A carefree tune that thrills
Roshmilla Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 22, 2015)

When Neeraj Pandey and Bhushan Kumar approached Meet Bros and Anjjan for a song which would musically reflect the theme of their upcoming thriller Baby without giving away the story, the trio instantly realised that this was a challenge that would take them out of their comfort zone. "In India only two genres work-love songs and club songs. And this one was neither," says Harmeet. "Also, it would unlike any of our earlier commercial hits like Hangover and Baby Doll."

Anjjan points out that whether it was A Wednesday or Special 26, Neeraj's film's have never been musicals. "Songs are not important in his script. But this one was as it builds up a sense of mystery, jaise kuch honewala hai," he explains.

Picking up the conversation, Manmeet adds that Neeraj didn't want anything run-of-the-mill while Bhushan wanted some masala too. "We had to satisfy both the director and the producer, so along with our lyricist, Manoj Muntashir, we started brainstorming and together came up with Beparwah," he laughs.

Harmeet reveals that they had earlier come up with two tracks but they didn't work. "We were sitting in Bhushan's office trying to crack the song when Neeraj joined us. Reiterating his brief, Neeraj pointed out that his film was about people who went about their mission without a care... completely beparwah. Manoj zeroed in on the word and after that the song just flowed from his pen," he reminisces.

Once the lyrics were done, the trio of composers moved to the next step: Finding partners, The two names that cropped up were John Stewart, who'd collaborated with them on Zanjeer, and PD Deepak who'd teamed with them in Jai Ho and works with AR Rahman."Both of them are clued into western music and the marriage resulted in a slow yet groovy track with a James Bond-feel to it. It's very international," raves Manpreet.

Harmeet adds, "It's not a romantic song but has a soulful feel and a soothing melody."

The next step was to get the right voice for it. Anjjan informs that they found that in Apeksha Dandekar while they were surfing the Internet. "She's one of the Coke Studio talents and has a powerful, full-throated voice. Plus, she is hard-working," he says, recalling that she dubbed the song thrice and they picked up takes from all three recordings.

Beparwah was composed in 25 minutes and recorded over 10 days. "We had to keep going back and forth with Bhushan and Neeraj," Manmeet explains. "Despite it's 'carefree' connotation, Beparwah was composed with a lot of love and care."

Sau chehre aayein jaayein, yaadon mein wohi reh jaayein
Beparwah, beparwah ho jayein jo...