Mumbai: Music maestro AR Rahman has said that he felt ‘he was discovering something new’ when he composed music of the film Rangeela. Incidentally the film Rangeela completes 25 years this month. It was with this film that AR Rahman also made his debut in the Hindi film industry.
The Ram Gopal Varma-directed romantic drama had Urmila Matondkar as a backup dancer Mili. The male lead roles were played by Aamir Khan as ‘tapori friend Munna and Jackie Shroff as Bollywood star Raj Kamal. The film is considered one of the landmark musical hits of the 1990s. The film is famous for songs like ‘Tanha Tanha’, ‘Rangeela Re’, ‘Yayire Yayire’ and ‘Kya Kare Kya Na Kare’.
“Composing the songs of Rangeela was like discovering something new. The soundtrack arrived naturally and we didn’t feel the pressure for this movie. I was enjoying the new company I had in Ramu and lyricist Mehboob. We would just talk and joke and have fun. It was my kind of vibe,” Rahman said.
Rahman said he learnt a lot while working on the movie. He credited choreographers Saroj Khan, Ahmed Khan, actors and producer Jhamu Sughand for the movie turning into a huge success.
“The first song that we worked on was ‘Tanha Tanha’. Then came ‘Rangeela Re’. The most important decision we made was getting Asha Bhonsleji to sing. Her voice brought something extraordinary to the music. She lent credibility to the soundtrack in a big way. It was required because Mehboob, Ramu and me, we were all new,” the music maestro said.
Rahman still remembers Aamir’s yellow jacket that he says ‘stood out’ during the scoring. “I was stunned, I still remember. And the way he acted was brilliant. And Urmila was brilliant,” Rahman recalled.
The composer added he was already a huge fan of Shroff, having seen Subhash Ghai’s Hero.
What makes the film stand out for Rahman is the fact that the team trusted their instincts while creating the music. “I think the whole soundtrack was an experiment. Apart from ‘Tanha Tanha’ and ‘Yayire’, nobody does a (‘raag’) Bhairavi for the beginning of a song. It is used at the end but I didn’t know that information. I was like happy tuning ‘Tanha Tanha’. There were strains of ‘Bhairavi’ constantly in it,” he stated.
‘Rangeela Re’, he said, had an old school melody, a 1950s kind of thing. “We just went by the instinct of ‘this is right, it feels right,” the Oscar winner informed. ‘Mangta Hai Kya’, the composer said, was another complicated song. “It freaked people out because they did not know what to expect,” Rahman added.
Lyricist Mehboob said Rangeela marked his first collaboration with Rahman. The experience on the film turned out to be a life-changing moment for him. The two then worked for a number of films. Among them was Thakshak and Doli Saja Ke Rakhna.