‘Never imagined Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan’s wedding would be Kajra Re’s outcome’: Vaibhavi Merchant recalls Aditya Chopra predicted song’s iconic status

I’d already shot for “Dhadak Dhadak” and “Chup Chup Ke”. After that, I was in for a surprise when they told me they want to do a song with Mr. Bachchan and Abhishek. They wanted to do a fusion qawwali-meets-mujra, if I can call it that. I remember I was also called for the song recording. It was one of the first songs to be recorded at Yash Raj Studio, so that turned out to be lucky. Everybody thought Kajra Re was a slow-burn. But Adi (Aditya Chopra) and Shaad thought it was very rooted and had the perfect ingredients of a mass song. When Adi saw the entire choreography, he said to me, “This is going to be a song revered for a long time. It’s going to be extremely popular and going to go down in history.” So he had the vision to predict it would be a chartbuster.

But it wasn’t entirely accessible, thanks to Gulzar’s lyrics, right? How did you work around that?

He gave some unbelievable lyrics! When I heard the line, “Ballimaran se Daribe talak,” I asked Gulzar sahab, “Ye kya hai?” (laughs). I had to really acquire the taste of Gulzar sahab. I had to do my homework and go back to the legendary work he’d done in the past, like Aandhi (1975). Of course, I had already worked with him in (daughter) Meghna Gulzar’s Filhaal (2002, her directorial debut), and briefly in a film of Vishal Bhardwaj. I could spend hours and hours of listening to his anecdotes. I even had the audacity to ask him to make the lyrics simpler (laughs).

Kajra Re is choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant.

Can you walk us through the shoot? How thrilling or chaotic was it?

When I began choreographing, I had my two lucky mascots — Abhishek and Rani Mukerji — they arrived for my rehearsals on Day 1. We’d become great friends through Bunty Aur Babli. We were pals, would hang out at Shaad’s place, have the most amazing kebabs and biryani. When I choreographed the beginning, “Aisi nazar se dekha uss zaalim ne chowk par,” Rani and Abhishek would go all “wah wah, wah wah!” We started shooting on Abhishek’s birthday. We were cutting his cake, and I said, “Guys, when are we shooting the song?” I have only four days. Adi had given a very tight deadline. We started only post-lunch. I told everyone, “Let’s give Abhishek his best birthdays shoot and do this song well.”

Kajre Re also turned out to be an iconic song because of its casting coup, right?

Yes, it was the first song of the father-son duo, Bachchan sir and Abhishek, together. Abhishek was quite nervous. But I told him not to worry, and that I’d balance it out well. When Mr. Bachchan is on set, he’s not a father. There are no personal equations coming in the way. He’s a thorough professional. He’d remain in character. He’d even appreciate the costume designer for giving nice costumes to the back dancers. Meanwhile, Abhishek is a different temperament on set. He’s all about fun and pranks.

Then Adi broke the news to me much later, about a month before the shoot, that the female lead in the song would be Aishwarya Rai. That was like life coming a full circle because I’d worked with Aishwarya in Dholi Taro Dhol Baaje (Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, 1999, for which Merchant won a National Award). I’d also worked with her in Devdas (2002), Kuch Naa Kaho (2003), and Kyun! Ho Gaya Naa… (2004). Aishwarya had not done anything like Kajra Re before, so she asked me if she’d be able to do it. I said, ‘Of course!’

Aishwarya was also a surprise for the audience, right?

Yes, Aish was on a sabbatical before Kajra Re. This was her coming back. She came back with a different energy. So I worked on her ada and nuances. We almost had to announce her return. Non-social media days had their own advantages. We’ve forgotten the joy of being swept away by the euphoria in a cinema hall. People were dancing in single screens! They felt they were a part of the film. The industry also sat up and took notice. I won all the awards, except Filmfare. I’m still terribly upset with them (laughs). I think “Kaisi Paheli Zindagani” from Parineeta won the award that year.

Aishwarya is wooing Amitabh Bachchan as Abhishek tries to woo her, where did that come from?

I hadn’t gotten any brief on that, but they shot the scene before that on the set. So when Aishwarya says, “Aye handsome,” and it’s directed towards Mr. Bachchan, that set the tone for the song. So we shot it like a proper musical, which follows the staging of a scene. So, all the fun and masti in the song comes from Abhishek, the ada comes from Aish, and of course, the swag, style, and let-me-show-you-how-it’s-done business comes from Mr. Bachchan. So you had three different characters working together in the song.

A couple of years later, when Abhishek married Aishwarya, did you give yourself some credit?

This is my story with a lot of actors, who start out as friends and turn into lovers on my set. I’m happy these divine interventions do happen, and I get to be a part of them. Sometime, I could even write a book on this (laughs). But obviously, nobody thought of it then. I never imagined this as the outcome of that moment. They were all thorough professionals.

Did Rani not have FOMO that she wasn’t a part of Kajra Re?

No, not really. Her character was pregnant in the film during that scene, so she couldn’t have danced. And Rani is a team player! She’s like a co-director on the film. She understood this song was extremely important for the film at that point. Imagine the cop, who’s chasing the thief, is dancing with him! This can happen only in Indian cinema!

My favourite song from Bunty Aur Babli is “Dhadak Dhadak”. How did you crack that one? 

Since Shaad comes from the Mani Ratnam school, he structured the song very differently. Usually, in a duet, the male and female voices jam with each other. But in “Dhadak Dhadak”, we first see Bunty’s world, then Babli’s, and then we see them intercut with each other. We shot across the ghats of Varanasi, lanes of Kanpur, and a palace in Lucknow. Shaad is from Kanpur so he knew the city inside out. Then we also experimented with the back dancers so that we get the faces of small town right: there are panwalas, hawkers, Naga Sadhus. The train was the connection between both the characters. So we had to time our shots in a way that we caught the train coming in the background.

Also Read — Shaad Ali reveals Amitabh Bachchan was initially hesitant about ‘Kajra Re’: ‘Yeh gaana shoot hi mat karo, yeh nahi chalega’

Finally, “Chup Chup Ke” is a tribute to the Yash Chopra brand of romantic songs. What are your memories of making that one?

Shooting with Shaad Ali is like 70% of madness on set. He’d think of going where no one has. We shot the song in Ladakh, where none of us had filmed before. Abhishek had shot at these tough terrains for Refugee (2000, debut film) so he had come prepared. Rani was also doing fine. But a lot of crew members were falling sick. We didn’t see the sun for days, there was an overcast. It was freezing, but Rani and Abhishek had to touch the stream water and look all pristine. We just survived on cup noodles on that shoot (laughs)!