Inking another era
The Hindu : A commerce grad, who headed to the National School of Drama, and wrote TV serials isn’t exactly the kind of guy you see writing lyrics like “Piyu boley piya boley, kya ye boley jaanu naa” that we have hummed to.
Lyricist Swanand Kirkire and Bollywood are as different as chalk and cheese. Very much like his lyrics. The man who made us lend an ear to the songs of “Parineeta”, “Lage Raho Munna Bhai”, “Laaga Chunari Mein Daag” and now “Khoya Khoya Chand”, is really a juggler of sorts, dabbling in a whole lot of things.
He sings, writes lyrics (“Parineeta”, “Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi”, “Khoya Khoya Chand”), and dialogues (“Ekalavya”, “Chameli” and the Hindi version of “Sivaji”), has been an associate director in many of these projects and acted in two of them as well.
“In theatre we had to do everything…” is how he explains it. On the sets of “Hazaaron Khwaishein…” he was humming a song he’d written earlier, when director Sudhir Mishra heard it and decided he would write and sing this song for his film.
He teams up yet again with Sudhir Mishra in “Khoya Khoya Chand”, a film that pays tribute to Hindi cinema of the 1950s and 1960s as well as its music. But isn’t it difficult to put a timeline on music given the timelessness of music? “There are genres. Only time proves what is good, bad or timeless…say after 50 years you can decide what’s timeless or not,” says Swanand. He says Guru Dutt’s films like “Pyaasa” and “Kaagaz Ke Phool” stay with him even today, when it comes to inspiration.
What happens in society reflects in art, says Swanand. “The 50s and 60s was a time when progressive Urdu poets were finding their space in Hindi cinema (as lyricists). There was a left-leaning attitude, and visions of a Nehruvian three-world order; they were trying to see a fair…More
