Javed Akhtar says Ashutosh Gowariker ‘made the perfect arrangement for my murder’ by asking him to write Ramleela song in Swades

“I told him that you have made the perfect arrangement for my murder. Do you realise that this is a very sensitive subject? That Ravan is questioning Ram and Sita is responding, you are asking me to write this song? If you told me in Mumbai, I would have at least brought some books like Ramcharitmanas and see what I can quote from them. This was the time when the Ram Mandir movement was at its peak. I told him I can’t do it,” Javed recalled.

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Javed said that because he was so stressed about the song, he slept early that day and woke up at the crack of dawn. He thought of making an excuse and backing out, but he ended up writing the complete song in just two hours. “After the song was released, I met someone who seemed like a well read guy and he knew a lot about the Ramayana and the Ramcharitmanas. He said you have done a god job. The way you have used Tulsidas’ line of argument, that was very nice. But I had no idea about this. Till date, I think that I must have either heard this in my childhood because we would attend a lot of Ramleelas, and when I needed help my brain just presented that information. Or this was the only line of argument that was possible and I also chose the same way,” he shared.

The song, composed by AR Rahman, was sung by Madhushree and Vijay Prakash. Swades recently completed 20 years since its release.