Journalism of Courage
The conversations with the director,composer and producer of Cocktail was more fun than heady; dolloped with live music,casual conversations and humour
When the first promo of Cocktail hit screens almost a month ago,the song Tum Hi Ho Bandhu became an instant rage with the audience. Subsequently,the other songs,Daaru Desi and Yaariyan too picked up. Small wonder then that co-producer Dinesh Vijan,director Homi Adajania and music composer Pritam focussed mainly on the music of the film while attending the Screen Preview at Express Towers,Nariman Point.
Pritam — who has yet again collaborated with lyricist Irshad Kamil after their successful outing in Love Aaj Kal — excitedly spoke about each compositions. He also readily broke into impromptu renditions with his guitar. “What I liked the most about Cocktail is that it is not just about love,a lot is about friendship”,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 its 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 Pritam 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 familiar to another song.”
Adajania confessed to have 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 refuted it by saying,”The film has nothing to do with Love Aaj Kal. Had it been the case,then Imtiaz Ali would have directed it.” Incidentaly,Ali has written the story for this one,along with his brother,Sajid.
