Bollywood music composer duo Javed-Mohsin on their latest single Pyar Karte Ho Na featuring Jasmin Bhasin

Bollywood's popular music composer duo, Javed- Mohsin, dropped their new single Pyar Karte Ho Na in the last week of November. Sung by Shreya Ghoshal and Stebin Ben, the song starring Jasmin Bhasin and Mohsin Khan has garnered over 28 M views on YouTube and had been on trending on position three for quite a few days. Penned by Danish Sabri, this song is a romantic number.

Javed-Mohsin who have previously composed for films like Munna Michael, Julie 2, Jalebi and Drive, Coolie No. 1 and Shershaah tell us more about the song and its making. Excerpts:

Pyar Karte Ho Na has been quite a successful single. Tell us about the idea behind it. 
Mohsin: The idea of this melody stemmed from a random jam session. Once the tune was made, we brought Danish Sabri on board to write the lyrics. 

Why did you rope in Stebin Ben and Shreya Ghoshal for this song?  
Javed: We had worked with Shreya Ghoshal for the song Pal from the movie Jalebi. She is an extraordinary singer and a wonderful human being. We’re grateful for her support. She has sung Pyar Karte Ho Na beautifully. It is always a pleasure for us to work with such a legendary singer. She has been so approachable and easy-going, we just had to call her to make her hear the melody. That’s it! Talking about Stebin Ben, he is a very promising singer. He has done justice to the music composition. We look forward to more music collaborations with him in the future. 

From composing songs for radio, ads and debuting in Kis Kisko Pyar Karun to composing Kabhi Tumhe for Shershaah... how has your journey been so far?
Javed: It has been a lovely journey for us. We’re here competing with ourselves in the industry. We strongly believe that living in past laurels is futile, hence, we aim to deliver hit songs with each composition. Every artist has his/her own struggle and so did we. But it is more important to work on what you can achieve. Professionally, it has been a beautiful year for us.  
Mohsin: We’re thankful to God and the universe for all our achievements. We started our journey by making jingles for R Balki sir. We’re grateful to Abbas- Mastan for introducing us to the music industry in 2015. We’re grateful that we worked with Mahesh Bhatt and Sabir Khan. We feel thankful for their immense faith in our work. All our songs have become big hits. We have worked day and night and have no regrets. 

What do you think about the changing face of Bollywood music?
Mohsin: It is beautiful to see how talented musicians in our country have come up with unique music compositions. It is a learning opportunity while competing with others. As far as we are concerned, we compete with ourselves and we’re our own critics. We are happy that we get to share a space with talented people. 

How challenging is it to stay creative and deliver fresh compositions for all films?
Javed: We have always had this attitude of how we can do better next time. We keep trying to bring in something new and experimental. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. This is completely subjective to the audience’s interests.
Mohsin: There is no formula for this. Our only mantra is to stay true to our music.

Any challenges you have faced while composing music?
Javed: Rather than calling it challenging, I can say that it has been a learning opportunity for us. We have learnt from every song and from our failures. We have improved our work and moved on. Even for the song ‘Pal’, we were initially rejected but later Mahesh Bhatt sir found our composition to be very beautiful. Today, we are happy that it is almost going to hit the one billion views mark. Music-making is a long and extensive process. From making the song to reaching a distributor, it takes time. We have learned how to stay patient throughout this process.

Both of you come from a family of musicians. How has this impacted your music?
Javed: Music is in our blood. Our childhood experiences, our practices, and the music we have seen and heard helps us generate ideas today. It is a very instinctive process.
Mohsin: Melody just happens when we are composing. There is nothing calculative and processed about it. Compositions are spontaneous. We believe it’s God's gift. 

Which singers and musicians do you admire?
Javed: We have always admired A R Rahman, Pritam Da, Arijit Singh and Shreya Ghoshal. Apart from them, we have loved working with Darshan Raval, Jubin Nautiyal and Stebin Ben. They are all promising singers. Other than that, we have learnt from versatile artistes like Mohammed Rafi Sahab, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey, Bappi Lahiri, Madan Mohan, Laxmikant Pyarelal, Shailendra Singh.