Flashbacks always, but always, land you back in the present. But in my case, I'm flitting from one flashback to another. And the story about A R Rahman continues...
I remember it had been two years since I first met Rahman and our maiden musical venture had been nixed, when I got a call from Mani Ratnam saying he wanted to meet me. When we met, he asked me to write the songs for his next film, Dil Se. A R Rahman was to score the music, he told me. That excited me so I agreed to write the lyrics there and then. To help me, Mani gave me an outline of the story (without giving away much), a graph of the two main characters, the theme of the movie and the kind of treatment he was planning for the storythat's it. Generally speaking, when I write songs for a movie, I like to be aware of the entire script. But no such help was forthcoming here. But with a director of Mani Ratnam's calibre, you're confident he knows what he's doing. So I wasn't worried when he didn't tell me much about the movie. In fact, not knowing the entire plot had its upside. When I write for other movies, I have one advantage: I know the kind of language the characters will speak, so I write accordingly. Here I didn't know anything; even the song situations were free-floating. Mani just told me the overall theme of the songs and it was very inspiring. Even more inspiring was the treatment he was planning to give the musical numbers. Mani was the first director who actually asked me to give abstract images for his narrative. Most of our Hindi film directors like their songs to have cinematic images that can be picturised easily, but Mani wanted abstract images and I welcomed that whole-heartedly. While we were discussing the song situations, Mani quoted the famous Persian poet Maulana Rumi. He told me he wanted me to write a song on the seven stages of love starting with `uns', `ulfat', `mohabbat' and ending with the ultimate `junoon'. He also added that the song would be repeated throughout the film. Since I'm well versed with the poetry of Rumi and Hafiz, I understood what Mani wanted. As expected, Rahman had more than one composition for the theme song. There was one, and one more and another one. He just kept pulling them out and kept saying, can we do this, can we do that? Ultimately, we finalised one tune to which I wrote Satrangi re. That was the first song I wrote for Dil Se. Another song, Jiya jale, sung by Lataji (Lata Mangeshkar), was a suhaag raat song and I thought Rahman combined it beautifully with South Indian folk. That was the first time Lataji sang for Rahman. I was there when she recorded the song and she was quite pleased about it. As I've mentioned earlier, Rahman's studio is dimly lit and the small glass room where the singer stands can be quite lonely because you can't see anything or anyone from there. Lataji felt slightly awkward about it and she murmured, `Akeli khadi kis ke liye gaa rahi hoon main.' So I found a stool and sat on it outside her glass door so that she could see me. That, I think, assured her. I must add here that she sang Jiya jale brilliantly in her mellifluous voice. Today when I look back, I realise Dil Se marked an important phase in my career as a lyricist. Important because I was working with Rahman and a great director like Mani Ratnam for the first time. Also Dil Se started a new phase for me, that of writing Sufiana poetry. Just as Humne dekhi hai unn aankhon ki mehekti khushboo had set off a phase of using abstract imagery in my songs early on. Rahman, being a religious man, enjoyed composing for Dil Se too. I could see that the Sufiana lyrics brought out the best in him. By then he'd also learnt a little bit of Hindi so he could understand my poetry. In Dil Se there were three Sufiana songs. But my favourite remains Ae ajnabi tu bhi kabhi aawaz de kahin se. I think it was a really beautiful song. But the one that really became a rage was Chal chhaiyan chhaiyan. There is a song of Sufi poet Bulleh Shah's called Tere ishq nachaya kar thaiyya thaiyya, which Sukhwinder used to sing. Rahman loosely based his composition of Chal chhaiyan chhaiyan on that. The entire orchestration was all Rahman's, of course. On my part, I tried to refresh the song by using the words chhaiyan chhaiyan instead of thaiyya thaiyya. Many people thought the words chhaiyan chhaiyan were just sounds used for effect. But that's not true; chhaiyan means chhaon or shade and it's a commonly used word in rural Hindi and in our folk songs. The next lineJinke sar ho ishq ki chaon, paon ke neeche jannat hogi, chal chhaiyan chhaiyanexplains the concept of chhaiyan chhaiyan. Sukhwinder sang the song with a storming energy and an infectious voice with Sapna Awasthi ably supporting him. The popularity of that song is historyhence the title of this column, Chal Chhaiyan Chhaiyan. 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