The soft-spoken Kolkata musician, a talent hub so to say, Raja Narayan Deb is creating wonders, in both the Bengali and Hindi entertainment industries, making us all proud. But you will hardly see him talking or promoting his work. So, Indulge thought of talking about his work, with his most recently released work being Jab Koi Baat Bigad Jaaye (re-arranged) from Lust Stories 2, and the audience is really appreciating the neat work. We speak with Deb to know about it.
Tell us something about the rendition of Jab Koi Baat in Lust Stories 2.
This happened quite suddenly. So one day, I received a call from Sujoy da (Ghosh) and he asked if I would do the music for the story he is working on for Lust Stories 2. I was like, yes of course. And we have had a connection that goes long back. He wanted me to do a song, though the song wasn’t finalised at that time, and we were trying to figure out if we would do some English songs, work on something new and so on. In a few days, he called to say that he had bought the rights for Jab Koi Baat. This is such a popular, cult favourite that you cannot tamper this.
The song is an intrinsic part of the whole storytelling. We planned to make it sound like a gospel choir. After many trials and errors, we finally shortlisted this. I never tried to make it anything like the original track and I feel that’s why people liked it.
What was the arrangement like?
I didn’t want to change the melody in any way. But to make it like a choir song, we had to give it a Western touch, and for that, we needed singers who had that Westernised pronunciation or a gospel choir. So, we made sure that we don’t want good Bollywood singers, but people who sing at churches or choirs, or lend voices to western backup vocals. We couldn’t have achieved this feeling from any regular Hindi-speaking singer. We had first thought of the Shillong choir, but it would have been a tedious job. The plan was to show a church first, but later it changed to a community centre, so the requirement also changed a bit. We have used piano, drums, bass guitar, trumpets and such.
There’s this trend we see of people, actors, musicians, and directors, moving out of Kolkata and settling in Mumbai. Is it because they are under-utilised here?
There can be many reasons behind this shift. I can say what was mine. A songwriter-composer, writing songs in Bengali specifically needs to be in town probably to execute the whole song. But I don't write songs. I’ll probably give ideas to the lyricist as to how to write songs, so I am not bound by any language. And since I used to primarily play with Western bands, like Krosswindz, Hip Pocket and a few others, along with making music for Bengali films, which is an obvious option if you are in Kolkata. Probably would have done music for Hindi films if I was in Mumbai, and such. And since the end of the 1990s, I have been travelling for music concerts. I used to play with Usha Uthup. I used to travel back and forth to Mumbai very often. I was staying more in Kolkata probably, now I am spending more time in Mumbai, that’s it. Work-wise, nothing has changed majorly. But yes, making music for songs needs a lot of sitting and discussions with the team, and being in Mumbai makes that a tad bit difficult. So right now, I am concentrating more on making background music.
Why are you so low-key on social media, unlike other artistes?
(Laughs, sounding embarrassed) I am extremely bad with all this. People literally threaten me to make a social media post. I don’t know, I feel this is like a full-time job. Everyone around me complains about me. I think I should hire someone, it’s high time.
What are your upcoming works in the pipeline?
For Tollywood, I have done two songs and the background score for both Jamalaye Jibanta Bhanu and Kurbaan, starring Ankush and Priyanka Sarkar. For Hindi, I have worked for #Shout, a documentary on women’s rights and the issues they go through, like female foeticides, rapes, child abuse, sexual exploitation, gender bias, #MeToo movements and everything. Usha Uthup has sung the theme song and if it is well-promoted, I think it will definitely be the talk of the town.
Right now, I am working on Nana Patekar’s Suspect, and Jaideep Ahlawat and Shraddha Das’s Mukti. I have also done the music for Avishek Ghosh’s Ishq-E-Nadaan, starring Neena Gupta, Kanwaljit Singh, Lara Dutta, Mohit Raina, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Mrinal Dutt, and Suhail Nayyar, along with Kajal Aggarwal’s upcoming film Uma. I also have a few more that are in their initial stages.