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| Dhan te nan was not especially designed for Kaminey- Vishal Bharadwaj By Subhash K Jha, 14 July, 2009 |
|
 Vishal
Bharadwaj, who has composed the chartbuster song Dhan te nan and has
also directed the film, Kaminey, has a confession to make. He says,
"Dhan te nan was not especially designed for Kaminey. I had first used
the catch phrase and tune in a telefilm also titled Dhan te nan in
1998. It is a phrase that belongs to our film and music culture. For us
Indians, cinema is the biggest cultural entity. We often borrow
illustrations and speech patterns from our films. Dhan te nan is used
during bedtime stories for dramatic effect. Whenever I used to tell my
son, Aasman, stories, I'd go 'Dhan te nan' to create drama. The phrase
remained with me."However, putting the phrase in the dance idiom was far from easy. Vishal says, "I'm always uncomfortable composing pub songs. Most often, there is no logic to these item songs. A pub is so noisy. Why would anyone sing in it? In Kaminey, Shahid and his companion Chandan do not sing Dhan te nan. When they enter the pub, the song is already playing in the background. They just lip-sync. In all my films, I struggle to marry realism with the songs' idiom. In Omkara, I made Bipasha's character a singer before she breaks into dance for Beedi jalai le. I can't have my characters break into a song without justification." Ask Vishal if the credit for the impact of Dhan te nan goes to Shahid, and he says, "I don't think Shahid is instrumental in creating the impact. The song has its own value. In fact, the character takes over the screen and the audience is no longer looking at Shahid Kapoor. He's a brilliant actor but all the credit for the impact of Dhan te nan goes to me. Of course, I needed the right singers, actors and technicians. But finally it's my vision that you see in the song. It's not Shahid propelling the song forward. It's the entire package." Vishal admits catch phrases ka zamana hai. "We've to admit people want catch phrases. But Dhan te nan isn't the first. What about so many RD Burman tracks in the 1970s? What about Apalam chapalam 50 years ago? We need such phrases because somewhere audiences are no longer sensitive to tender thoughts like Hai tere saath meri wafaa and other Madan Mohan ghazals. I realise that to put across my music, I need that one catchy phrase and hook line. If my Maachis didn't have Chappa chappa charkha chale, Paani paani re wouldn't have been noticed." Speaking about the unusual title of his film, Vishal says, "When I titled my film Kaminey everyone thought I had gone mad. Today it's become a much-loved title. I use the word kaminey all the time. It can be used as a term of endearment. Look at how beautifully Konkona Sen Sharma used the Hindi expletive ch****a in Omkara." Vishal has even sung the title song in Kaminey. He says, "I felt that was the song for me. The word kaminey has been used 15 times in 50 different ways. If you go on the internet you'll see Gulzar saab (who has written the song) has changed the definition of the word. He has used the word kaminey in a spiritual sense. I don't think anyone can express the various shades of the word kaminey as well as I can. Sabsa bada kamina main hoon." He laughs and adds, "Now that the music has clicked the real struggle begins. Jo hona hai ho gaya. Now is the real test because Kaminey is not a run-of-the-mill film. It's a masala film but the ingredients will take audiences by surprise. Shahid has worked very hard." Vishal is open to composing music for other directors. "Like I did the music for Ajay Devgan's U Me Aur Hum, I'm open to outside offers. I love composing music more than directing films. All my scenes in Kaminey have an inherent lyrical and musical quality. But the music of Kaminey is very special." |
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