Javed Akhtar admits he had concerns when AR Rahman composed the song ‘Ishwar Allah’ for 1947’s Earth: ‘Hindi is not his mother tongue’ | Bollywood News
Javed Akhtar talked about working with AR Rahman and his initial doubts about whether Rahman would compose the song “Ishwar Allah” for the film “1947 Earth”.
Copywriter and author Javed Akhtar and music composer AR Rahman have collaborated on many projectswith filmmaker Deepa Mehta’s award-winning film ‘1947 Earth’ being one of her most memorable. In a recent conversation, Javed spoke about working with Rahman and his initial doubts about Rahman composing the song ‘Ishwar Allah’ as Hindi was not Rahman’s mother tongue.
During a conversation with O2india, Akhtar explained their usual process: Rahman would usually give him the melody first and then Akhtar would write the lyrics. However, for ‘Ishwar Allah’, Rahman asked Akhtar to provide the lyrics first and he would compose a melody based on that. Although Rahman was confident in this approach, Akhtar was initially apprehensive due to Rahman’s lack of Hindi knowledge.
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Javed Akhtar said, “This is one of the few songs that I have written and AR Rahman has composed. It was the first time that he told me to write it first and then he would compose it. I was a little worried because Hindi is not his mother tongue. How would he compose? I wrote the song anyway and I don’t think it could be composed any better. His composition was unparalleled.”
Akhtar also praised Rahman for making the music in the song less intrusive, noting that “only masters” can be confident enough to do this. He added that insecure artists tend to overdo things due to lack of confidence, while true masters know when enough is enough.
1947 Earth was directed by Deepa Mehta and is based on Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel Cracking India, which is set during the partition of India in 1947. 1947 Earth is the second part of Mehta’s Elements trilogy, which was preceded by Fire (1996) and followed by Water (2005). The film was also India’s entry for the 1999 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
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First uploaded on: 18.07.2024 at 20:01 IST
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