Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 4, 2017)

The last seven months in Bollywood have been marked by a distinctive onslaught of remixes of ’90s hits. Shaad Ali recycled A R Rahman’s foot-tapping composition “Humma Humma” from mentor mani ratnam’s 1995 film Bombay for his Aditya Roy Kapur-Shraddha Kapoor love story OK Jaanu in January. It was followed by Badrinath Ki Dulhania, which saw Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt borrow tunes and moves from Sanjay Dutt and Madhuri Dixit’s “Tamma Tamma”. Come March, Abbas-Mustan’s romance-thriller Machine which launched the former’s son Mustafa, threw it back to Mohra’s “Mast Mast”. Then, there are upcoming films like Lucknow Central, Tumhari Sulu, Baadshaho and Poster Boys falling in step with Monsoon Wedding’s folksy “Kaavan Kaavan”, Sridevi’s iconic “Hawa Hawaii”, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s ghazal-qawwali “Mere Rashke Qamar” and Daler Mehndi’s “Kudiyan Shehar Diyan” from Arjun Pandit respectively. And the name that binds them all together single-handedly is Tanishk Baagchi.

Speaking to Mirror earlier (June 6) the 30-year-old composer had been disarmingly evasive as he argued that remixes have been around for a long time, pointing to Shefali Zariwala’s “Kaanta Lagaa”. But Apoorva Mehta, CEO of Dharma Productions which produced OK Jaanu and Badrinath Ki Dulhania, says that recreations come with the pressure of expectations. “But Tanishk’s compositions are fresh, with a vibe that connects with the youth, and simultaneously are a perfect tribute to the original,” he explains.

Shabbir Ahmed, who has worked with the music director on “Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast” as an additional lyrics writer, raves about his passion and sound quality. “He catches the right musical notes and dances in his seat to get the feel of his tune,” Shabbir laughs at the memory.

Nikkhil Advani, the producer of Lucknow Central, who went a step further and got Tanishk to further remix Arjunna Harjaie’s recreated version of “Kaavan Kaavan” for promotions, had been so confident about the composer’s talent, that he’d been recommending him all over town even before he hit pay dirt. “I think filmmakers are reaching out to him because he has executed so many recreations successfully,” Nikkhil reasons, adding that Tanishk’s original stuff is just as fantastic. He’s just heard two tracks Tanishk scored for Lucknow Central and two more for Baazaar, including “Kem Cho, Majama” for Saif Ali Khan who plays a Gujarati stock broker in the film. “He is not only extremely knowledgeable about music but the way he approaches a song, whether recreated or original, is unique,” Nikkhil avers.

Surprisingly, Tanishk himself isn’t too kicked about recreations. T-Series head honcho Bhushan Kumar who offered him “Mere Rashke Qamar”, also agrees that they should be collaborating more on original music. “But we are here to entertain and it’s a public demand we are fulfilling. I’ve explained to him that he is not just remixing an original track but recreating it. He works really hard on these compositions, changing the tune and even the antaras but retaining the original feel. He is doing a great job,” applauds Bhushan.

Abbas who knew Tanishk even before he entered the film industry says Mustaan and he have several of the youngster’s original compositions. “Since he was doing the entire Machine album we also asked him to recreate “Tu Cheez Badi”. We believe these recreations are making the originals even more popular. Tanishk will compose even for our next which we are currently scripting,” promises the man in white. For his sake we hope that this time he will be allowed to give his own mast mast tunes.