Picture by Sangeeta Khalkho

One moment, he settles into a corner of the studio — always the first one to reach — and quietly keys away notes on a keyboard. The next, he suddenly goes cycling on a busy thoroughfare, taking a break between movie scores and jingles.

Predictably unpredictable. That’s Shantanu Moitra for you.

The tunesmith synonymous with nostalgia and romance in Bolly and Tolly, walks and talks at the speed of a machine gun. “My mind is like a jar of fireflies. I burn them up, retreat and recreate them again.”

Refusing to be still for even a second, he swings in his chair and sometimes paces up and down as he takes t2 through his accidental journey into the world of music.

Antaheen revived the love for Bengali film music. Were you apprehensive when you were approached by Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury for a Bengali film?

Apprehensive would actually be an understatement — I was very, very apprehensive! For two reasons. I did not think that my music would suit the kind of Bengali cinema that had been happening prior to Antaheen. Secondly, I was going to enter the beautiful world of Salil Chowdhury, Hemanta Mukhopadhyay, Manna Dey, SD Burman and I didn’t want to strike out as odd.

When Tony (Aniruddha) came to me with a film offer, he showed me a trailer of Anuranan. I watched it casually in the middle of working in the studio on Munnabhai. So overawed was I that I showed it to Rajkumar Hirani. He too thought it was a beautiful-looking promo and that gave me the confidence that I could work things out. Tony was planning a Hindi film then for which I had blocked my dates but that film didn’t happen. He then came up to me and said, ‘You’re there, the studio is there, I’ll think of a film’. I quizzed him, ‘What’s the brief?’ But all he wanted were five or six love songs.

I was quite unsure about being able to contribute something important and substantial to the film but I guess it worked. I’ve been getting a lot of offers from Tollywood after that but I’m a bit cautious. Money is less and when I’m putting in my time and effort it has to be a worthwhile experience. I have a different style of working. I get involved in the writing of the script and want my music to be a part of the whole experience, so it depends on the kind of time they also have for me.

Your second film with Tony, Aparajita Tumi, is already being talked about. What expectations do you have?

I don’t wait for my music to break any grounds. It’s a modern phenomenon of looking at music like a dissected frog. I get worried when people either try to get inside a song or say ‘your tune is very hummable’. I want my songs to be long lasting rather than someone humming it for the time being and then forgetting about it. It’s the same with Aparajita Tumi. Even in Bombay when someone says ‘Hey, give us a hit’ I tell them I can’t. Hit is a frivolous word. I can give a good song but a hit is not in my hands.

Your definition of a good song?

A culmination of three things: a good melody, good writing and a good singer. That’s how it works for me.

How is composing for a Tolly film different from Bolly?

Not very different. It’s not the language that matters to me but the people. For example, Sudhir Mishra is fantastic when it comes to a brief. Shyam Benegal, once okay with what you suggest doesn’t even come to the studio. Pradeep Sarkar is there with you right from the start till the end. Raju Hirani does proper homework before we start, Vidhu Vinod Chopra is extremely musical and even before the scripting or characters are final, he wants the songs there. Similarly, Tony when sitting in my studio isn’t there as my critic or a director but as a lover of music.

Of course, golpo ta khub important in both Bengali and Hindi but Bengali film music for me in a way is much more bold because they allow you much more leverage and experimentation vis-a-vis Hindi films. Since I’m not from Calcutta but a Bengali at heart, I think I make for a decent combination of feeling Bengali but executing what I draw from all over the world.

Born in Lucknow, raised in Delhi; how much of a Bengali are you?

Geographically no, but from heart and soul yes. Language in the house was Bengali, my goromer chhuti was Bengali, my Durga Puja, Kali Puja, Saraswati Puja were Bengali. I used to come to Calcutta once a year during my summer holidays to spend time with my pishi. So I am as Bengali as any Bengali in Calcutta is.

How much does the Bengali in you feature in your music?

All the time and in all my compositions. That’s the Shantanu Moitra trademark. My learning of film music is greatly inspired by Salil Chowdhury. I did not even know who Salil Chowdhury was when I started composing. A lot of people who had heard my music told me that it had a Salil Chowdhury touch. I was intrigued by who this man was and thus began my search only to realise the genius of that man. He’s the only influence I have even today in terms of execution of the craft. I had read about him once, ‘Salil Chowdhury: predictably unpredictable’. That is how I want to be — bold, unapologetic, with a brilliant knowledge on the use of chords and obbligatos.

What are your musical roots?

I’m from a family of classical musicians. My father was a sarod player and my mother was a dancer but they did not practice as professionals. I wasn’t really a scholar in school. I would see my seniors playing the guitar and pretty women around them. So I thought ‘Oh you get a girl if you play the guitar!’ That’s how I picked up the guitar.

Amar senior chhilo Sushmit Bose, one of the first Indians to have cut a disc abroad and he had also sung with Pete Seeger. He was like our hero. The usual, Beatles, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan was happening but genetically I was being handed down the music my father would play on the sarod....

From a Punjabi colony we had just moved into Chittaranjan Park in Delhi so it was quite a stunner for me to see so many Bengalis all together. Right from the bus driver and chaiwallah to the milkman, everybody was Bengali. Durga Puja was a big event there. We had a band and the colony would give us an hour’s slot to do whatever we wanted. That was a very important platform because we decided to do our own songs. In our country, the fact that you can sing or play an instrument is very apparent throughout your life but there’s no way to find out if you can compose. It’s only in places like these that you begin to realise. I used to sit down with a writer and write songs for fun. I was in Class IX. Ei platform ta na thakle I would never have known that I could compose.

You joined an ad agency... and music?

Music was genetic and my schooling in self-styled composition had subconsciously happened but making it a profession was an accident. I was working with Contract Advertising as a brand manager. Although I belonged to the non-creative side, in office parties, I’d be the one singing and playing the guitar.

Then one day, circumstances put me in a position where Pradeep Sarkar was working on one of our ads, the jingle hadn’t happened and we were pressed for time. There was panic all around when somebody remembered me. He (Sarkar) wasn’t too happy with the suggestion because I was a client-servicing guy but what fascinated him was the unorthodox way in which I executed my thought, playing on a steel plate with a spoon. The jingle was Boley mere lips, I love Uncle Chipps and it went on to become a huge, huge hit.

After that Pradeep started giving me his internal work to do. Those were tough times for me. I was doing my client-servicing job from 10am to 9pm and then creative work till 2am. That’s also how my sleep cycle broke and never came back. Then Friday evenings I started boarding the flight to Bombay to do jingles and returning on Monday mornings. I had never seen a recording studio before, never owned a keyboard. A very good friend was KK who lived in CR Park and for my first few recordings he would guide me and lend me his keys.

Our country doesn’t have a college that teaches composition so it was on-the-job training for me. I turned into blotting paper, soaking it all up and it was turning out to be fun. I was learning from the baaps and also making money, so finally I decided to quit advertising.

You have often said you get the whole song in a flash...

I know how to read but not write music. The whole song comes to me like a flash in the head. Not just the tune but the arrangement as well. I believe that to be a composer you just need to have a tune in your head. I spoke to a lot of people and realised that very few actually get a song as a complete whole. On discovering it was an extraordinary gift from God I stopped trying too hard.... I was 26 when I entered a recording studio for the first time. I was supremely aware that I was late compared to the kids running in and out of studios at 20-21, but I was also aware that a lot of people who had started early had burnt themselves out. So it was a question of pacing myself right.

And the turning point?

Parineeta. When I was doing Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, I had no stress or pressure but it turned out the way it did and landed me in front of the legendary Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Sitting before him on my first meeting I wondered whether I should stay or run away. He told me that he liked Bavra mann but the rest of my songs he’d heard were “crap”, so if I could give him songs like that (Bavra mann) he would give me Parineeta. I liked his clarity and the fact that he raised my bar.

I started trying too hard but just couldn’t crack the tunes, especially the theme song between Saif and Vidya. That’s when I decided to take three days off. I went for a trek to the Sahyadri in the Western Ghats and as soon as I left Bombay I could feel the stress going away. By the time I was in the mountains, amidst the sights, smells and sounds of nature that I love the most, I managed to crack Piyu boley.

Now that has become my routine. Before I start a film and after I end it I take a break. It’s been two years since 3 Idiots, the longest one I’ve taken, because 3 Idiots was hugely intense — the songs and the background.

3 Idiots broke a lot of musical records. Was it your most important project?

Yes, it was probably one of the highest musical deals with the highest number of ringtone downloads, Zoobi doobi was the most sung song in reality shows.... The fact that the songs cracked it in so many ways solidified my belief that I don’t need to consciously try and create hits....

One of the first songs I created for 3 Idiots was Give Me Some Sunshine. I had composed the song even before a line of the script was written. Just with the basic idea — ‘Give me another chance, I want to grow up once again’. In Bombay once a film is completed, there is a survey done especially for big-budget films to check which songs are doing well, worth promoting or including in the album. The research showed that Give Me Some Sunshine was a no-no. Apparently, it was too slow and not with the times.

I remember sitting with Vidhu, the research team and Vidhu asking ‘So Moitra?’ I was boiling. I was upset because anyone who points a finger at my composition, I’ll break his face! It’s my child. I told him ‘I don’t believe in research. I believe in my gut feeling.’ So Vinod said, ‘See, right from Parinda to Munnabhai, people have always wondered about the kind of films I attempt. So I’m going to go with your feeling and put the song in.’ And now, the song is a youth anthem.

What is the case in point? Music can never be judged or deciphered. It can only be felt. That way 3 Idiots was a landmark for me.

What are your upcoming projects?

I broke my sabbatical after 3 Idiots with Aparajita Tumi. Immediately after this starts Shoojit Sircar’s Vicky Doner, along with that is Pratim’s (D. Gupta) Paanch Adhyay. Then Rajkumar Hirani’s untitled film, Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Chithiya and Sudhir Mishra’s next. So 2012 is quite chock-a-block.

But you never seem to step out of that same circle of directors?

Why should I? By nature, I’m not very experimental. New people might not understand my need to go away to the mountains in between work but these bunch of guys do. Before I started working on Vinod’s new film three months back, I told him I need to get away to Alaska and he said ‘I know there’s no stopping you...’ These are the luxuries I enjoy when working with this bunch. There was only Sudhir Mishra when I started out and now there’s eight of them. I like it like that and probably why I do such few films.

You’re an adrenaline junkie...

Yes, I’ve been to the Everest base camp, Alaska, bungee jumping, paragliding, river rafting. If not music, adventure sports would have been my profession. I wrote a book Pherari Mon. Two years from now I hope to do a travelogue.

Your music has been very retro. Do you ever see yourself composing on the lines of a Chammak challo or Rock On!!?

Absolutely! What was Ab ke saawan for me? It was complete Guns ’’ Roses! The subject of the films I’ve done demanded a retro feel. That evolved into a very signature Shantanu Moitra style which I’ve consciously tried to retain but I’m also trying out different styles now. Movies are just a small part of my life. I have just formed a folk rock band with Swanand (Kirkire). We’ve had a show and are also planning an album with Zeb and Haniya (Pakistani pop and folk rock duo).... I am archiving and researching folk music from across the country. We have ghettoised music to be only movie songs. I haven’t.. I’m doing less and less of movies now.

What are you focussed on then?

Things that make me happy. I keep travelling and coming across places where I want to do something to help or document. I recently found this village called Khonoma in Nagaland where the school has broken down, they can’t afford Rs 1 lakh for repairs and children can’t go and study there. In Bombay a lakh goes into a high-profile dinner just like that. In Arunachal Pradesh there’s a dying language spoken by just three people from a nomadic silk route tribe. These disparities hurt me and if I can’t put in money or help them there’s definitely a problem with the quality of life I’m leading. I record all these, photograph and videotape them, their lifestyle and their music to atleast build an archive.

Last year at the TED conference (the INK Conference in association with the Technology Entertainment and Design event at Lavasa) I introduced a Mizo folk singer, and this year a dhaki called Gokul Das. I’m also planning to revive the jatra scene in the Sunderbans with Bonobibi Pala, the oldest environment-based act. I want to take it out and travel with it.

What makes you and Swanand a team?

Swanand and I have had a great journey and all thanks to Sudhir for introducing him to me. The idea was just to work on two songs and return to Delhi but Parineeta worked out at the same time, which actually launched both of us as a duo. Now directors want us both together. This unsaid, unwritten pact that we have of working as a team is fantastic.... I introduce the beautiful girls to him and he reciprocates by coming on time! (He’s always late!)

Do you have a best friend in the industry?

Yes, Gulzar. I met Gulzar because of astronomy not music. It so happened that my song Naam ada likhna for Yahaan was written by him. We met, a friendship happened and we ended up discussing stars and planets. He said he loves Bengalis. There was food and adda. Whenever I get a little confused in Bombay, I go to him. He’s like a Shangri-La. I can walk in anytime, sit down and chat with him. I learn a lot from him. He’s a friend I’d like to have had in my younger days but I’m glad it’s happened to me now.

You’re also a closet astronomer!

Yes. I have a telescope. I know the route from Pluto to Saturn. The interest sprang from travelling and camping out. It’s lovely to look up at the night sky and spot satellites passing by, shooting stars, meteors. I know how to calculate and study the difference in the size of Saturn’s rings on different days. It’s fun.