My first brush with rain and a song was when I was around seven years old. My father had taken me to watch Singing In The Rain at the Odeon cinema hall in Delhi. It was his way of exposing me to music beyond the world of All India Radio and when I saw that famous sequence of Gene Kelly dancing solo with his umbrella in the rain, it blew my mind. As a kid, jumping on puddles of water was fun but something that we were strongly reprimanded for. And here I was watching an adult tapping and splashing through puddles with such rhythm and abandon. I realised that the idea of singing and dancing in the rain wasn’t just cool in my own head but somewhere far away in the world, too.

I was 16 when I first heard ‘O Sajana, Barkha Bahaar Aayi’ from the film Parakh. We didn’t have a TV at home so I had only heard it on radio until I watched the song unfurl as a visual at my neighbour’s house during Chitrahaar. I stood there transfixed that a black-and-white visual could be so colourful. Also that the rains could serve as a metaphor for a woman’s emotions. The sense of reverence, hope and childlike joy in Sadhana with her hands cupped catching rain drops — a classic Bimal Roy shot with hands resembling a womb and water drops symbolic of elixir — remains embedded in my mind as one of the most enchanting rain song moments on screen. Rain songs are usually known to be vibrant, sensuous and outward but this was an example of how subtle and inward a song about the rains could be.

The hottest woman to appear on screen for me has to be Smita Patil in ‘Aaj Rapat Jaye’ in the film Namak Halaal. An incredible song that shattered the myth of Smita Patil as the czarina of alternate cinema. The uninhibited and abashed chemistry between Amitabh Bachchan and Smita Patil — an unlikely couple to frolic in the rain — was simply joyous.

The mad kinky expressions of Kishore Kumar at his flirtatious best in ‘Ek Ladki Bheegi Bhaagi Si’ with a rain-soaked Madhubala out alone on a rainy night, remind you of all kinds of mischief that rains inspire. The rhythm of the song and the idea of having a good time without a care, sums up the beauty, wit and romance of a classic Bollywood and baarish number. Then there’s everyone’s favourite antakshari song — R for ‘Rimjhim Gire Saawan’ where you see the beautiful Mumbai landscape when the city was much emptier with two characters walking down drenched streets.

The song that changed my life was ‘Ab Ke Sawan Aise Barse’, my first ever album. I was a Delhiite at the time. The realisation of what nature and music together could do came to me on a Sunday evening at India Gate. I was out with friends when it suddenly started to pour. People stepped out of their cars to dance to ‘Ab Ke Sawan’ blaring from their car stereos. The fact that I could capture the euphoria of rain through a piece of music triggered in me a sense of responsibility to create music, not just for entertainment but to make a difference.

I heard ‘Bhaage Re Mann’ from Chameli when I had just arrived in Mumbai from Delhi. While watching the song being shot, it was almost like feeling the rain, the shivers and the earthy scent. A song brimming with hope, innocence and fresh starts. Life came full circle when the same Kareena Kapoor brought that playful energy to ‘Zoobi Doobi’, a rain song I made for 3 Idiots.

These songs are just a fraction of the kind of magic realism and fantastical moments that Indian cinema has sparked over the years thanks to the rain. The art of picturising a rain song — in all its gay abandon, innocence and sensuousness — was due to screenplay writers and directors who lived in very different times with very different associations with the rain. What romance would a young filmmaker living in Mumbai today find in the rains when you are surrounded by potholes and construction sites?

When you look out of the window, the changing urban landscape with waterlogging and traffic congestion would naturally disallow the natural thought of rain as a background for two people falling in love under an umbrella. It’s a sad tragedy of our times that I can’t recall the last time a beautiful rain song got made because psychologically everyone’s like ‘who wants to get out in the rain?’ Rampant urbanisation has robbed the cities of their rainy romance and we see its effect in music and movies too. Also, the cinematic technique has changed where filmmakers are committing less and less to songs, especially lip-syncs. Therefore a rain song on its own is a luxury and what we saw in ‘O Sajana’ with rain in the foreground is now a distant backdrop 60 years later.

How I wish that a director would use his cinematic artistry to recreate a musical Singing In The Rain moment today — with a leap here and a splash there on wet streets and puddles — and I am certain the rain song will be back. If it worked then, it will work now. There’s nothing more unifying than the feeling of breaking away, letting go and being cleansed by the rain.

— As told to Mohua Das