Picture: Pabitra Das

We happen to be chatting on Father’s Day; did you do anything special?

Neel: No, not really because I don’t believe in Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, but I’m going to make hot dogs!

Anjan: When he was growing up I was so busy with my career — theatre, travelling, cinema — it was my wife (Chanda) who really reared Neel. We started interacting when he was grown-up... almost as professionals and as friends. Our relationship has never been like father and son.

Neel: But by grown-up he means when I was still in school…. Now almost every day is a fun day for us. We have similar taste in food, we love cooking together. So hot dogs it is this evening!

 

A gift from each other that you treasure?

Anjan: This bar cabinet (pointing at a swank new wooden bar cabinet in the living room of their Beniapukur home) because I really love my alcohol and I always wanted to have a bar in my house. This was my last gift from him, apart from a Martin guitar which he had picked up for me during his travels in America.

Neel: He’s given me a lot of books... Motorcycle Diaries is the one I treasure the most... and also my white electric stratocaster.

 

Ganesh Talkies is about many firsts, including the music…

Anjan: I very consciously wanted Neel to produce something much more populist than what he has done. I wanted a different and wacky approach to background music. He has done Hindi songs before for Madly Bangalee and BBD but here we’re talking about marriage, romance, old-fashioned cinema. And we have an item song and dance between the servants in the two families. I was looking at a very Govinda-David Dhawan situation.

Neel: And I did not protest because I thought it was fun.

 

Did you know you had it in you to write/compose an item number?

Anjan: That ability should be there in anyone. The same guy [Gulzar] who’s writing Katra katra or Mera kuch samaan, is also writing Beedi jalai le. So it was a challenge for me.

Neel: I was a little confused at first about what kind of a tune would work with the mass. Should I listen to Bhojpuri songs or Bengali items of now or Bappi Lahiri?

Anjan: At first we couldn’t zero in on someone who could write the item song. No one was being able to write those catchy pulp lines. I didn’t want trite lines but something subaltern and sexuality underneath the witty. Khoka babu jaay lal juto paaye is not witty for me. Jhaal legechhe bhal legechhe was all about that.

 

Any favourite item number?

Anjan: My all-time favourite is Piya tu ab toh aaja. That was fantastic.

Neel: I liked Sheila ki jawaani and also Babuji zara dheere chalo.

Anjan: Hamma hamma.

Neel: And of course Rukmani Rukmani...

Neel, what do you feel about your dad’s evolution as an artiste?

Neel: He’s changed from what I’ve seen of him as a child. From an advertising person to writing plays and staging Brecht to doing serials for television then moving on to music and trying to bridge the artistic and commercial gap in cinema. When I started playing the guitar with him on stage I realised that he wasn’t pretending to be somebody else. Neither was he interested in being stuck in a niche group and pretending to be a Bob Dylan. Everybody was listening to Haripada and Bela Bose. He should never be slotted as an art house filmmaker.

How much do you rely on each other for suggestions and advice?

Neel: In his films, he’s the captain of the ship and I just follow him.

Anjan: His horizon is bigger and I rely on him but we have enormous clashes. I respect his judgement. It’s a proper professional relationship.

Neel: And even when I’m composing for others, I feel if I ask him he’ll give me an unbiased opinion.

Anjan: I’ve relied on him many a times for casting. Be it Parno (Mittra) for Ranjana... or the entire group for Madly Bangalee. I’m in touch with the younger lot through Neel.

If it’s your film, there has to be Neel. Why is that a given?

Anjan: Anjan manei Neel music korbe, okey kaaj paiye dichhe... No! It’s because what I need, he is able to give me. Neel can do a Majhi re, a Jhaal legechhe or a background for Bomkesh. There has always been a mental block among people that whenever relatives work be it brothers or husband-wife, it’s not taken seriously. People think it’s patronising. A Carlo Ponti need not patronise Sophia Loren. Both were big. Both had proved themselves. It’s the same thing as Raj Kapoor continuously working with Shankar-Jaikishen for years. Just because they weren’t relatives no one questioned them.

Neel: Some stupid people keep saying, ‘you’re still in the shadow of your father’. I have my own listeners and a lot of times producers want us together. I would actually want to see him work with another music director and how the audience takes it.

 

How do father and son bond?

Neel: We travel with our shows or we move around the city together, party and do things together.

 

And what are the clashes about?

Anjan: Our beliefs and intellectual debates. We fight openly and brutally.

Neel: Often it’s about bizarre things like is music more important or words. For me it’s always words, for him it’s melody.

Anjan: Eta niye maramari hoye gechhe amader moddhye (We’ve had serious fights over this).

Neel: Then there’s Deepika Padukone! I don’t like her…

Anjan: I like her.

 

What’s that one thing you’d like to change about each other?

Anjan: I’d definitely like him to lose some weight but the fact is he’s a foodie and as far as food is concerned, I trust him immensely. I get my food tips from him too!

Neel: I think he should stop wearing wigs outside a shoot and trying to look young! (Laughs)

 

What about marriage? Don’t you, like most fathers, counsel him about settling down?

Anjan: Chanda has been after him like crazy, ‘Why isn’t he getting married?’ I don’t force him. Marriage is something so personal that I would never push him to do that. I interact with his girlfriends, whether I like them or I don’t. Some I interact more with and some less… jodi na jomey amar. I personally believe in strong heterosexual relationships…. If he wants to live in or not get married, it’s okay with me.

Neel: I still haven’t found the right person otherwise I have no issues about settling down.

 

A suitable girl for Neel would be?

Anjan: Someone who would appreciate him not for his success, not because he hangs around with celebrities or his father is Anjan Dutt but because of him.

Neel: Somebody who respects whatever I do, if not likes what I do.... Has that clarity and maturity to give me that space.

 

Your favourite composition of each other?

Anjan: Majhi re from The Bong Connection and Yeh zindagi in Ganesh Talkies.

Neel: Aami brishti dekhechhi and Haripada.

 

And the one that could have been better?

Anjan: Some of the songs in Madly Bangalee.

Neel: Albums post-Kolkata Sholo.

 

A special song you both cherish?

Neel: Tambourine Man.

Anjan: I think it’s all the songs by The Beatles. We’ve grown up on these songs, they’ve been timeless.