It’s been 17 years since they made their first songs — separately! — for the film Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi. “We did not know that we were working on the same film,” grins Vishal Dadlani, and quips, “This is just like what happens today.”
However, their old friendship (“We knew each other for five years already.”) saw Vishal and Shekhar Ravjiani join forces for another song. They finally got a solo film, Vadh (2002), still remembered for its Jagjit Singh ghazal (‘Bahut khubsoorat hain’).
Together & apart
The duo has remained one of the leading composing entities today, with films including Jhankaar Beats, Dus, Salaam Namaste, Bluffmaster!, Tara Rum Pum, Om Shanti Om, Tashan, The Dirty Picture, Student Of The Year, Chennai Express and Happy New Year, in their repertoire. And that’s only their joint work, in which either partner has also rendered songs and Vishal has penned some lyrics.
But Vishal and Shekhar also have their individual careers. Vishal is an in-demand playback singer for other composers, spinning hits like ‘Selfie le le re’ from Bajrangi Bhaijaan and ‘Malhari’ from Bajirao Mastani. He continues his career as a rock singer, although his band Pentagram has disbanded.
Shekhar is applauded as much for the Marathi singles he has composed and sung, as for his performance in the recent Neerja as Sonam Kapoor’s boyfriend. He is also entering the field of publishing in the near future. Recently, he was also the only Indian to be a part of a holographic 3D symphony presented in England.
Chatting up the duo is fun as both are completely chilled-out. Though rumours of their separation refuse to die down, Vishal laughs and says, “There isn’t an interview where we are not asked this question! The fact remains that Shekhar is close to my mother, who gets to hear every song of his first.”
Shekhar adds, “We have our own different activities, but in films and in our shows, it is Vishal-Shekhar.” He adds, “Even our families are friends.”
Noteworthy
The duo has recently composed the soundtrack of Yash Raj Films’ Sultan, unanimously hailed as the best film album so far this year. It is also their first-ever movie with Salman Khan. “We got only a basic outline — it was a moving love story of two wrestlers set in Haryana, and so we did a lot of research,” says Vishal. “Haryana has its own folk form called Raagni, which we also used. Our watchman here is a Haryanvi, and we even spoke to him to find out about the kind of music he loved in his village.”
Adds Shekhar, “We went with director Ali Zafar’s choice of music and sound, getting to gradually know where he wanted to head. We mixed Raagni with rock. All the songs were composed at Yash Raj Studios in a room where there is no network, so there was no disturbance! The brief for the first song, ‘Jag ghoomeya,’ which is now a rage, was something similar in feel to Laxmikant-Pyarelal’s ‘Lambi judaai’ from Hero. We cracked the song in minutes.”
“After that, the road was not difficult. The only other brief was that we should not repeat any singer,” Vishal concludes.
Are they also into trying out different voices for the same song, an industry norm today? Vishal shakes his head, “Usually not, unless the director wants it. But we do make an effort to counter-cast singers — like if a song suits one singer, we deliberately use a different voice so that it sounds fresh.”
They concede that it was worth the long wait for a Salman Khan film. “We saw it as a turning point,” smiles Shekhar. “Every now and then we should get a film in which we completely reinvent ourselves and start from scratch again.” Adds Vishal, “Ali (the director) would send Salman our compositions and he would approve them. We never had to change any song. He met us just once and said, ‘Good work!’”
The duo has quite a line-up of upcoming films including A R Murugadoss’s Akira, Aditya Chopra’s directorial Befikre and Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani 2, besides the musical Banjo, a film on street musicians directed in Hindi by Marathi stalwart Ravi Jadhav.
How do they look back at their journey? “It hasn’t been so long,” laughs Vishal. “Every time we complete a film and have no more work, we have this habit of asking each other, ‘Now what are you planning to do?’ — and up comes a new film.”
Says Shekhar, “I think that for us, work never felt like work. We prefer to work with friends with whom we have formed genuine relationships. We still feel that the industry has tapped only into about 15 to 20% of Vishal-Shekhar. There’s 80% more madness we want to do. The kind of stuff we do in our studio when we are free is beyond progressive. We work on all kinds of ideas. Of course, the director must be progressive too to take them on.”
And Vishal says, “In short, we are the same guys who started out.”