AR Rahman says Luka Chuppi ‘was not designed’ to be in Rang De Basanti: ‘I was trying to do a duet with Lata Mangeshkar’

The Rang De Basanti song 'Luka Chuppi' was not designed to be in the film, but AR Rahman was convinced that it belonged in it.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | Updated: June 11, 2023 08:26 AM IST

3 min read

Lata Mangeshkar gave her vocals for Rang De Basanti's Luka Chuppi.

Listen to this article

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Rang De Basanti’s soundtrack, composed by AR Rahman, remains one of his most admired works in Hindi cinema. Songs such as ‘Ru Ba Ru’, ‘Khalbali’ and ‘Pathshaala’ were appreciated for their unique sound, but the track that was seen as the emotional core of the film, ‘Luka Chuppi’, “was not designed” to be a part of the film. In a 2011 interview, Rahman had shared that the film’s sound was “upbeat and modern,” but he decided to do a song “about a call of a mother” since that was what the film was about.

He shared with Rajeev Masand, “I was actually hearing a song from Born on the Fourth of July soundtrack and there is a song, which goes this way: ‘Where have you been my blue-eyed son’. I thought why not do a similar song for the film. It is very abstract, it takes the inner feeling of the film into a soundtrack. So Rakeysh (Omprakash Mehra, director) was saying, “Mmm… OK.” And Prasoon (Joshi, lyricist), of course, said it won’t work. We then came up with ‘Lukka Chhupi’. I said why don’t we have an answer for the mother who calls.”

Rahman admitted that he wanted to do a duet with Lata Mangeshkar and previously, he had attempted to do it six times, but every single time, the plan fell through. “I was trying to do a duet with Lata Mangeshkar, which I had wanted to do for a long time, because whenever I had approached, it never happened. The plan got cancelled for almost six times, until it finally happened,” he recalled.

‘Luka Chuppi’ was a background song, and Rahman said the team then spent some time trying to figure out where the song would fit in the film. The composer said they tried to find the right moment in the film where the song would work perfectly and realised that the death scene of R Madhavan’s character where his mother, played by Waheeda Rehman, breaks down was the right moment for ‘Luka Chuppi’.

During the 10-year anniversary celebrations of the film, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra had shared that Lata Mangeshkar rehearsed the song for four days and stood at the mic for eight hours to record it. “She spoke to Rahman saab. She stood at the mic, we were in the room. She stood there, her plait touching the floor. We kept some flowers, a bottle of water and a chair for her. For eight hours, she sang the song, and for eight hours she stood there,” he recalled.

From the homepage