Chhaayaageet #75 - "I am going to give you a new song for this dance."

The composer checks his email in the midst of a busy day. There is an email from a filmmaker. It says, "Hey, I like your work. It would be great for us to have you on our film." He is not sure how to answer. He decides to come back to it later in the day. After a few email exchanges they decide to meet in Bombay.

At the meeting, the filmmaker narrates the story to the composer. It arouses some interest.

"I already have the first cut of the film. Would you like to see it?", the filmmaker teases some more. The composer expresses interest. It is a low budget indie film. After seeing the film, the composer is really interested and decides he must do this film. He clears up his schedule.

However, the filmmaker is very specific about the kind of music and soundtrack he expects. "I don't want any sentiment. I hate sentiment. And never put a cello in my film. I don't want anything depressing. The score needs to be edgy, pulsey and upfront." He might have even bit his lower lip with his upper teeth while saying those last three words.

Very clear. Very specific. But no sentiment in the music? How come? Indian music is all about sentiment and emotion.

In return, the filmmaker promises, "I will make sure your music is not hidden in the film. I will be very proud of your music."

It is the first time for the filmmaker and the composer to work together. The composer has been recommended highly to the filmmaker by many in the industry, including one of the leading actors. They have both researched each other. The composer knows a low budget film is a risky project. He is used to working with big production houses with big budgets and big stars. But this feels different.

It takes the composer two months to plan the edgy and bold score. In the next two weeks, the soundtrack is recorded. It is a cultural fusion that flows with the script.

One day the composer, filmmaker and the editor are going over some rushes of film, watching a particular dance sequence. The dance is already choreographed to a popular song from another film. This strikes the composer as odd.

The composer looks at the filmmaker and promises, "I am going to give you a new song for this dance."

But the filmmaker makes it clear that he is not going to reshoot the dance sequence. It is already choreographed, filmed and done. Low budget indie film, remember?

The editor has an idea. "We can make the cuts on the editing table and no one would be able to tell", he adds.

The composer comes back to his studio with his self-assigned homework. He remembers a song that he had composed for another film. The filmmaker of that other film didn't want it.

The composer makes a phone call. "Are you really not going to use it?," he asks the other filmmaker.

Negative. One person's trash is another person's treasure. The same lyricist then makes subtle changes to the words to suit this new film's storyline, and voila, the song is ready!

AR Rahman composed Jai Ho for Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire (2008), lyrics by Gulzar. Boyle had already filmed the song, with the dance choreographed to the tune of Aaj Ki Raat from Don: The Chase Begins Again (2006). When Rahman saw that, he felt that the film needed to have his music entirely. Jai Ho was earlier composed for Subhash Ghai's Yuvvraaj, but Ghai thought it was too refined for his characters and had no plans to use it. That cleared the way for Rahman to use it for Slumdog Millionaire. Chris Dickens, the editor of the film, used his expertise on the editing table to fit the already choreographed song to the tune of Jai Ho.

Jai Ho won the Academy Award for the Best Original Song, the Oscar given to AR Rahman and Gulzar. Slumdog Millionaire won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Danny Boyle), Best Adapted Screenplay (Simon Beaufoy), and Best Original Music Score (AR Rahman). The soundtrack also won two Grammy Awards, one for the album itself, and another for the song, Jai Ho.

Singers of Jai Ho
The song is sung by four playback singers.

Sukhwinder Singh
Sukhwinder is the main vocalist who sings the mukhda and antaras of Jai Ho. Sukhwinder was part of Laxmikant Pyarelal's troupe, became a music arranger, and went to work in South films. When he came back to Hindi films, he had a few songs to his credit as a playback singer but nothing noteworthy until Rahman used his voice for Chhaiya Chhaiya in Dil Se (1998).

Mahalakshmi Iyer
Mahalakshmi sings the Hindi verses between the Jai Ho chants and the antaras sung by Sukhwinder. She recalls the day she was asked by AR Rahman to sing for Jai Ho. She was shooting a television serial, Music Ustad, where AR Rahman was a judge. After the filming of the episode, Rahman asked her to sing a few lines, and asked her to accompany him to Nirvana Studios in Mumbai. They reached there after midnight and recorded her portion of the song for an hour. Mahalakshmi's debut song as a playback singer was Ae Ajnabee in Dil Se (1998) for AR Rahman, after which she consistently sang for AR Rahman, Shankar Ehsaan Loy, and other composers. Mahalakshmi is one of the playback singers in the song Aaj Ki Raat in Don (2006) along with Alisha Chinoy and Sonu Nigam.

Vijay Kumar
Vijay has a small part in Jai Ho. He only sings the high notes of the Jai Ho chants. Vijay first sang for Rahman in Swades and later in Yuvvraaj. He has sung in a number of Tamil films.

Tanvi Shah
Tanvi wrote the Spanish lyrics that are part of the song and has also sung them. She is a popular playback singer based in Chennai and also sings in Arabic, Latin, and Spanish. It was just another working day for her when she got a call to come to Rahman's studio. She had no idea what she was to sing. She heard the track. Rahman kept urging her to just go and sing out loud, think out of the box and enjoy the song. She is the first Indian woman to win a Grammy for the song Jai Ho, along with AR Rahman and Gulzar.

Dance of Jai Ho
The dance is choreographed by Indian choreographer and dancer, Longinus Fernandes. In the ending credits, Longinus' name does not appear. This was an error. Longinus was hurt and let it known to the production team, who in turn, pointed out the mistake to Danny Boyle. Danny called Longi, apologized and promised to make it up. However, this left a sour taste. But Danny Boyle did keep his word and made it up on the world stage. When Boyle accepted the Best Director Oscar award for Slumdog Millionaire, with the whole world watching, he acknowledged this mistake in his speech and mentioned Longinus as the choreographer of the dance whose name got left out in the credits of the film.

Longinus choreographed and rehearsed the dance for fifteen days with Dev Patel and Freida Pinto, none of whom knew how to dance. The dance was shot in three days at Victoria Terminus station in Mumbai, between the times of midnight to 4am when the trains don't run and relatively very few commuters at the station.

Boyle gave Longinus all the freedom to choreograph all the dances in the film. There were times when Longinus went to Boyle to show what he had done. Boyle would say 'marvelous', 'fantastic', leaving Longinus wondering if Boyle even paid attention to what he had choreographed. So one day Longinus intentionally showed some wrong moves. Right away Danny told him, "This is not your work. You haven't done a good job. You can do better than this." That is when Longinus realized that Boyle was a keen observer and knew exactly what he wanted.

Watch Rahman performing this song without any instruments, in collaboration with Intel.

See the original ending credits set to Aaj Ki Raat.

https://twitter.com/CinemaRareIN/status/1325008928225128448?s=20&t=tI0n6CBfwBHWt8oMIlklhQ

Music: AR Rahman
Lyrics: Gulzar, Tanvi Shah (Spanish lyrics)
Choreographer: Longinus Fernandes
Singers: Sukhwinder Singh, Mahalakshmi Iyer, Vijay Kumar, Tanvi Shah
*ing: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto
Director: Danny Boyle
Film: Slumdog Millionaire (2008)