American BLEND

You say that Gulzar wrote the song later and also explained the meaning of the lyrics to you. Did you feel the need to change the song’s melody according to the words?
As a matter of fact,yes,I did. The song took a lot of bends and turns. We changed the structure of some sections and Yogesh Pradhan,the Indian arranger,worked with me. The song needed simultaneously to have an uplifting yet warm and heartfelt quality and the snare drums that I used helped a lot.

The song is sung by Shankar Mahadevan in one version and the Sonu Niigaam one is called the “reprise”. Why is that?
There isn’t any difference in the lyrics. The songs were recorded in two versions because the music company wanted it that way. Shankar and Sonu interpreted the song differently and they were both great.

The good point is that the song was present in its entirety in the film,unlike the other three tracks. But the sore point was that it was wasted in the end credit-titles when the audience is walking out of the theatre.
Well,I guess that’s the difference between India and the USA! Over there,the biggest song comes in the end-credits and no one moves out!

Did you meet any of the other three composers while in India?
I could not meet Pritam,but I did meet Shantanu Moitra and Aadesh Shrivastava. They are both very talented and I loved both the versions of Aadesh’s Mora piya,I think that Aadesh and Kavita Seth were very good.

Can you say something about the way the background score was done? Especially compared to your earlier work for Prakash Jha in Gangaajal and Apaharan?
Prakash and I approached this film like an epic. Including the crowd scene ‘extras’,the film has some 5000-6000 artistes and so the score needed a bigness,a large sound. We used a lot of piano,orchestration and percussion. From my musicians,Naveen Kumar on the flute was a huge help. We had to have 12 to 14 different moods to be woven in and also it was a challenge to create theme pieces for different characters,like Ajay Devgn is always troubled in the film. I also tried to incorporate Indian instruments but this is probably the most Western and symphonic score I have done for Prakash.
In Indian films,unlike Hollywood,there is a lot more of background music used,so the challenge was not to make it sound overpowering – because it was a 2.45 hour film. But still,that was a lot of background music!

What else are you doing now in India?
I would love to work more here. I will be probably back soon to work on the background music of Sanjay Puran Singh Chouhan’s new film and I may or may not compose a song for it.

What about Prakash Jha’s new film Aarakshan?
I don’t know. Prakash hasn’t spoken to me about it.