January 1, 2018. Anupam Roy made a resolution on the first day of the new year, and he stuck to it. When t2 dropped in at his place on a Sunday, he was busy practising the keyboard (that’s the resolution). “I was fascinated by the keyboard. And I always had the desire to learn it. I practise every day for an hour. And I love learning new things. I’m playing Auld Lang Syne on the keyboard now,” said Anupam, the Uma composer. Minutes later, the doorbell rang. Srijit Mukherji walked in, and immediately spotted a message on Anupam’s tee — a line from Anupam’s song Ghawrbari that featured in Srijit’s Zulfiqar. “This is really nice,” said the Uma director. A t2 chat followed...  
 
Srijit, in the video for the Jaago Uma song, we see you getting punched in the face! Who do you play in Uma (releases on June 1)?! 

Srijit: (Laughs out loud) Lots of people are calling up to express sympathy. And they want to know the reason I get punched in the face. 

Anupam: Did Jisshuda (Jisshu Sengupta, who plays a father pulling out all the stops to make his daughter’s dream come true) punch you (laughs)?!  

Srijit: No no, nothing like that. Wait and watch the film.

Anupam, you have become quite the heartbreaker with your songs…
Srijit: Dard bhi woh, dawa bhi woh… so Anupam breaks the heart in one song, and applies molom in the next one. He has kept us in this endless loop of heartbreak and molom. And this been happening over the last few years.   
 
Both of you live in the same building in Lake Gardens. Do you guys meet or chat often? 

(Anupam’s wife Piya chips in) He (Srijit) is a true celebrity, elusive. (Everyone goes LOL)  

Srijit: We are both busy…

Anupam: Ami ektu kom…

Srijit: What! He makes 12 albums every year…

Anupam: This is a fictitious number. 

Srijit: Gaan, bajna, adda, we do it all.

Anupam, you had told t2 that for the last couple of years, you have been happy… so does it become difficult to write songs about heartbreak?

Srijit: I pick the inspiring songs that come from this phase and the heartbreak songs from the past! In Hariye jawar gaan, he writes, ‘Aami chai tui bhalo thak… ’ but I didn’t ask him who he is addressing it to. In fact even Piya didn’t ask him this!

Anupam: I had just got married when I started composing for a film like Zulfiqar. I had to write Ek purono masjide. It was difficult, the attempt was successful. So you can write songs in this way too.  

Srijit: From Chotushkone he got into a zone which was not his, and he was successful there. The mix of old and new songs in Uma is typical Anupam. Anupam came up with a winner in Jaago Uma, a new composition, that absolutely captures the spirit of the film. Aaloshyo is the first Anupam song I had heard. And the song needed a situation that justifies it. I was waiting to use it whenever there was a resonance. It happened with Uma. 

Anupam: People also want to know when you are using Bijli baati. 

Srijit: I can only use the song if I make a biopic on Mao! Because the song speaks about a Chinese rashtrodut.   

Anupam: Or one can use it in a sequence where a group of friends get together, and someone requests another one to sing a song!  

As a composer Anupam is in demand. Srijit, are you worried that other directors might take away your fave Anupam songs?

Srijit: That’s why I shifted to this building. And I have told security to alert me the moment Shibu (Shiboprosad Mukhopadhyay), Kaushikda (Kaushik Ganguly) or Anindyada (Anindya Chattopadhyay) visit Anupam’s flat! I’ll immediately park myself in this drawing room so that my fave songs don’t go out. 

Anupam: But Srijitda is way ahead of the others. Srijitda has given me six films in my eight-year career. No other director has given me so many films.  

Is there a pressure to deliver with each film?

Anupam: There’s no pressure.

Srijit: Our yardstick is that it has to be popular. We have lots of parameters to understand that. We get feedback on social media; Anupam gets it from his interactions in his concerts. 

See, our job is also to broaden the musical palette. We’ll keep on doing our experiments. If three-four songs click in a film, then we are fine… with us of course maximum songs click. The USP here is all five Uma songs are situational yet universal. So it serves both purposes. Compositionally, I feel Uma is Anupam’s strongest album. The songs are like Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Malcolm Marshall and Curtly Ambrose. The five will bowl on a green top. And the batsmen will be the audience. They’ll be hopping around the crease.   
 
Tell us about the process of collaboration… how has it changed over the years —  from Autograph to Uma?

Anupam: It’s more relaxed now. 

Srijit: Earlier it was a matter of survival. Both of us were starting out and it was at an experimental level. We weren’t a jodi at that time. 

Anupam: At that time I had only one film — 22shey Srabon. And I was thinking about it constantly every day. 

Srijit: 22shey Srabon onwards I knew this guy has come to stay. And that he’ll stay for a very long time. Also, during 22shey Srabon, I would tell him, ‘Babu, don’t sing all the songs. Give other singers an opportunity’. At that time it was very natural… we were just starting out. His signature sound was getting established at that time. He  listened to me. 

Anupam: And I ended up singing only one song in 22shey Srabon! 

Srijit: He has made up for that by singing thousands and thousands of songs later (laughs). Of course, he gives lots of opportunities to new singers. So it’s a good spread. He has a nice bowling attack now. It’s not like he is bowling from both the ends.

Anupam: Srijitda can tackle situations really well... his man management skills are great, and he can really push a person. He’ll give you ideas to improve a song. Initially, when I brought Aaloshyo to him, there was a harmonica 
playing in the song. But he was not satisfied. He wanted an Indian element, like a flute. We kept on working on it till we were satisfied.   

Srijit: It tugs at your heartstrings. I just bloody cry when Aaloshyo comes on. His musical palette has really grown… and that happens with life, experiences… he does his rewaj every day. I can hear it. 
 
So you’ll also easily get to hear a new composition he is working on in the morning…

Srijit: And immediately call out from my room and say —  ‘Eta amar.’  

Anupam: For that, Srijitda has to spend more time with me (laughs)! 

Anupam and Srijit decode the Uma songs

Aaloshyo

Anupam: Aaloshyo is more a mother-and-son song. 

Srijit: For days, I have written scripts listening to Anupam’s songs. They play on in the background as I write my scripts. His words, his vocal frequency, does something to me. Anupam’s songs trigger my creative juices. And the melody is incredible. The whole parent-child bond is intrinsic to the song,which is why it appealed to me. The visuals started coming to me from the word go. 

Anupam: It was Srijitda’s idea to have Surangana (Open Tee Bioscope actress) sing it.

Srijit: Because of the innocence. It’s Uma’s point of view.  

Hariye jawar gaan

Srijit: I love the melody. It keeps playing in a loop in my head. I like the abstraction, and the part where he is very direct. And this mixture has been Anupam’s signature throughout his career — abstraction and direct communication. 
Anupam: Srijitda used to play the harmonica in Hariye jawar gaan. 

For Srijitda, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle. He has two-three songs in mind. And then he works on the script, and maybe needs two more songs. And then I compose the new songs.  

Jaago Uma

Srijit: It’s a climax song. I gave him a few key words like hope, rising, city.

Anupam: This was not the first song I created after I got the brief. It was my third attempt. The shanai was the icing on the cake. 

Srijit: Shanai conveys pathos and celebration. Jaago Uma is the simplest yet deepest song. It hits you and stays with you. You’ll become a shojaru! 

Esho bondhu 

Srijit: It is an inspirational song.

Anupam: It was a love song...

Srijit: How much difference is there between friendship and love?!

Anupam: And there was no catchphrase. We had tried to fit it into Hemlock Society, but Phiriye dewar gaan won. Keeping the situation in mind for Uma, I coined this phrase, esho bondhu.  

Srijit: The song has different people coming together for a common cause, and getting Sidhu and Pota to sing it was a casting coup. Reel and real somehow merged. We also did a female version since the song comes multiple times (Ujjaini and Somlata have sung this version). Also, I wanted variety in the sound. 

Ure jaak

Anupam: I wrote this song for Piya in Bangalore. 

Srijit: Finally, Piya makes an appearance on the album. 

Anupam: At that point of time I was really homesick, and I wanted to come back to Calcutta. We connected over the Net then. This is a song of longing. 

Arindam Chatterjee