BHUMBRO BHUMBRO IN ANOTHER COPYRIGHT TANGLE
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy accused of lifting tune

By Roshmila Bhattacharya

Bhumbro bhumbro is in the midst of a controversy again. Ever since Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s bumble bee (Bumro in Kashmiri) started buzzing on the top ten charts, it has been triggering off one allegation after another. First, Shantiveer Kaul, son of Kashmiri poet Dinananth Nadim, accused Vidhu Vinod Chopra of stealing the lyrics (credited to Rahat Indori) from one of his father’s famous compositions, Bumboor yamborzal.

Veer Chopra, one of the co-producers of Mission Kashmir the highlight of whose score was the Bumbro number, admitted that in 1956 Dinanath Nadim had written a song called Bumbro. The song had been picked up by the Kashmir government and marketed as the “pride of Kashmir” and both he and his brother Vinod had grown up hearing it at local functions and singing it themselves which was why it had instantly come to mind when they were working on a film about Kashmir. “We picked up just half a line from it,” Veer argues. Vinod in fact points out that even the first two words, Bumro bumro which they had borrowed became Bhumbro bhumbro in his song.

The film was subsequently released. Bhumbro bhumbro sham rang bhumbro played out on every music channel and every Indian home. Nothing more was heard about it from Shantiveer Kaul and one assumed that the copyright controversy had died a natural death.

Till Veerinder Veerji, retired director of Srinagar Doordarshan, raised it again, charging Mission Kashmir’s trio of music directors, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy with plagiarism and threatening to take Vinod Chopra to court.
Veerendra Veerji is the latest to claim credit for composing the song shortly after India’s independence at a time when the Valley was threatened by mercenaries and invaders from across the border.

Music directors, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy insisted that Bhumbro bhumbro was most definitely an original composition. If it had any similarities with another composition then the similarities were restricted to just the first two words, Bhumbro, bhumbro.

His co-composer, Ehsaan takes up from there. “We were told that there was a song, Bumbro bumbrowhich was popular with kids in Kashmir. Vinod hummed it for us. We liked the catchy first line and using Bumbro bumbro as our base composed a melody that’s all our own. If it is in any way similar to another song then that’s purely coincidental because we’ve never heard the original song but want to now following these charges. All that we knew was that a song that went Bumbro, bumbro... bumble bee, bumble bee...was sung by kids on Kashmir on stage during school functions. And till now no one had thought to slap a notice on them for violation of copyright,” laughs Ehsaan.

TOP

Other Stories...

Rizvi to remain in police custody till Dec 27

Showbiz stocks crash on fears of underworld links

Trade bodies welcome apex court verdict

Labour laws still apply: Swaraj