Given that he is a ’90s kid, musician Achint Thakkar admits that he had to put in a fair bit of toil to replicate music from the ’60s and ’70s for Rajkummar Rao's next, Monica O My Darling. Director Vasan Bala did not merely want elements of music of the bygone eras in his film, but asked the musician to create numbers that resembled the decades in their entirety.

“Initially, I thought the brief to include music from the ’70s was for aesthetic purposes alone, but he wanted the songs to be made like they were in those decades. Tracks like Piya Tu were templates that he wanted me to follow. For an entire month, all that I did was watch old movies and study the music. I went down a rabbit hole and consumed the works of musicians like R D Burman and S D Burman. So, the soundtrack is substantially influenced by them. The first song that I created for this film was Yeh Ik Zindagi, and that eventually formed the base for the rest of the songs,” the composer tells mid-day.

Thakkar’s research revealed that he needed to train his attention on making the music more melodic. He also needed to include more instruments in his songs. “My sensibilities are modern, so, I found it hard to do the whole antra and mukhda thing. But the simplicity of their music is what makes it more beautiful. It is harder to do something that is simple.”

At a time when music production houses are tweaking old ditties to make them palatable for today’s listeners, was the team apprehensive about presenting an entire soundtrack that seemed to belong to the ’70s? “We did not consider that,” says Thakkar, simply.

“The first track that I made was a modern version, and had all the [trinkets] associated with today’s music. That was rejected. Making music that is authentic and true to the past eras is challenging. We scouted for singers on YouTube to find the kind of voices that could do justice to the songs. Singers like Anupama Shrivastava truly delivered what we needed. In the ’80s, the singers had a natural flair, and could easily render songs in [high pitches]. The female singers had a sweet shrillness, which we no longer see in today’s singers. Fortunately, we found several artistes who could recreate that vibe.”

The composer’s previous projects include collaborations with Four More Shots Please composer Michael McCleary,  who was also the co-composer on Yeh Ik Zindagi. Having earned recognition for his work on Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story, Thakkar is also associated with Hansal Mehta’s Scoop, which is based on crime journalist Jigna Vora’s life. He has also worked on the web series, Rocket Boys.