A Cocktail Party

Pritam — who has yet again collaborated with lyricist Irshad Kamil after their successful outing in Love Aaj Kal — excitedly spoke about each composition. He also readily broke into impromptu renditions with his guitar. “What I liked most about Cocktail is that it is not just about love,it’s a lot about friendship also,” he said. About his partnership with Kamil,he said he owed a lot to the phonetic quality of his words. “Being a Bengali,my ears are more dependent on the sound of the words rather than their meaning,and Irshad bhai writes words that instantly appeal to my senses,” he added. Pritam attributed the popular Tum hi ho bandhu to its catchy hook line that originated as a Sufi tune. The Sufi connect,he said,held true for the whole album. “If you notice,the underlying theme of the soundtrack is very folksy,” said Vijan.

During the conversation,Adajania and Vijan took jibes at plagiarism allegations made against Pritam. “Pritam needs to get his own legal department now,” Vijan joked. Adajania made fun of Pritam’s bizarre ways of making music,and also questioned him about drawing inspiration for the chartbusting Yaariyan from a Coldplay number. In his defense,Pritam said,“It has become a trend to point fingers at me. The only similarity is a commonly used drum pattern,which might sound similar to another song.”

Adajania confessed to having dismissed Cocktail during his first script-hearing session as he felt he didn’t belong to this “zone”. “Later,I thought why not present it in my way?” he said. With the lead pair of Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone being repeated,many are terming it a sequel to Love Aaj Kal. Adajania said,“The film has nothing to do with Love Aaj Kal. Had it been the case,then Imtiaz Ali would have directed it.” Interestingly,Ali has written the story for this one,along with his brother,Sajid.