Amit Trivedi’s path into Hindi film music began not with a plan, but with an introduction he did not seek. In a conversation with Komal Nahta, the composer recalled that he was not aiming to score films when singer Shilpa Rao carried their independent songs to Anurag Kashyap. Kashyap, then developing Dev D, wanted to meet the young composer.
The meeting set up one of the more consequential false starts in recent Hindi film music—and, briefly, a film put on hold.
Six songs, six months, one nervous playback
Dev D, starring Abhay Deol, was Kashyap’s modern-day take on Devdas. Trivedi was 26 or 27 at the time and had not seen the earlier films. He watched both Dilip Kumar’s 1955 Devdas and Shah Rukh Khan’s 2002 version to understand the plot, then composed according to what he understood. With advertising work running alongside, it took him six months to complete six songs.
When Kashyap and Vikas Bahl arrived at his studio for the playback, Trivedi said, “Trust me, main kaanp raha tha.” He feared the session would be his first and last in film music. Instead, the team liked all six songs. Trivedi was then called for a narration—he did not yet know what that meant—and he wrote two more tracks, “Saali Khushi” and “Pardesi”. Kashyap, he recalled, went further: he tweaked parts of the script and reimagined the film after hearing the music.
The hold that reordered his debut
But the project stalled. Producer Ronnie Screwvala was not keen on making Dev D, so the film went on hold after the music had begun to shape it. Kashyap’s solution gave Trivedi a different gateway. He was moved to Aamir, the 2008 film directed by Raj Kumar Gupta and starring Rajeev Khandelwal, while Kashyap tried to find a way forward for Dev D.
- Independent songs with Shilpa Rao reached Anurag Kashyap.
- Trivedi wrote six songs in six months while handling advertising work.
- At the studio playback, Kashyap and Vikas Bahl liked all six songs.
- Kashyap reworked parts of Dev D after hearing the music.
- Ronnie Screwvala’s hesitation put the film on hold.
- Aamir released first, making it Trivedi’s debut as a film composer.
- Dev D eventually arrived eight months later.
That reversal of release order matters. Trivedi’s first credited film score was Aamir, even though Dev D was the first film he had worked on. The gap between the two releases was eight months.
Why this matters
For a publication of record, the story is a reminder of how unstable a now-familiar soundtrack was at the start. The music that helped define Dev D was initially attached to a project without a clear go-ahead. It survived because a singer advocated for Trivedi’s work, and because a director responded to the songs strongly enough to revise his own film around them.
The takeaway for anyone watching Hindi cinema closely is not to mistake release order for creative order. The composer’s debut arrived through Aamir, but the sounds that announced his voice were already waiting in Dev D.
Source: Bollywood Hungama
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