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At the Annual Lata Mangeshkar Memorial Talk at IFFI in Goa titled The Rhythms of India: From the Himalayas to the Deccan, composers Vishal Bhardwaj and B Ajaneesh Loknath sat down with critic Sudhir Srinivas to talk about their musical journey. During the session, Vishal revisited the creation of his most popular compositions, “Paani Paani Re”, “Chappa Chappa”, and “Ibn-e-Batuta”.
Vishal said, “Lata ji had the talent of doing songs in one take.” Showing how she emphasised the word Paani while singing the track “Paani Paani Re” from Maachis, the filmmaker-composer added, “She brought depth by focusing on one specific word in the song. I asked her if she wanted to share credit as a composer, but she turned down and said, ‘Why would I share? I am a composer, but let me be a singer only in this one.'”
He also recalled his experience of composing the popular Ishqiya track “Ibn-e-batuta”. Vishal shared, “In Ishqiya, when we were making the traveller song, I told Gulzaar sahab that we see so many signs on the road about dangers ahead, which are in pure Hindi, so these are the phrases I want to use through the song. He asked me if I had any tune, and I told him that I’m not able to get hold of any expression to make a phrase.”
He continued, “One morning, I was coming back from tennis and he gave me this beautiful line, ‘Ibn-batuta, bagal mein jootha, pehne toh karta hai chhurrr.’ He told that when he was in school, they used to sing this for Ibn battuta, the traveller, because he had a shoe beside, and it makes ‘churrr’ noise when he wears it.”
Gulzar was also the mind behind Machis song “Chappa Chappa”. “Even for Chappa Chappa Charkha Chale, Gulzaar sahab said that we have to make it our own and very new, but it should feel like it has been taken from folk. One day, I was at his house and he came to drop me, and he sang two lines for me. I have a very good memory of remembering lines. Then, I made that phrase. He heard it and liked it, but said that it feels like an antra,” Vishal Bharadwaj revealed.
He added, “Gulzar sahab felt that something was still missing. He just casually said, ‘We should have a sound like Chappa Chappa Charkha Chale.’ He is a genius, he is a god of lyrics. He is a great poet. He is so spontaneous and these are my experiences, which I have lived in the past 35 years. Every song felt like you are making a baby, then you make clothes, doll up the baby, and then take the baby outside.”
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