“I will explain,” smiles the genial composer whose first two songs were heard in Raveena Tandon’s production Stumped! (2003) and Suniel Shetty’s co-production Rakht (2004) before his solo debut Page 3 and other films like Bluffmaster!, Corporate, Traffic Signal, Umar, Mission Istaanbul, Superstar and others. “Earlier, the music maestros would make a producer hear a tune with a small team of three musicians playing the harmonium, tabla or dholak and guitar and some dummy singers. Today, most composers send the composition on CD, but I prefer a ‘live’ presentation of the old kind. But I have eight to ten people and that includes musicians who do Western percussion for today’s flavour of sound.”
The advantage, says Shamir, is that whoever is assessing the song has open choices as he gets to listen at the inception stage itself. “All the options are open when I sing myself, like how the song will sound if slowed down, paced up or with lyrics modified and whether it can have a slower, sad version. This therefore is the stage at which the song can be moulded. This interaction is important, because when a CD is played, a composition’s variations cannot be tried out and the filmmaker, hero or whoever has to judge the song makes a judgement based only on what the recorded version sounds like, which is like a fixed entity. The filmmaker may also lose out because that’s how you can hide a a weak composition with good packaging. For me, it is important that a song should sound good on its own.”
He gently adds that due to no fault of ours, Screen had misrepresented facts in a feature on a new music duo. “They gave the impression that I have just a prayer song in Madhur’s Jail and they have four. I have, in fact, four songs in Jail that have been recorded and also filmed in my presence, whereas they have just one.” He shrugs and adds, “There are misconceptions even about my songs! My Bareily ke bazaar mein is not a remix of Ashaji’s Jhumka gira re. We have only used that phrase from the mukhda as a hook - the tune has no connection. Also the Lata Mangeshkar song is a fresh composition. It was reported in some Mumbai daily that it was a reworking of her Ae malik tere bande hum. The fact is that my brief was to make something like that song or a Itni shakti hamein dena daata.”
Shamir can afford to be amused at this canards because of his easygoing relationship with Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, with whom he has recorded four and ten songs respectively. “I share a very good rapport with them both. They are both upfront ladies and respect upfront people. I was overwhelmed when I found a full-page photograph of mine in the new book on Latabai. Rahman and I are the only young music directors whose pictures are found in it!”
Shamir has a unique USP that also earns him criticism. He tends to record with now-unusual voices like Manna Dey, Bhupinder, Usha Mangeshkar and others and has just recorded an Udit Narayan-Aditya Narayan duet for Dharmendra and Bobby Deol in their home production Cheers and a song with Viva, the one-time pop band coming back to sing together in Aamras. Are this gimmicks, as alleged by detractors?
The composer smiles and says, “There’s no doubt that I love all these singers. But I give a lot of thought about casting my songs. Casting a singer is no less vital than casting an artiste in a film. Tell me who could have suited Kitne ajeeb rishte hain yahaan ke more than Latabai and Suresh Wadkarji ? I wanted a similarity as well as divergence in terms of age and attitude for the Deols in a Dharmendra-Bobby Deol duet and so I thought about a real-life father-and-son pair of Uditji and Aditya as their voices. Similarly in Aamras, a coming-of-age film, there are four young girls of completely diverse backgrounds. I was a part of the formation of the Viva band and I thought that the four girls who were a part of that disbanded group would be ideal. But one of them was unwilling and so I have Mahua, Pratichee and Anushka singing for the four girls. Anushka has this very Western touch, Pratichee has a thick, ethnic vocal tenor and Mahua her own distinct voice as well.”
He reveals how in Bal Ganesh 2 (one of his many assignments) he has Neeraj Shridhar singing a song but it is Wadkar again, who comes in for the traditional Marathi part Ghaalin lotaangan. His other films to come include Loot and Mumbai Chakachak for Suniel Shetty, four films with Sangeeth Sivan including Click, Cheers again, a film with K Sera Sera and one more, Disney India’s Satish Kaushik-directed Hawai Dada and a film for Pritish Nandy.
A new association that has begun for him is that with Sanjay Gupta, for whom he has composed three songs - Yeh jism, Raftaar and Mujhse ek rishta in Acid Factory with possibilities of more work together. Grins Shamir, “Sanjay used to be my senior in Mumbai’s Sydenham College. See, Page 3 was a boon for me but in some respects it was a bane too. People took me to be this serious composer of realistic films. My gurus are Kalyanji-Anandji and versatility is something that they exemplified. So I approached Sanjay upfront and asked him to listen to my compositions.”
And made a music presentation? Shamir laughs, but suddenly turns serious. “Look, I want to say something from the core of my heart, though you have not asked me anything on the subject. This is something that affects all committed music makers today. Can you please let us know if there is a yardstick, such as a survey or study conducted that decides what is supposed to work and what does not with the people? How do they decide what music lovers should hear and when? Why is a song like Kitne ajeeb played only past midnight on FM?”
He goes on ruefully, “Now this prayer song for Jail cannot be filmed in a pub with skimpily-attired girls and I cannot add a hip-hop groove to it. According to the ‘authorities’ therefore, it is a pre-assumed flop and my songs for Acid Factory pre-assumed hits! So what should I use in my songs? The swarlin, sitar or guitar? I am confused! If I record a traditional song it will not be played because it does not play at the standard 120 beats per minute. But tell me, why are they underestimating the youth? Why do talent shows have children singing Pooncho na kaise maine rain bataayi? Do these know-alls have an answer?”
