Ahead of Rangeela’s 30th anniversary, filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma opened up on the film’s music in a recent interview.
Ram Gopal Varma’s Rangeela featuring Aamir Khan, Urmila Matondkar, Jackie Shroff is considered to be one of his most iconic works. Every time you reminisce about this film, you simply cannot miss talking about his outstanding music composed by AR Rahman.
However, you guys would be surprised to know that there was a moment when Varma thought the composer was ‘crazy’ and his music was ‘horrible’! The filmmaker made this candid confession in his recent interview with O2india to mark 30 years of Rangeela.
Talking specifically about the highly popular ‘Haaye Rama Yeh Kya Hua’ song, RGV shared, “I wanted a very erotic number. At the back of my mind, I had Kaate Nahi Katte’ from Mr. India as a reference. I described to him how we wanted to shoot it, and he came up with this tune.”
He recalled his first reaction and continued, “I thought he had gone mad. I thought, by mistake, he had sent me something else—some classical Carnatic raga.”
The Company director revealed that he even called Rahman to confront him and asked him, “I wanted something erotic, and you’ve sent me this?” In response, the music composer told him that he had made the tune for the same situation.
RGV said that he wondered how he could fit the situation in the scene to that tune.
“If you look at the roots of our culture—including Hindu mythology—songs have always been about ragas. There is a raga for each emotion, and that is the foundation of music. If that is lost and you create a song just for the sake of cheesy lyrics, it becomes too crass and unhealthy for me. I was trying to make it interesting and rooted in our culture,” he continued.
However, something changed after RGV repeatedly heard the tune.
He shared, “When I had the CD with me, I kept playing it every once in a while, and then suddenly, it got stuck in my head.” He further added that he was blown away when he eventually heard the fully-produced track, and said, “I had never imagined that the tune could be presented like that, in that format.”
Not just ‘Haaye Rama’ song, RGV faced a similar dilemma with the ‘Spirit of Rangeela’ as well.
The filmmaker said, “When he sent me ‘Spirit of Rangeela’, I was with my cousin. We heard it together, and my cousin’s first reaction was, ‘It’s horrible.’ Now I was confused. I didn’t know if it was good or bad. I had something else in my mind and didn’t expect what Rahman delivered. And when my cousin called it horrible, I felt really low.”
He further continued, “Later, while traveling for a shoot, I asked my driver what he thought of the tune. He also said, ‘Horrible. Very bad. What is this music?’”
However something unusual happened when RGV played the song at his shoot location.
“By lunchtime, everyone on set was already singing it. The whole phenomenon, which logically I can’t understand, is like the slow poison of Rahman,” the director recalled.
Reflecting on A.R. Rahman’s musical style, Ram Gopal Varma remarked that, in his view, people today rarely listen to a song multiple times before liking it. He felt that Rahman’s compositions often defied expectations, leading listeners who typically had another hit song in mind to initially reject them. However, he noted that over time, audiences gradually grew accustomed to the Oscar-winning composer’s unconventional sound.
Released in 1995, Rangeela revolves around a spirited background dancer, Mili (Urmila Matondkar), who lands a dream role opposite a movie star, sparking a love triangle with her childhood friend Munna (Aamir Khan) and the superstar Raj Kamal (Jackie Shroff).
