Javed Saab, your song Yun hi chala chal rahi has gone to space?
What can I say? I am deeply moved. I still remember the recording in the voices of Udit Narayan, Kailash Kher. At that time when this song was recorded, even then the reaction of the people was very positive and everyone was like koi Ganga nahaye barson mein all these lines were loved. People liked it a lot.
Your songs of nationalism and desh bhakti have so much theharo in them, no flagwaving, no hysteria?
I think there is a section of my mind which is very committed to nationalism. When I was a child, the tricolour used to be hoisted at our house on 15th August and 26th January, and I was six years old then. I vividly remember how the grownups used to hoist it, then take it down in the evening, then how it was wrapped carefully and placed on the top shelf of the cupboard where we used to keep it safely in Lucknow. During summers there is so much sunshine and it is so hot that everyone closes the doors and we did not have air conditioners, only air coolers. The whole thing was closed and filled with water and then the fan used to run in it, then when the air moved up and down the water would cool down the room, then everyone would go to sleep. But we children used to go out at 4 in the afternoon, the children did not feel like sleeping, they could not sleep during the day, somehow when the elders used to sleep, we children used to go out. Then one day…
Go one, Javed Saab?
I remember that one day I went to that room where there was a tricolour in the cupboard and how I pulled a table and I climbed on the table and stood on my toes to touch the flag while everyone was sleeping. This feeling of nationalism does not happen through lectures and teachings. It is organic.
Javed Saab, when you hear that something like this, something so momentous happens up in the sky and this man is listening to your song up there, does it not give you a sense of pride a sense of satisfaction?
Of course it does! But more than that whatever you have done and what belongs to your past, belongs to the past. Past laurels won’t help you grow. Whatever is done in the past, is done. Your work is also like your children. Once they became mature they are persons in their own right. Even the film songs and dialogues they acquire their own personality. Yes, they were born from you, but they became big not only because you have written them. They became big because there are crores of people who have appreciated them and some have identified with them, so this success is not just mine, crores of people have contributed to it. How can you make the complete claim?
The fact that it becomes an iconic thing, an iconic position, it is not just because of the person who made it, it is because of the people who appreciated it, and it is because of their emotions, their feelings, their experiences….If it connects through nostalgia then it becomes so big. It is between the artiste and the recipients of his work.
