Rewind to 2001! Composers walk down memory lane

Karan Johar would create a visual portrait for music composers Sandesh ShandilyaRight from the fact that Karan Johar was creating it to the stellar starcast associated with the film there were several factors that served as inspiration for creating the soundtrack of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham Karan would often enact situations when attempting to highlight what he wanted I recall for Sooraj hua madham he read and enacted the preceding dialogues and then the songIt was easy to visualise the scenes and work on creating the compositions and that effort went a long way in ensuring that we made promising tracksI admired his idea for the song Vande mataram where he wanted to showcase the beauty of India as the protagonist roamed the streets of London He had been working on this film for two years and left no scope for discrepancies when expressing what he expected This was among my first few projects in the industry My team and I studied music trends that were popular during the time While You are my soniya and Sooraj hua madham were immediately approved three iterations of Deewana hai dekho had to be madeDCH had many genres Shankar MahadevanDil Chahta Hai was among ShankarEhsaanLoyrsquos first few projects so we didnrsquot have any inhibitions because people didnrsquot have preconceived notions about what we could deliver That worked in our favour Also I believe the soundtrack did well because we approached it differently It had jazz music as well as Indian Western and Scottish folk Koi kahe introduced trance to listeners And while a layman may not technically understand the genres he can analyse that it is new Farhan Akhtar Ritesh Sidhwani Javed ji Akhtar and we SEL headed to Riteshrsquos Khandala bungalow to create the soundtrackPicsInstagramWe had allotted 10 days for it and wrapped it up in the first three It was made with ease and amid laughter It was among my most memorable experiences I remember sitting on a swing with Javed ji and analysing how we should make Jaane kyun We both agreed that instead of being a typical love song it should have a conversational undertone where the characters analyse the pros and cons of falling in love Javed ji said lsquoHaan aisa gaane hona chahiye jo samjhaye ki jaane kyun log pyaar karte hairsquo That was it Sitting on the swing we finished composing it within 10 minutesRoyalties outweigh salary from film Harris JayarajBarring two tracks mdash Dil ko tumse and Rehna hai mdash the entire soundtrack was initially created for the original version the Tamil film Minnale We were told that Mr Vashu Bhagnani wanted to create it in Hindi as Rehna Hai Terre Dil Mein and retain the soundtrack But he wanted a few songs with a North Indian feel So we made the two additional numbers But love songs transcend barriers of language anyway Arabic Tamil and English cover versions of the filmrsquos songs have been made over the years and I still receive royaltiesThe royalties I have received have been more than my salary for the film We had enjoyed working on the soundtrack and that reflected in its music The only thing I was apprehensive about was the song Vaseegara which was remade into Zara zara Vaseegara had already become a hit in both the Tamil and Telugu industries Apart from its music the lyrics were also immensely appreciated So recording it in Hindi again posed its own set of challenges I was keen to retain the original singer Bombay Jayashree who also made her debut with the film and created magic with it