‘I’m here for the songs’

Depends really.

Add a catalyst — Pete, our Indian engineer Nilu Niranjana Gavankar’s elder brother. Now make him friends with Rono Mukherjee and Rahul Dev Burman. Rono Mukherjee’s uncle is Kishore Kumar, which gives us the Leena Chandravarkar connection. Rono Mukherjee’s son is Samrat and now suddenly everything seems to fall into place.

Except for why.

It’s difficult to see a connection between building refineries and power plants and a Hindi movie called Aankhon Mein Sapne Liye however far you’re willing to stretch your imagination. Before you pull a muscle: R D Burman, he’s the link.

Gavankar was in China in 1994 when she heard Burman had passed away. Upset, she brooded over what she could dedicate to his memory and, four years later, came up with the idea of a musical. ‘‘I wanted to make something for Panchamda (Burman for the uninitiated). I just woke up one day and said, ‘Why not, let’s just make a musical’. I created my movie for the songs, not the other way around. So, if you take the songs out of the movie, it just won’t flow. I haven’t shot random song-and-dance sequences all over the world and glued them to the movie. The entire movie revolves around the songs,’’ says Gavankar.

Which is where Leena Chandravarkar steps in. ‘‘I’ve been writing lyrics since 1990 just as a hobby,’’ she says. Her credentials include the songs she has written for her step-son Amit Kumar’s album and the two numbers for Aankhon… — Naam Mera Maria, sung by Asha Bhonsle, and Ajooba — that’s she’s really excited about.

Come September 2002 and the movie, starring model Cleo Issacs and Samrat Mukherjee, will be released across the country. ‘‘It’s just masala. I decided it had to be technically perfect, with great stunts. It’s a lost and found story of a young man’s struggle to take care of an orphanage. I had a lot of fun directing it,’’ says Gavankar, who is also financing the movie herself.

You tell her that’s what every third person in Mumbai dreams of — directing a movie. ‘‘But this is not my dream. I’m just here for the songs. The movie’s just for the heck of it. Once this is done, I’ll move on.’’

But there’s nothing in the pipeline yet. Just another pincode.