He could pass by as the man-next-door. It is only when he begins to speak that the genetic intensity immediately surfaces. His studio in Mumbai’s Oshiwara is spartan, except for the sanctum sanctorum of work, where a flurry of activity is taking place among his assistants.

And not without reason: Sanjoy is doing a huge quantum of the films being made as background music composer,a speciality in which his dad was considered among the finest among the master composers. “The coming year will see at least one film every month with my score. “Background music is an art that needs a lot of thought and application. My father always said that the art of background music scoring could be taught, but for that the composer had ot understand and get into the story, the screenplay, and each emotion expressed or hidden by every character. For that you also have to understand each and every instrument and the emotions it can heighten - what the oboe can do, what the shehnai, sarangi, different kinds of guitar and so on can come out with to bring out the mood of the scene.”

Sanjoy’s stunning debut came with John Matthew Matthan’s Sarfarosh (“John gave me both my film break and my break in ad films with Amulspray”) and some of the films he has done include Chocolate, Aksar, Zinda, Golmaal - Fun Unlimited, Dhamaal, Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal, Jab We Met and Sunday. The plethora of films to come also include Wednesday (for which he is also composing 5 songs), Kismat Connection (on which he is now working), Ek - The Power Of One, Golmaal Returns and the sequel of Goal.

But Sanjoy’s very charged about Amy Thanawala’s Suno Na..., which he hopes will be a major break as a song-composer for him after some recent false starts like Bekhabar (unreleased) and Eik Dastakk. “The film has 3 situational background songs and a lip-sync number and the scratches have been done for the shooting. But I have to yet the record the final versions that will have top-line singers like Kunal Ganjawala, Richa Sharma and others including his under-used and highly-talented sister Antara Chaudhary.

“I have faced a lot of politics in the industry as a song-composer. But I am trained in the old school and cannot do certain things. I do not have a bank of tunes, and isn’t a bank of compositions more suited to albums?” asks Sanjoy passionately. “A song is created out of a situation, not the other way round. I am not mentally adapted to making a song for which a situation is somehow created. That’s not how you get a good song that endures.”

He goes on, “I cannot also understand why I am needed if someone wants me to rework a song that is famous in some country or do something similar to a hit track. Why then do they need my expertise when all they actually can employ is an arranger? If you have signed me, I can give 10 original tunes for each situation, right?”

The word “arranger” sparks off another thought in Sanjoy. “I arrange all my music and do everything, not just make the melody. I only employ a conductor so that I am free to look after the other aspects of a song. Today a lot of music directors have common arrangers, which is why they simply cannot have a distinctive sound, unlike the older composers whose composition could be identified with just a few bars or the orchestration underlying the song.”

Sanjoy’s all-time idol apart from his father is Ilayaraja, though he considers every veteran composer a complete school in themselves. “Whether Shankar-Jaikishan, Madan Mohan or S.D.Burman or Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji and R.D.Burman from the next generation, every one of them was an institution diverse and completely distinct from each other. Today, I admire the background scores of A.R.Rahman, and rate those music directors who are completely original higher than the rest.”

Why did he take so long to come into films?

Sanjoy smiles, “Well, I have been learning music from the age of 6. I was 8 when I played some percussion pieces for my father in Anand. I then worked with him in all his films. There was his phase of six years when he was largely based in the South. Then he opened a studio in Kolkata when he began concentrating on Bengali films. I was with him all through. Then when I got married I had to shift to Mumbai in 1990.”

Besides learning some classical music from his father, Sanjoy also did a Correspondence Course from the famous Flushing Meadows institute in USA in Sound Engineering (“My brother Sukanto went there to do the same course and settled in the USA”) and began working in that capacity in Mumbai’s 4-D Studio. “I have done more than 300 ad films,” smiles Sanjoy.

Another old-school trait that Sanjoy is very particular about even in his background is the organised, passionate way they made music. “Every piece in the song or background was original and composed, and that si what I do. I cannot do cut-paste jobs or use samplers. I put my heart and soul into my work and keep very strong melody as the base. I cannot get into a rat-race of assembled sounds and music.”

And paradoxically, Sanjoy opines that this is the reason why his music is ahead and has a broader canvas than the current school. “I will be making albums in New York where my brother has started a music label. There will be vocal albums as well as instrumentals on themes and moods. The sound will be international and we will be releasing them online on I-Tunes.”

Sanjoy has already released Generations, a Bengali CD of lyrics penned by his father. Side A has his songs tuned by Sanjoy while Side B is composed by Salilda himself. “These songs were all done when my father was alive. He had approved my tunes.”