MUMBAI: Delhi-based rock band Parikrama composed music for its first ever Bollywood film- ‘Manjunath’, a film directed by Sandeep Varma. A ‘whistle-blowing’ campaign has been launched, aimed at encouraging youth to speak up and stand for what is right. It will be used to promote the film, which is the story of a whistle blower.
Sandeep Varma, a big fan of Parikrama approached the band for the film, even though he was aware they did not do Bollywood projects. “I was waiting for a chance to work with them. Fortunately, Manjunath was also a big rock fan and a vocalist in his college rock band. I approached them, thinking they would refuse the project, since they hate Bollywood. I sat there for an hour and asked them to read the script. They read it, and said yes”, said Varma.
To this Subir Malik, organist and synthesizers, replied, “I do not think anyone would ever refuse a story like ‘Manjunath’ and what he did for all of us. We are very happy that it is coming out on silver screen because a lot of people will stand up for things that they were earlier afraid of.” The music, that is songs and background scores, were done by three members of Parikrama- lead vocalist Nitin Malik, lead guitarist Sonam Sherpa and Subir himself.
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When asked why he approached Parikrama for the project, Varma explained, “I feel that the true rock sound has not come into Bollywood yet. There have been movies which have talked about rock music, but I think they have softened the genre to make it palatable to the audience. The kind of sound I needed for the film was authentic rock, which I thought Parikrama could do.”
Malik, sharing what it was like to compose for a film said, “Music is essentially an expression. A lot of people write music based on incidences from their life. We did not go through what Manjunath did, but when this happened years ago, we were all glued to the TV sets. Just like everyone else. We wanted to know what happened and were happy when the murderers were convicted. Since it was a story we already had a relation to, it was probably double the conviction to do a movie like this. Music usually comes from the heart when it comes to a subject that is close to you.”
“Overall there are 3 songs plus one shloka from the Gita which we have converted into a full heavy metal kind-of mix. We included a lot of different things in one of the songs; we asked an old man at Jama Masjid to sing a poem by Faiz and recorded a western Mizo choir over the spoken word. Sadly, we could not use the song because of permission issues,” said Malik about the songs of the film.
The director and band members had quite a few hurdles they had to cross, to get the right sound. “The songs happened very fast. Most of the songs in the movie are their first takes; their scratches were good, and needed only little tweaking by me. The background music was done remotely, where I was editing bits of the film in Mumbai and sending it to them in Delhi. But that did not work for us. I could not afford to accommodate them in a hotel for a month and half, so I asked them to crash at a friend’s flat. The most difficult part to compose in a soundtrack is the background music, especially for a band, since it has to be subservient to the scene. Once they were in Mumbai, it was smooth sailing,” Varma revealed.
The tracks have vocals by Shankar Mahadevan, KK and Papon Angraag. The band members also worked with violinist and Parikrama member Imran Khan, Abhijeet Sood who is presently playing drums with the band, band bassist Gaurav Balani, Shrijan Mahajan who did the programming for one of the songs and Sharat Srivastava from Delhi based fusion band Mrigya.
Speaking about how the music fits the film, Varma said, “Music is one of our strongest features. Considering that it is a strong-content movie, I always wanted the music to reach out to the audience. So, I am very happy with the music. In fact, we have kept some of the background music pieces on the album along with the voice over of the actor who plays Manjunath, quoting some dramatic lines in the film. I think the music will stay with you after you watch the movie, including the background score.”
