Anu Malik

The search for sophisticated musical communication!

“My God! Now I realise I have always been in love with this woman called Lata Mangeshkar, I’ve been looking for that ideal in all the singers I meet. How I’d love to work with her. But no, she doesn’t have time for me".

Anu Malik has a whole lot of reason to preen. And no one is stopping him. Certainly not Anu himself who’s known in sniggerers’ circles as Anu ‘I-am-the-best’ Malik.

What’s it about these two guys born on November 2, Shah Rukh Khan and Anu Malik, that makes them so cocksure of their star-power? Is it in the stars’ stars? I know for a fact that Anu and Shah Rukh get along like a house on fire. They both seem to have tremendous faith in their own, and in each other’s, abilities.

So what prompted Mr. Khan to opt for Jatin-Lalit instead of Anu Malik for his home production Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani? Before I could ask Anu this million-rupee quest(tune) he informed me that Shah Rukh wanted Anu. But there was tremendous pressure applied on poor Khan to take Jatin-Lalit instead.

A gun at the temple (if not the gurdwara or the masjid) perhaps? Who knows? As long as Anu believes the world loves him and his doggone perseverance, all’s right in the world. Until the next bout of doubt. With chartbuster after chartbuster to his credit you would think Anu would be secure about his stupendous success. I mean, look at the guy’s career! It’s a miracle of anti-gravitational forces working relentlessly to hold aloft the most water-slim tunes on this side of Bappi Lahiri. Right from the beginning of this year it was business as usual for Malik. From Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hain in January to Biwi No.1, Haseena Maan Jaayegi and Badshah in June, the nation’s gaana-cases have been swinging to Anu’s tunes.

So what gives, Anu? Why are you so frightfully insecure about your career? It’s not Shah Rukh Khan who’s the real superstar of Tinsel Town. It’s his Scorpio-bhai Anu. For the past five years Anu has been having a blast in the charts, churning hit tunes with a pyrexic passion.

Cynical critics who claim to have “seen through” Anu’s tunes, have been writing him off each year. But he’s still around and shows so signs of packing in his harmonimum for at least another five years.

When Anu frenziedly rattles off statistics to prove his unflagging stronghold over charts and hearts, or when he bends backwards to eat back a quote that offends a suspicious singer, I feel like telling Anu to relax and chill out. No matter what the critics say he’s around to stay, come what May.

Now it’s September and the nation is singing Anu’s tunes for his favourite star Shah Rukh Khan in Badshah. And yet there’s a frightening insecurity surrounding Anu’s personality, that makes him overpoweringly pushy about his aptitudes.

It hurts him when he’s called a copycat or a lech. “Panchamda was the greatest composer. Even he was inspired by foreign tunes. People just like to hit me below the belt,” Anu protests and draws attention to his original-sounding songs in Border, Viraasat, Kareeb and the forthcoming Refugee. As for the lecherous reputation, Anu swears on his two little daughters that he can never misbehave with women.

Refugee star Abhishek Bachchan’s keenly talent-conscious mom Jaya ratifies Anu’s supremacy in the charts. “Who else is there, you tell me?” she challenges me.

This “who-else-is-there” argument makes Anu sound like an andhon mein kaana raja. He’ll have to take steps to rectify this reputation of a composer on the rebound. Partly this reputation has to do with his inability to go beyond the process of assembling tunes. Anu is still to prove himself as a background scorer. Though he claims otherwise, rival composers and musicians say Anu still doesn’t arrange his compositions himself.

Of course these rumours can partly be attributed to professional jealousy. Supreme and sustained success seems to have made Anu Malik a target of discordant ire among rival composers. The constant criticism, along with a prolonged period of failure in the early 80s when his mentor Manmohan Desai dumped him, and his father Sardar Malik’s non-success as a composer, are factors that have contributed to making Anu Malik a frightfully insecure composing-superstar.

Insecurity is its own stimulus for inspiration. J.P. Dutta who has extracted the best out of Anu in Border and Refugee says, “The day Anu stops being insecure will be the day he stops being successful.”

But does Anu want posterity to remember him by a fatuous jingle like What is mobile number what’s you (style number?). Wait, it gets better. What’s you jhumka number what’s your thumka number.

There’s a lesson here that Anu must learn fast. He needs to tighten his creative faculties. Last month, I spent a few hours with Anu Malik at his gleaming home in Mumbai. And I realised he has everything: a beautiful home, a lovely and supportive wife and two beautiful daughters (one of whom, Anmol, is a spitting image of her father). What more does he want? Why does he need to indulge in the crass commercialism of What’s ypur mobile number?

As he sang his new songs from J.P. Dutta’s Refugee and some unrecorded love songs written by his uncle Hasrat Jaipuri, I realised there’s much more to Anu than meets the hai-hai.

He says he wants to work with the best, most musically inclined filmmakers of the country. “I happened to catch Sangam on television the other night. My God, what I wouldn’t do to have a filmmaker like Raj Kapoor in my life!”

As the day dissolved into a hazy evening Anu played song after song of Lata Mangeshkar, pointing out nuances in her renditions of Madan Mohan’s Meri aankhon se koi neend liye jaata hai and Lagja gale se that only we Lata-bhakts think we recognise.

Suddenly he blurted out, “My God! Now I realise I have always been in love with this woman called Lata Mangeshkar, I’ve been looking for that ideal in all the singers I meet. How I’d love to work with her. But no, she doesn’t have time for me. I don’t think she likes me much. She only has time for Ram Laxman and Uttam Singh.”

Anu seemed emotional and upset. I could see the frightful insecurity behind the facade of braggadocio. I gently suggested that he clear up his misunderstandings with the Lata. “Do you know the number of times I’ve tried to get in touch with her? No, I don’t think she wants to sing for me.”

Later I mentioned Anu’s insecurities to Lata. “Why does Anu think I don’t want to sing for him?” she wonders irritably. “It’s wrong of him to think that I’ve favoured some composers. Whether it’s Anu’s compositions or anyone else’s, they’re all of equal importance to me. I had rung him up personally to congratulate him for his music in Border. I never talk badly of him. But if he thinks I’d go out of my way to flatter him then he’s sadly mistaken. I didn’t do it even when I was new to the profession. So why should I do it now? I think Anu is imagining things. If people have told him that I don’t want to sing for him then he’s being mislead by them.

I loved his songs in Border even more when the film was shown on television recently.”

I mentioned the songs of Aarzoo which Anu was keen to record with her. Lata explained, “During Aarzoo I wasn’t at all well. But how do I explain this to Anu?” I kept insisting that I couldn’t record songs at that point of time. Even the producer of Aarzoo, Vikas Mohan had rung me up. But I was busy with preparations for concerts in the U.S.A. and when I returned I was unwell. Anu should know that he isn’t the only music composer for whom I couldn’t sing. There was a song for Veeru Devgan’s film, I had even got the tape for the song and rehearsed it at home. But I couldn’t record it. Now if Anu chooses to misconstrue my attitude, what can I do?”

Anu needs to listen carefully to Lata. He needs to snap out of his growing insecurities. There’s a whole world of music waiting to be explored in his songs and music. He can do so only if he goes by his convictions and stops making what he considers to be the socially right moves and gets down to beingtu to his creative faculties. Recently Anu finally got a chance to compose a tune for a song written by Gulzar for an Amitabh Bachchan starrer to be directed by ad-man Rakesh Mehra. For Anu that was a dream come true. More so because Gulzar loved Anu’s enthusiasm and creative energy. He made the composer sit in front of R.D. Burman’s portrait in his home. “From now on this is where you’ll sit each time you visit me,” Gulzar told the overwhelmed composer.

Coming from the country’s accomplished poet-lyricist for whom R.D. did his career’s best work, this was high praise indeed.

Now if only Anu would leave aside the mobile numbers and move to a more sophisticated means of musical communication.