Raanjhanaa’s Music is Rustic and urbane

Tell us about the origin of the Raanjhanaa soundtrack. I saw Aanand's film Tanu Weds Manu and liked the music, especially liked the Indian bits... something that I had missed while travelling all over the place. He met me and told me about this next story of his (Raanjhanaa) and I found it rooted in Indianness. The film has a typical earthy Banaras feel. The music itself is kind of a storytelling effort, remove that and the film is incomplete.

You've gone for a folk-classical feel on Raanjhanaa... I'd rather call it a hybrid, but I guess you could call it that as well. It's got a bit of folk and classical elements and most of it is really character driven.

There's a rustic side (set in Banaras) and an urbane side (set in Delhi) as well. The music reflects that. Who chose Irshad Kamil as the lyricist? Both Aanand and I did. I had worked with Irshad in Rockstar and I believe it always works better with familiar faces and names. You know how I'm always travelling. So I speak to him, calling him up from all sorts of odd places and he sends me two-line SMSs saying 'Here's something I wrote.What do you think?'. So you're really switched on to what the other person is thinking.

Tum Tak is really catching on in a big way! Actually, I wasn't very happy editing the song the first time around. I had done a version before. Then Aanand gave his inputs and it got nudged on to something else.

Tell us about Freedom Song, the track you're singing with Rabbi Shergill. It's a contemporary track, about the Delhi character. And Rabbi's voice is reflective of that. And it comes at that stage where the girl ( Sonam Kapoor) bridges the gap between the rustic guy ( Dhanush) and the urbane one ( Abhay Deol). Like Tum Tak, this was one track that evolved from one version to another.