MUMBAI: Tinsel town is full of stories about artistes making it big, and then fading away as time goes by. Very few manage to stay relevant and come back, time after time with a bang. One such name that crops up every once in a while is music composer Anu Malik. Ruling the music industry for more than one and a half decade, during the 90s, Malik slowly started fading away post 2004. His last project that bagged a gong was the Shah Rukh Khan starrer ‘Main Hoon Na’, after which the films he composed did not work well at the box office. While he continued other projects like judging reality shows, the 54 year old ran out of Bollywood projects, labeling this particular phase as “difficult”.
“This was one phase which was extremely difficult. I ran out of work for a decade, which gave me a lot of time for introspection. I had the time to analyse where I went wrong and it was during this time I learnt a lot,” said the singer/composer to Radioandmusic.com’s Dhairya Ingle. He knocked on doors of a lot of producers, but no one was willing to give him work. “I do not hold any grudges against anyone because each one of us has our own burden to carry. I had approached Aditya Chopra for work. This was when he told me about ‘Dum Laga Ke Haisha’ and I am thankful to him for giving me this opportunity,” he said.
But composing music for a big banner like Yash Raj after running out of great projects was no cake walk. Along with facing stiff competition from existing composers, he also had to keep in mind the audience today. “The biggest challenge for me was to keep pace with time, and I had to battle it out with my age. Also I tried my level best to create music that was relevant to the youth. But in the end it was beautiful composing for a big banner film after a long time,” he further added.
Related Post
Malik composed somewhere around 50-100 tunes for each track, and it took about six to seven months for the album to get finalised. “There were a lot of late nights, early mornings while composing the songs. The best part was when Aditya Chopra appreciated my music and said that the music is made out of a hunger. Now when I look at the comments and the appreciation, I feel good,” he opined.
The album for ‘Dum Laga Ke Haisha’ has seven tracks and stars Ayushmann Khurana and Bhumi Pednekar in lead roles. Kumar Sanu, who sings two songs in the film features in a cameo role. The film is set in 1994, and revolves around the protagonist, who is the owner of a cassette shop. He is an ardent fan of Kumar Sanu and wants to get married to someone like Juhi Chawla. But he is forced by his family to get married to someone else.
Directed by Sharat Katariya, ‘Dum Laga Ke Haisha’ is set to hit the theaters on 27 February, 2015.
