The skies open up just as Anupam Roy, the music director of Pratim D. Gupta’s August 26 film Shaheb Bibi Golaam, starts talking about his latest hit Mon bhalo nei at his Lake Gardens home on a Sunday afternoon. He looks up, and then stares out of the window, looking worried. Is this the moment of inspiration, we wonder. “Do I pull the fridge plug out?” he asks Pratim, who is sitting by his side. “Poets have this false image that rains inspire them,” smiles Anupam, closing the windows. “For me, rain is a cause for irritation. Can’t step out, have to wade through knee-deep water if it rains really hard, the roads get muddy...” he trails off. Thankfully, talk of music peps him up. Anupam and Pratim decode the sound of Shaheb Bibi Golaam...

MON BHALO NEI
(sung by Anupam)
Anupam Roy: Mon bhalo nei is the first song I wrote in 2015. And the moment I wrote it, I felt that it would be perfect for Pratim’s film. At first Pratim was a bit hesitant, but his wife (Stuti) saved me!
Pratim D. Gupta: My first issue with the song was the phrase — ‘Mon bhalo nei’ is a negative phrase. Luckily, I hadn’t shot the film then and thought of incorporating this as a happy term for Rumi (Parno Mittra) and Javed (Ritwick Chakraborty). Anupam’s first scratch had him singing in a sad way. We exchanged emails and I told him that it might not be a good idea. But then I heard my wife humming the tune. And I felt it had to go. So I told him if he could do it in a more sprightly, buoyant, bouncy manner.... I needed a love song. Somehow he knew this song belonged to this film and I went with his gut feeling.
Anupam: The melody came first to me and the phrase fit in easily. I felt very satisfied on completing the song.  

TOMAR SHAWHOREY
(sung by Anjan Dutt)
Pratim: I needed a song that would tie the film together. There was no scope for Anjanda to sing in his portion of the film. His character is a killer. However, I didn’t want to let go of this opportunity... of Anjanda being in my film and not singing! Now, who will tell Anjanda? Who will bell the cat? When I asked him, he agreed immediately. So then I told Anupam... by then the shoot was already over and it was mid-2015.
Anupam: Anjanda has his own style, and I didn’t want to break that. I tried writing a couple of new songs, but dekhlam jomchhe na. Then I turned to this song, which I wrote in 2004-2005. I used to do this song regularly at concerts in 2010-2011.
Pratim: You should watch this old Anupam video on YouTube.
Anupam: No, it’s not there anymore, I hid it…
Pratim: But I’ve seen it!
Anupam: Ki kore dekhli?! Maybe someone else has uploaded it. The video is an amateur piece of work (laughs).
Pratim: It’s a masterpiece! You’ll see Anupam playing the guitar and singing in various places including a bazaar… it was done in the early days of his career... so in the video every line has an image to go with it… for example, the visual of a keymaker working goes with the line
‘Ekhono chabiwala heke jay’ (both laugh out loud).  
Anupam: This song was part of the demo of 10 songs I had made. And I would go to record companies with that demo. We took around a month to shoot the video.
Pratim: Our new video (that dropped on Friday), we shot it in three-four hours with Anjanda and Anupam. It’s my tribute to two legends of two generations.
Anupam: Ekjon legend, arekjon lej (both go LOL). It’s a big privilege for me to be in a video with Anjan Dutt.
Pratim: The concept of the video is that Anupam is writing the song in Flurys and Anjanda walks in. Both start chatting and the song gradually takes shape. You must keep asking what happened during the shoot!  

So what happened?!

Anupam: Video dekhe mone hotey paarey I’m singing Anjanda’s song (both go LOL)! But seriously, those four-five hours was one of the most important moments of my life. I have not spent so much time with him for so long. Anjanda was in a great mood, and he spoke on films and music and I was stunned. Anjanda told me that he likes my work and encouraged me to do different kinds of things. He made some relevant points about my music. Pratim made this happen, otherwise it wouldn’t have been possible for me to tell him to spend so much time with me in Flurys.
I first heard him in a puja pandal in 1992-93… at that time I was  listening to Suman-Nachiketa and couldn’t recognise his voice. I asked the seniors in my para, and they were like, ‘You haven’t heard Anjan Dutt?!’ I felt quite guilty. Then I started listening to his songs. Tumi ashbe bole was a favourite of mine for a long time. I like his voice and his melodies, golata shunlei mon bhalo hoye jaye! And of course I admire his acting skills and his live performances. His talk between songs makes such a huge impact.
I wrote Tomar shawhorey after moving to Bangalore from Calcutta. Everyone said that I had made a great decision. There were all these promises but after spending some time in Bangalore, I noticed that the city was no different. Life is mundane but still, you have to live for the sake of living.
Pratim: The film ends on a humanist note which goes perfectly with this line — live for the sake of living… life goes on.

GHORIR KANTAR MAWTO
(sung by Tanya Sen)
Pratim: The first image of Shaheb Bibi Golaam for me was a singer singing a song at a bar and in the interlude going and killing a person in the loo, coming back and singing the song again. I had this image of a singer-killer… that’s still there but in a different format. He’s no longer a singer, just a killer. Which is why the opening song is very important for me. Tanya’s song opens the film. Anupam created it from scratch. I was looking for a powerful voice. Finally, we fixed on Tanya. Her ‘throw’ is not very Bangali, and at the same time it doesn’t sound non-Bengali. That was the first song we recorded. She sang it really well.
Anupam: I have seen Tanya singing at Someplace Else for a long time and she is familiar with the scenario of singing at a New Year party. Tanya’s pitch is really good. I could easily cast her in that space. This song has a lot of progressive elements.
Pratim: Distortion, noise, dark… I was thinking of these words.
Anupam: I got so excited… I like doing these things... experiment. Initially, it was sounding like a party song, but then it got darker and darker.

TOMAR KI NAAM 
(sung by Shreya Ghoshal)
Pratim: This song is my fave. It has a lingering quality... it has this jazz overtone. In the film it is the metamorphosis of Jaya into Bibi. She is asking herself, ‘Tomar ki naam?’ It’s a question of identity. And the writing took it to a level of universal womanhood. It works beautifully in the film.
Anupam: A song about a woman’s sexual expression. I followed Pratim’s brief. This song is about the awakening of the inner self and she is freeing herself from inhibitions. She is entering a new world where her sexual expressions are strong.
Pratim: Shaheb Bibi Golaam is a plot-based film, though the characters are really important. Songs take the story ahead. Every single works on its own and all the songs fit together in the film. 

Arindam Chatterjee
Which is your fave song from Shaheb Bibi Golaam?
Tell t2@abp.in