Time for a song
RANA SIDDIQUI ZAMAN
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Prasoon Joshi on his new set of songs for “Ghajini” and more.
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I have learnt that if you lower your fee, they behave like lalas.
Photo: Shashi Ashiwal
STRIVING FOR EXCELLENCE Prasoon Joshi.
Till he was 18, lyricist Prasoon Joshi “wasn’t allowed to watch films or listen to Hindi film songs”. He was raised in poetry, Sufi and classic music. And that’s precisely the reason, he shares “a great rapport with” the likes of Aamir Khan and A.R. Rahman. “When we are together, we don’t discuss the songs of their next film but share our spiritual knowledge, talk of sur and sangeet, generally. It helps me make up my mind for the songs they want,” shares the 37-year-old adman who has penned the songs of “Ghajini”, Aamir’s much-awaited film releasing shortly.
In good books!
“Since ‘Ghajini’ is in two parts, the first part is romance and the second is a thriller, it has five high energy, pacy, foot-tapping, romantic numbers. I got stuck at many places. For instance, “I wanted to use the word ‘anugrih’ (or gratitude) in a song that finally took shape as, ‘Kaise mujhe tu mil gayi, Kismat pe aaye na yaqeen’.”
Prasoon agrees that it takes time to be in the good books of Aamir, who believes in impeachability. “I have worked with Aamir in the Coca Cola ad and we became friends from there. We worked in ‘Rang De Basanti’, ‘Fanaa’ and then ‘Taare Zameen Par’. Aamir improves your product till the last possible chisel, same goes with Rahman. It happened in the ‘Kismat’ song in ‘Ghajini’ too. After the song was recorded, Aamir called up at midnight and said, ‘I think we can also use a female voice in this song’, and we rerecorded it.”
A good lyricist, Prasoon often has to under-utilise his capabilities to match the situations in the film. He agrees, “There are a lot of things that the society doesn’t allow. For instance, intimate submission of love. In earlier films, when dialogues didn’t allow it, they took the help of poetry. Now poetry is not a requirement but an addition. Unless characters go back in time, poetry in songs would always remain a casualty. We don’t have great voices either to lift a nice song. See, in reality shows, they make them ‘practice songs’ than hone their vocal chords.”
And because, now anyone can write songs, there is a lot of ‘bargaining’ in the fee that the lyricists are paid. “Poor writers are even lured to give songs free in lieu of their names in the credits. Producers don’t realise that singers and musicians can do stage shows for extra earnings, lyricists can’t do that even. Fortunately, people don’t come to me with that ‘bargaining’ thing in mind because I have earned quite a name. Due to my ad background, I never had to worry about money, so I never compromised on my fee either. I have learnt that if you lower your fee, they behave like lalas.”
Prasoon also laments the lack of copyright laws in the industry. “In France, the writer cannot give up his right to assign/sell his songs to others but in India stealing is the order of the day.” To raise his voice, he would soon “launch a movement”.
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