Engine Ki Seeti came to Sneha Khanwalkar in the script of the Khoobsurat remake. The scene had a song from the '80s playing on a tape recorder and the film's producer, Rhea Kapoor, and director, Shashanka Ghosh, asked the composer if she was okay with tweaking the Rajasthani folk song. She was game! “After Rhea bought the rights, I wanted to record the remix with the original singer, Rehana Mirza," she says.

But to her disappointment, Rehana, who's in her 60s and lives in Jaipur, has quit singing. But while tracking her down, Sneha heard from a poet friend that lyricist Ikram Rajasthani, who had penned the '80s hit inspired by a song his father had composed in 1947, was around and active. Sneha stumbled upon his father's LP in a record store in Jaipur but couldn't coax the owner to part with it. “I had decided by then to retain the original melody but I asked Ikram if he could tweak the lyrics for me. He's in his late 60s but still full of robust energy. I spent two wonderful days with him giving the lines a quirky twist," she smiles.

The original two-line mukhda 'Anjan (Read Engine) ki seeti mein maro man dole, chala chala re daliver (Read driver) gaadi haule haule' became 'Engine ki seeti mein maro bum dole, dauda dauda re driver, chalo mat haule haule.' Explaining the change Sneha says, “Back in the'80s a woman would reprimand her driver for going too fast because it made her heart beat faster. But today's girls will prod him to zoom down life's fast lane. Times change!"

With the lyrics in hand Sneha approached Sunidhi Chauhan, who she'd seen performing, to bring the right energy to her song and also roped in Reshmi Sateesh. “She's a South Indian singer studying in Kolkata. I'd heard a recording and I was blown away by the power of her voice. I sent her the cue track of the song, told her to record it on her cell phone and send it back," says Sneha, who after listening to Reshmi's rendition, flew her down to Mumbai and recorded the entire song with her over two days. She then recorded the song with Sunidhi too and mixed and matched their voices, working closely with Sanjeev Sen on the live rhythm and Harsh Upadhyay on the keyboard. And so a new version of the old hit was born.

“It took us two months to get the song ready to be choreographed for a perky, daisy-fresh Sonam who compliments the lyrics. The programming is by Harsh Upadhyay and Abhijeet Nalani, Harsh provides the quirky bits and Abhijeet gives it a good baseline," informs Sneha.

In 1992, Anu Malik had also set the same folk song to tune for the Jeetendra-Jaya Prada starrer, Maa. Sneha insists that while she was aware that the song had many versions, she did not know of Anu's song. “I am yet to hear it,“ she says. “I remembered the song I'd heard in school. My song will be out this Sunday and I hope people find it khoobsurat."