Tapas Relia: With this film, I made music for me

Discussions on tricks to create numbers that can swiftly make their way to music playlists rarely form part of our conversation with Tapas Relia For the composermdashwith projects like The Test Case and City of Dreams in his kittymdashitrsquos always about exploring characters with as much intricacy as the director does In Deepti Naval and Kalki Koechlinrsquos Goldfish Relia brings a bouquet of Hindustani classical numbers on the table for music aficionados to sample In this interview he discusses how the film benefited as the music juxtaposed the screenplayEdited excerpts of the interviewWhat was your discussion with the makers on the soundtrack of GoldfishPushan Kripalani the director of the film told me the story and said it wouldnrsquot have any music They only wanted one thumri which would be for Deepti Navalrsquos character Sadhana Sadhana had recorded this song live in her younger days and this was the only requirement He got Kausar Munir on board to write the lyrics I composed a scratch and got Madhubanti Bagchi who I have always wanted to work to record itNaval and Koechlin in GoldfishSo the discussion started with one song but then Pushan said that he had found the need to include more musical pieces given that Sadhana is a music lover She suffers from dementia and her only connection with her past life is music I said we could do some instrumental pieces But Kausar had already sent about five songs all of which I loved So I asked Pushan if I should compose on them He loved the ideaDid you have access to the narrative to decipher the kind of songs you could subsequently createAll these songs were classical mdashbasically ones that justified what Sadhana would listen to She would not listen to random music Pushan concluded that because Sadhana is a musiclover we did not need the songs to feature in defined sections She could be listening to them at any time while she was at home It is her house where her rules apply She could be playing music while going about her day The music could play in the background whether a fight takes place or while she cooks or has tea I liked that concept So at times if the screenplay was in contrast with the song that was also alrightIn fact in one intense scene between Sadhana and Anna Kalki Koechlin you will see this juxtaposition And that yields an entirely different cinematic effect We also threw in this beautymdasha song called Piya padh lena The lyrics are reminiscent of 50s Bollywood I got Pratibha Singh Baghel to sing it We know shersquos a tremendously talented singer but her voice has a distinct character that I wanted to explore So this was a joyride for me because I got so many musicians to collaborate with Evidently yoursquove invested time in understanding the characters before designing the music And this is something you may have done only because you had ownership of the entire score How does your working process differ when you are only asked to do one song for a film project like is often the case todayYoursquore absolutely right when you say that the market has changed The requirements of producers and directors have also changed Most of the films today are like Primersquos instant deliveries Everything is about making money and not for the love of cinema More and more directors and producers are out shopping for music rather than commissioning it They want stuff that is ready because they want commercial numbers that can help them make moneyIn a project like this one the purpose is to serve the performance story and screenplay So the artistes want to go through the entire process and understand the characters Irsquove had so many discussions with Pushan about what the characters are all about and what kind of music would Sadhana listen to I have always worked on films that have given me complete ownership and I had gone through the scripting and narration for each one before making the scratches There is one part of our lives that is dedicated to making a decent amount of money But the second half for me is very important The important part is validating my existence as a composer For a film like Goldfish I made music for myself