Earlier this week, Ali Sethi-Shae Gill’s Pasoori (2022) was recreated as Pasoori Nu and within hours of its release a meme fest was unleashed on social media and hate comments poured in. The Rochak Kohli-Ali Sethi composition, co-written by Gurpreet Saini and Ali and sung by Arijit Singh-Tulsi Kumar is actually an authorized recreation for Satyaprem Ki Katha.

In an exclusive conversation, Rochak Kohli spoke to us about it all.

When the makers got the rights in place, music composer Rochak Kohli, who has given us independent songs as well as Bollywood songs like Lae Dooba (Aiyaary, 2018), Tu Hi Yaar Mera (Pati Patni Aur Woh, 2019) and others, was entrusted to compose the recreation. “I took it as a challenge to make my own version of it because I couldn’t have done a ‘better’ version of the original. The original one is a masterpiece. Recreating a song is not easy at all because there is a baggage of a superhit and a legendary song on you that you are supposed to recreate. Ali and I have wanted to work together for a long time and with Pasoori Nu, that has finally happened.”

As soon as the song dropped, the social media furor began. The composer feels that when a popular song like that is recreated people just begin with hate comments even before listening to it. “The idea of recreating this song itself turned people off but when they actually listened to it, they took it in a positive way. In fact, I saw these reactions of people turn positive overnight. There were some comments that were made by people even before they had heard the song.

Rochak says, “There is a set of people on social media who are just there to criticize, and we the creators, we all know it. Whether it was this song or any other song, if we put out something there are people who just put up hate comments. Appreciation on social media is not considered cool anymore. So, people don’t appreciate your work on social media.”

Getting hate comments and memes is almost a norm. Rochak feels that even songs that are not recreations get hate. “Isme koi badi baat nahi hai ki original hai ya recreation. But itni hatred ki zaroorat hi nahi thi. We are not hurting anyone’s sentiments; we have just put our song out.”