At a social gathering in London, Sharmila Tagore sings Sokhi bhabona kahare bole as some audience members press for a Hindi rendition. Smilingly, she obliges with Sakhi prem kise kehte hain.

The song from Sangeeta Datta's debut film Life Goes On, released in 2009, has germinated into a full-fledged Rabindrasangeet album in Hindi. Titled Anant, it features eight songs, bringing lyricist Javed Akhtar back to translate six more.

"We used two Tagore songs in the film - Sokhi bhabona kahare and Tobu mone rekho. I did the English translations for Javed saab to understand the original and he enjoyed the poetry so much that he said we must work on a full album," said Datta, who has sung the songs.

The appreciation for the two songs in the film, Akhtar said, encouraged him to work on Anant. "Sharmilaji, who acted in the film and is familiar with literature, was generous in her praise and we thought we should do more," he added.

With years of writing lyrics, Akhtar is used to catching a tune on a meter. "But translating Tagore is extremely difficult because of his simplicity and phonetics. His simplicity stands for the purity of his emotions. The moment you try to be clever and choose words from the intellect and not from the heart, you damage the purity of the original. In poetry, words not only have meaning, they have sound and a tradition," said the poet and lyricist.

To overcome the language barrier, Datta would explain to him the cadence of each line. "I love the sound of Bengali. It's a pleasure to listen to two Bengalis talk. I come from Lucknow and we are pretty arrogant about our language and culture. Despite that Urdu chauvinism, we have a great respect for Bengali. I grew up reading Bengali classics of Bankimbabu and Saratbabu in Urdu translations."

After reading Datta's translations, or Tagore's own translations of songs from Gitanjali, Akhtar would listen to the originals with Datta, a student of Dakshinee and Ashoktaru Bandyopadhyay, explaining the nuances of each word.

"My own favourites in the album are Ami chini go chini tomare (Tumhe janoo main ha tumhe janoo) and Tobu mone rekho (Tumhe yaad rahoon), " said Akhtar.

The album has been arranged by Datta's son, Soumik Datta, and mastered in Metropolis Studios, London. Akhtar does not rule out Anant 2. "There are hundreds of songs waiting to be translated," he smiled.