Kolkata: “Bappida I will miss u forever, mithun” — this was the message that Mithun Chakraborty sent out a little over 24 hours after Bappi Lahiri’s death. The actor had been busy with his hotel work on the outskirts of Bengaluru and Mysore the day Bappi breathed his last in Mumbai.

While celebrities rushed to pay tributes on social media, Mithun was conspicuous by his absence. A day later, when he reached Mumbai, arrangements had already begun for Bappi’s final journey.

TOI obtained his message via the actor’s son. Mithun and Bappi shared a bond since the days of Ravikant Nagaich’s ‘Surakksha’ (1979) and ‘Wardat’ (1979) and K Murli Manohar Rao’s ‘Dilwaala’ (1984). And then came the avalanche of their hits in Babbar Subhash’ ‘Disco Dancer’ (1982). All its songs — from Vijay Benedict’s ‘I am a Disco Dancer,’ Parvati Khan’s ‘Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy, aaja’ to Usha Uthup’s ‘Koi yahan nache nache’ — hit the national airwaves like a storm. The bond strengthened over 32 years with Prakash Mehra’s ‘Dalaal’ (1993), where Mithun lip-synched to Bappi’s ‘Gutur gutur’, till ‘Golmaal 3’ (2010), which had Pritam getting Bappi to sing ‘Disco Dancer’ picturised on Mithun and Ratna Pathak Shah.

In 2011, Bappi had done the music for a film with Mithun’s son, Mimoh aka Mahaakshay. The film was shelved midway, but the two families had come together for the music setting where Bappi’s compositions would be dug up from the past.