MUMBAI: With Jai Santoshi Maa that released on 29 September, music director Anu Malik has bounced back with god’s grace literally. What’s more, he has some foot-tapping compositions lined up ahead starting with Zindaggi Rocks (6 October), Jaan-E-Mann (20 October) and Umrao Jaan (3 November).
Ask him how he managed to compose music for movies of such diverse genres, Malik says, “J.P. Dutta told me that my emotional pain has translated into my diverse tunes. I had an ailing father on one side and on the other side I was simultaneously composing for Jaan-E-Mann’s ‘Sau Dard’, Umrao Jaan’s ‘Tumhari Maifil Main’ and Zindaggi Rocks.”
With Jaan-E-Mann, Malik has once again teamed up with Salmaan and Saajid Nadiadwala. The trio has earlier created magic in Mujhse Shaadi Karogi (‘Jeene Ke Hai Chaar Din’), Judwaa and many more. Talking about his experience while composing music for Jaan-E-Mann, he says, “I learnt from Shirish to hear a story and go deep into the psyche of the story and characters in order to create good music. Jaan-E-Mann is like a Broadway musical where suddenly the characters break into a song. It starts where all love stories end.”
He further adds, “‘Sau Dard’ was composed in a matter of three hours. Shirish was not happy with the previously composed song, so a few hours before we were flying down to Chennai for the song recording, he asked me to compose another tune and that’s how ‘Sau Dard’ happened.”
The Album also has a marriage song – ‘Qabool Kar Le,’ which has been composed without the use of conventional marriage instruments.
Talking about his future projects he adds, “I am composing music for Love Story 2050, for which two songs have already been composed and picturised in
While Malik didn’t mind sharing his credit space with other music directors until some years back, he now doesn’t like to do that. “Now I will not compose music for a film where I have to share space with any other music director. I have a brand name of 25 years, which I will not share with anyone.”
Malik is also learning the technical aspects of composition from various technical schools. “Earlier I used to cut, paste and edit songs and tunes in my mind, but I had to learn to do it on the computer as well. I am learning harmonies and sound production, which might take as long as one year to show up in my work.”
With so much hard work, perseverance and learning that has gone into bouncing back from a period where he had been written off; the music director has now become choosy about the work he takes up. “Recently I rejected two films, which is something I usually don’t do. But now I want to do good work with good directors like Aditya Chopra, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Karan Johar and Shaad Ali to name a few.”
