Straight from the heart: Amit Trivedi all set to rock Chennai with Indradhanush

Back in the year 2008, during a period when  Bollywood’s soundscape was ruled by ace music directors like AR Rahman, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy (SEL), Vishal-Shekhar and Pritam, a relatively unfamiliar name made headlines for all the right reasons. Amit Trivedi, who till then was busy composing jingles, background scores for television shows, and singles for reality show icons (eg. Indian Idol Abhijeet Sawant’s Junoon), suddenly entered the collective conscience of the industry with his stirring soundtrack for the Rajeev Khandelwal-starrer thriller movie, Aamir, directed by Raj Kumar Gupta. Made on a budget of just around `2 crore, Aamir went on to become a  sleeper hit, with critics not only lauding the script and direction, but also Amit’s distinctive music.  

However, unbeknownst to many, the then 29-year-old Mumbai-based musician had one more trick up his sleeve, one that was initially supposed to release ahead of Aamir, but due to delays, got launched the following year. It was Anurag Kashyap’s Dev.D, the movie that heralded a new era of Bollywood and turned out to be the perfect epilogue to the game-changing decade of 2000-2009 in Hindi cinema, courtesy directors like Karan Johar, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Ashutosh Gowariker, Rajkumar Hirani, and others, who changed the entire landscape of filmmaking in Bollywood. 

The timing was perfect, as Amit himself disrupted all possible norms in songwriting in the Hindi film industry, setting new levels of excellence that threatened to overshadow the work produced by his more experienced contemporaries — case in point being his soulful gem from Wake Up Sid, titled Iktara, which grabbed all the attention, despite SEL doing a wonderful job with the other songs in the movie. But, in reality, his music wasn’t meant to compete. He just created a space and niche for himself that fit the bill perfectly, where he promised to offer something new and different every time he settled on a project.

Now, after having composed soundtracks for movies like English Vinglish, Queen, Shaandar, Bombay Velvet, Udta Punjab, Dear Zindagi, Secret Superstar, Kedarnath, Manmarziyaan, Andhadhun and more, Amit has fulfilled his lifelong dream of presenting an album, but in a very different way, that is in the form of a mega-concert complete with a battery of singers and sound technologies that promise to raise the roof and provide a scintillating experience for his army of fans. Titled Indradhanush, named after a song that he had composed more than two decades ago when he was young, the concert features an array of songs composed by Amit in his career so far, which have been categorised under seven different emotions — namely love, fear, anger, hope, courage, happiness and friendship. 

“Indradhanush is something that I am really proud of. We worked on it for many many years, and I am very happy with the end result. In fact, in the last one and half years, we have been very active, and have put in a lot of hard work and passion into it,” says Amit, as he reminisces the preparatory months before this three-hour concert. Expressing hope that the people of Chennai will like what he has to offer, Amit reveals that there will be artwork and laser work during the performance. 

While 2019 happened to be a subdued year for Amit by his normal standard — having composed just two film soundtracks (Chiranjeevi-starrer Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy and Arjun Kapoor-starrer India’s Most Wanted) — 2020 looks to get much more from him. “There’s one by Anurag Kashyap, and then there’s Gunjan Saxena, produced by Karan Johar,” he shares, adding that even though his music production method has remained fairly same throughout his career, he does make sure to adapt with changing times and keep abreast of new trends in music. “God has been really kind to me. Every goal that I had has been fulfilled. And now, there’s Indradhanush!” he signs off.