian folk.
In Pukar there’s more drama, you can’t have a musical in a drama. You can only support with the music. Thakshak was an experimental film. If this film had clicked, it would have started a new trend.
In fact, after Taal, Subhash Ghai asked me to work with him again, but I had to refuse him as I’m neck-deep into my project with Andrew Lloyd Webber. I think Ghai was taken aback by my refusal, but then he told me I should do Webber’s project. After a couple of months, he sent me an e-mail that since I didn’t have time, he was going ahead with his project Yaadein.
God willing, we’ll work together again.
