Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter,” goes a line by Mark Twain. And who knows it better than Anjan Dutt. At 62, the actor-director-singer-songwriter will put any 20-year-old to shame with his energy and enthusiasm. Last Sunday, Anjan was on song, belting out Ranjana ami aar ashbona, 2441139, Mary Ann, Darjeeling, Tumi na thakle and Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, among others at Cancun Bhumi presents 91.9 Friends FM Live Plugged, in association with t2 & Yamaha, in Nazrul Mancha. “You can’t figure out my age because of the dark glasses,” smiled Anjan between songs. Midway through the set  he surprised the audience by singing What a Wonderful World, taking off his sunglasses, blowing kisses and doing a little jig! A post-concert chat with t2...

During the performance you said, ‘I never thought that people would listen to my songs for 22 years…’

I still perform in campuses, but I don’t do shows that much where people buy tickets very often, be it in Bengal, London or America. They are generally funded and sponsored. That is the rule of the day. In the 1990s, people bought tickets to gigs. That tradition has faded. So for this gig in Nazrul Mancha, almost 2,500 young people came with tickets. That’s a big, overwhelming thing that really touched me. I’m sure their fathers had bought tickets to my early gigs.

Did you ever imagine when you started off that you’d be playing to a packed Nazrul Mancha in 2015?

Never. I never thought that I would last for 22-23 years. In the early 1990s, I wasn’t being accepted by the mainstream Tolly industry as an actor. I had to survive. I couldn’t survive by doing one Mrinal Sen or one Aparna Sen or one Buddhadeb Dasgupta film, where I got about Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000. I had to do something. So getting into music was a means to earn my bread. And then when my first album Shunte Ki Chao came out in 1994, it snowballed into a huge thing.

I tried to write good songs, give my best… it was for a living, but my goal was to act in movies and find a secure place in cinema. I thought I would get a temporary income from music, like a part-time job. But I never thought that it would last for 22 years or that I’d still be travelling the world and that would become a big part of my persona. I thought I’d survive for five-six years and find myself in the film industry, but music became a major part of my life.

How did you deal with the sudden fame?

I always thought that I’d be in show business. I always dreamt that I would have a fan following, and sign autographs… what happened in music took me off guard. But I didn’t lose my bearings. Though I did get tired a couple of times. I have been rude, have refused to give pictures and autographs… the whole situation became too much for me to handle and I felt like cutting myself off. Recently we were in Durgapur for a gig and after the show I had to tear my way out, it was maddening… my shirt got torn. I couldn’t just stand there and give autographs… if I had done that then it would have gone out of hand. People might have got hurt. I’ve not always been polite, and later I have felt bad about it. I haven’t been good to my fans all the time, but I’m grateful to them for loving my songs. That’s incredible.

Why did you do songs like Hey Jude, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door?

These are songs which keep us excited. They are little surprises we do in every show. We can’t just go out and do a bad version of Ranjana… or Bela Bose. I can’t do it. I can’t get bored with the songs.

You stopped performing 2441139 for some time in early 2000. Why did you start singing it again?

I felt the song is pretty good, irrespective of the fact that nobody goes to an STD booth to call their girlfriends. Somehow the truth of the song — about this young guy who has made it but the girl is walking out of his life — is still valid for young people… and I’ve not been able to write such a nice song later, so I thought why not do the song.... This is not just a clever song. It’s better to go back to the old songs than be novel. Nowadays, I don’t keep them for the last at concerts. Now we start shows with Ranjana. We test ourselves… we start with a bang and live up to it with the other songs.

How did you come to write 2441139?

Any good song is about getting hurt or lost love… and this song captures the desperation of the guy saying ‘hello hello hello’ on the phone. In my personal life I’ve been hurt on the phone also, very badly by someone I loved when I was young. She was hanging out with other boyfriends and I had this nasty phone conversation with her where I realised that I would lose her…. I had that chhoto golpo in my life but that’s not the song. My personal stories have been told with a lot of fiction. Interestingly, all telephone songs are hits like Hello, I Just Called To Say I Love You, Kokhon tomar ashbe telephone. The number (2441139) belonged to the news editor of a Hindi newspaper and he got 700 crank calls on his office telephone. He sued me and finally my dad got us out of it. It was clairvoyance that the number actually belonged to somebody. I used the number to just rhyme.

Do you remember your first Nazrul Mancha performance?

In 1994. Just the two of us (Neel and Anjan) were on stage. Neel must have been around 12. He had a guitar which his mother had given him and I had an acoustic guitar. We did songs from Shunte Ki Chao and it was a full house.

What keeps you ticking as a performer?

You need your wits about you… you need to have fun and not get senile. Also, I’ve stopped talking too much between songs. People don’t like that. On stage the idea is to be young. You cannot look like you are 62! Amyt and I are nearly of the same age, and we like to think that we are younger than Anupam (laughs). It’s immaterial how old you are. It’s important to be with the times.

Why did you take off your sunglasses?

We had planned it out… taking off my sunglasses, showing my real self.... I’m growing old, and I revealed myself and sang What A Wonderful World and Koto ki korar chhilo. I’m 62, and to me the world is wonderful and there are beautiful people out there. It was done with a lot of passion.

Why they loved it

“There is nostalgia associated with Anjan Dutt’s songs. My brother used to play songs by him and (Kabir) Suman before going to bed. My favourite song is 2441139 as we sang it in college every time any of us got a job. The lyrics of his new songs are still in sync with the times. I heard Ekhono tai for the first time here and loved it!” said Suvam Ghosh, an engineer

“The emotions that the name Anjan Dutt and his songs evoke in me are difficult to express. The nostalgic notes strummed on his guitar remind me repeatedly of my forgotten past. The relevance of songs like 2441139, Ranjana... will remain with me for the rest of my life. My favourite moment was him turning towards the audience just before a song and the final goodbye at the end of the show,” said actress Priyanshi Mitra

“Anjan Dutt was simply amazing! In fact my vocabulary is lacking in words which could describe him perfectly. The fact that he is 62 never once reflected in his performance. My favourite song from the evening was Ranjana... such an awesome song. I loved it. The moment which took my breath away was Amyt Datta’s solo,” said Debangana Dutta, a Class X student of GD Birla Centre for Education

“I absolutely loved Anjan Dutt’s performance and had a good nostalgic trip with his songs. My favourite moment was when he sang Darjeeling!” said Poorbita Bagchi, a second-year student of English at Bhawanipur Gujarati Education Society College

 

Arindam Chatterjee