Amitabh Bhattacharya on his craft, the industry, Dangal and the other films he’s worked on, the pen name he dropped and more...
Bryan Durham (DNA; November 26, 2016)

A good lyricist uplifts a good tune, a great one makes it unforgettable and a humble one, makes for some great conversation. Amitabh Bhattacharya falls in all three categories. He is proud of his journey and over sips of green tea, fields questions on films, friends, Dangal, perceptions and more...

Do you pick your projects or do the projects pick you?
It works both ways. But mostly, I get picked. At times, if I come across a project that’s open, I listen to the script, gather information about the project and if am interested, I do it.

Lyricists are generally known for their associations with music directors. Over the course of your career, you have worked with several. Who made for the best partner in the song-making process?
The flipside is, everybody has a different style and process they follow. For example, Amit Trivedi from the word go has his basic structure and melody ready. I write to the melody. Pritam works on options. If there’s one particular situation, he’d like to present two three options. Whatever options he finalises, he’ll then juggle roots, productions, lyric styles singing... stuff like that. Shankar Ehsaan Loy work in jam sessions. Loy and Ehsaan kick in a groove, Shankar composes a piece, records it, I listen to it on my headphones, go out, come back, he records it again and we play it. Ajay-Atul, too, have their melodies ready and we just go ahead with it.

How did you pick your one-time pen name Indraneel? Why did you drop it?
I did an album for this band called Om The Fusion Band. At the time, I was writing under pen names on the side. I wrote some songs for them and told them not to feature my name. That Mujhe toh singer banna hai aur koi lyricist mujhe kaam nahi dega... that sort of stuff. So, I asked them to use the name Indraneel, but eventually Aamir and Dev.D happened. Amit and others insisted that it was time to come out in the open and the rest just followed.

One thing in your career you didn’t want to do, but were compelled to do.
Now, I strictly try and do complete albums. That is something I started my career with. But I didn’t do all the songs in Dev.D. I wrote eight songs. For Aamir and Udaan, I wrote them all. Band Bajaa Baaraat too. That’s what I wanted to do. There have been films where I’ve written one or two songs in a few projects I had to do because I had to be in circulation or if I felt the song or film was good and I wanted to be part of it.

Did you have a Haanikarak Bapu? Or is it you having fun with words?
My father wasn’t one, but I knew people who had haanikarak bapus.

We heard bits of the Dangal title track on the trailer and are quite kicked about it. Do you ever go back to your writing and wonder, ‘Did I write that?’
In a good way? All the time. And I think it happens to all artistes. Because when an idea comes that moment takes over. Of course, every couple of years, I do feel like that. I relate with what you’re asking...

Did you have to do a crash course in Haryanvi for Dangal? Or Punjabi/Urdu for Ae Dil Hai Mushkil?
The songs in Dangal are pretty close to Hindi, if you see. So, no. It was a conscious decision not to keep the songs Haryanvi, but to retain the flavour. Kahin kahin pe, a few Haryanvi nuances need to be brought in. As far as other films go, my source material is whatever I’ve heard over the years in conversations around me or through songs that I’ve heard. That’s where I’ve learned from.

Would you do/ have you done any projects in another language, say Bangla?
I think and write in Hindi having grown up in a place like Lucknow, so no, I don’t think I’d be able to write Bangla lyrics.

At least two movies in recent memory have stressed that great musicians/singers come from a place of pain and longing. Do you buy into that thought process?
I believe, not in the stereotypical way, but yeah. I believe artist wohi hai — dard is the filmi part of it — but you cannot be great if you don’t pick up a few scars along the way.

People criticise the generalisation.
Isnt it true, though?

Across the board?
I feel it has happened to me. You’ve gone through pain, heartbreak, disappointment... of some sort and it’s something that makes you express yourself better. Definitely, I have strongly felt it.

Rapidfire

Amit Trivedi or Pritam?
Both obviously. That comes my way pretty often. I feel they’re two wheels of the system. They balance it out for me.

Md Rafi or Kishore Kumar?
I was always a Kishore fan.

Shiv Kumar Batalvi or Nida Fazli?
Nida Fazli, because I’ve read more of his stuff.

Lavs or shabd?
Depends on the rhyme.

Soumya Vajpayee Tiwari (MID-DAY; November 23, 2016)

Celebrated Urdu poet Nida Fazli’s demise this February had left the music industry saddened. The 5 5 - year- old lyricist was credited with lending depth to Hindi film songs in the 2 7 6 1 s. He was behind the lyrics of films like Razia Sultan (1983) and Sarfarosh (1999). Now, hitlist has learnt, that a ghazal album put together under his supervision will be unveiled this Friday. Titled, Nida Between The Lines, it is based on the writer’s ghazals.

Composer Alhad Kashikar, who worked on the record with Fazli, says, “I have been associated with Nidaji for the last 15 years. Before I recorded each ghazal, Nidaji listened to them carefully. I would go behind the mic only after getting his approval.”

The composer adds that some portions remain incomplete following the music legend’s demise. “When Nidaji listened to the raw recordings, he loved them. He wrote some narrations for each track. He wanted them in Naseeruddin Shah’s voice. But, I wanted Nidaji to record them. Unfortunately, he passed away a few days later,” recalls Alhad, adding that this was the last album the lyricist worked on before his death.

Colleagues and friends remember the poet-lyricist who passed away on Monday
Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 9, 2016)


Seventy-eight year-old eminent Urdu writer-poet and Hindi film lyricist Nida Fazli suffered a heart attack at around 11 am on Monday. By the time he was rushed to a hospital, the man, who has given Hindi cinema one of its best ghazals, "Hosh walon ko khabar kya bekhudi kya cheez hai, ishq kije phir samajhiye zindagi kya cheez hai," was gone.

"His demise is a great loss. He was a poet of great stature and calibre, the perfect synthesis of Urdu and Hindi poetry," said writer-poet-lyricist Javed Akhtar, in an emotionally choked voice, later in the evening. "While on the one hand he was influenced by Ghalib and Meer, on the other, he was inspired by Tulsi, Kabir, Meera and Rahim and wrote both, dohas and ghazals with equal ease. But while dohas and ghazals are traditional songs, his content was modern, coached in a language that reached the common man."

Fazli emerged in the '60s as an established poet. When only in his '20s he followed the progressive writers' movement and was a product of the new wave. Born in a Kashmiri family in Delhi on October 12, 1938, he grew up as Muqtida Hasan in Gwalior. His father, Dua Dubaivi, was a poet but Fazli did not agree with his politics. While his father found Jinnah inspiring, Fazli himself was influenced by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. So after the Partition, when his family migrated to Pakistan, he stayed back in India. He was only nine.

Writer Javed Siddiqui who was his friend for almost three decades since they met at a film party, lauds him for bringing a new look, new style and new subjects to the old form of Urdu ghazals. "He was well versed in Hindi dohas and Hindu mythology, the changing world view and techniques of filmmaking. He was all for Hindu-Muslim amity and one of the most progressive and broad-minded persons I've met," asserted Siddiqui, who lives close by and met him at least once in two months, but they spoke more frequently on the phone. They last met in January. Siddiqui recalled fondly how upset Nazli was when he published his first novel, Roshandan, a compilation of biographical sketches for "encroaching on his jurisdiction".

Fazli had moved to Mumbai in 1964 and wrote for magazines then. His first collection of Urdu poetry was published in 1969. The book dealt with Marxism and got him banned from mushairas for a while but he was soon back on the poetry reading circuit and his shayaris and books kept him busy till the end.

After the untimely death of Javed Akhtar's poet-lyricist father, Jan Nisar Akhtar, in 1976, Fazli landed two songs in Kamal Amrohi's Razia Sultan (1983), "Tera Hijr Mera Naseeb Hai" and "Haryala Banna Aaya Re". "A unique aspect of his poetry was that it wasn't the 21st version of something you had heard 20 times before. He may have had his muses but what he said was original, his views and verses were his own," maintained Javed Akhtar.

He went on to work with Raj Kapoor and Yash Chopra. His "Khud Se Jo Waada Kiya Tha" was sung by Pamela Chopra for Silsila but not included in the film. But he wrote two films for Chopra, Nakhuda (1981) and Vijay (1988). He also penned "Ghar Se Masjid" for Mahesh Bhatt's Tamanna (1997). Some fundamentalists were upset that he equated offering pooja and prayers to making a crying infant laugh. "Today I am reminded of those lines, "Ghar se masjid hai bahut door, chalo yun kar len, kisi rote hue bachche ko hasaya jaye". They are beautiful," said Siddiqui.

The Padma Shri and Sahitya Akademi Award winner also collaborated with ghazal maestro Jagjit Singh on many albums. And it was on Jagjit Singh's suggestion that Jatin-Lalit approached him to pen a ghazal for Sarfarosh, whose score they were working on. "We had known him since we were kids, Sulakshana (Pandit) didi had sung several of his ghazals. He asked us to sketch the situation to him and was so impressed, he agreed. I remember Jatin, Jagjitji, my assistant and me sitting together watching him write. He'd say 'Hosh walon' was one of his best ghazals. He was happy it was incorporated in an Aamir Khan film," reminisced Lalit.

"Hosh walon" struck an immediate chord with everyone and Lalit recalled that at concerts, when Jagjit Singh noticed the audience getting restless, he'd immediately break into this song and they would settle down. "If "Munni Badnaam Hui" was our item song, then "Hosh Walon" was Jagjitji's item song, his Brahmavaan," he maintained. "Nida Fazli was one of our last great shayars. With him an era has come to an end...