AR Rahman revealed that ‘Ishq Bina’ song from Subhash Ghai’s Taal was originally meant for a film which was supposed to feature Shah Rukh Khan.
Way back in the 90s, Subhash Ghai had announced a film, Shikhar with Shah Rukh Khan and Jackie Shroff. Unfortunately, the filmmaker had to shelve this ambitious project because of the budgetary issues that incurred after the box office failure of his 1995 multistarrer, Trimurti.
Before calling Shikhar off, Ghai had already done the film’s mahurat in Haryana, and had even recorded a few songs for this SRK-Jackie starrer which was set against the backdrop of war. One of the tracks was ‘Ishq Bina’ which was eventually used in Taal (1999).
Ahead of the re-release of the film, music composer AR Rahman, in an interview with Radio Nasha, dropped this trivia.
He revealed, “My first memory of Taal actually starts from Shikhar. The movie which Mr Subhash Ghai and me, both of us were supposed to do and Shah Rukh Khan was to star in it. It never took off. So, some of the tunes from Shikhar made its way into Taal like ‘Ishq Bina’.”
Rahman continued, “He offered me Pardes, but I was busy that time. So, Taal was almost like coming together after two movies. This happened, and it was exciting, and adventure. You know I was entering north India with Bombay, Rangeela and everything, Taal actually propelled me into all the homes in the Hindi film market, north India and all over the world where people listen to hardcore Hindi music.”
While Shikhar starring Shah Rukh Khan and Jackie Shroff got scrapped, Ghai did manage to finally team up with King Khan again for Pardes (1997). The film marked the Bollywood debut of Mahima Chaudhary. Two years later, Subhash Ghai made Taal with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Akshaye Khanna and Anil Kapoor.
