Amit Trivedi has described his move into film music less as a plan and more as something that happened to him. In a conversation with trade journalist Komal Nahta, the composer revisited the chain of introductions that began in advertising studios and ended with a first meeting with Anurag Kashyap.
The first detour: advertising to independent music
Trivedi said he had done stage musical performances and then spent four to five years in advertising, with television work alongside. He wanted to make independent music; films were not the objective. As he put it, there was no film connection anywhere in his family.
In the advertising circuit he met Shilpa Rao, who was singing regularly for ad recordings. He admired her voice, they became close friends, and they planned an album together. The first song from that collaboration was “Dhol Yaara Dhol,” the track that later found a place in Dev D in 2009.
Trivedi’s own idea was to make a music video and pitch it to MTV or Sony. Rao, he said, was more ambitious. She carried those songs to film directors.
A reluctant first meeting
When Rao called to say she had met “Anurag Kashyap sir” and played him some material, she asked if Trivedi would come and meet him. His reaction, in his telling, was hesitation: “Yeh film ki chakkar mein kahaan pad rahi hai yaar? This is not my scene.”
He described himself as shy and the film world as overwhelming. But Rao, he said, “threw me into it,” and Kashyap became the first film personality he met. The meeting itself was easier than expected. Kashyap, who had just released Black Friday and was working on No Smoking, made him comfortable.
What a raw cut sounded—and looked—like
Then came a preview unlike any other. Trivedi saw No Smoking for the first time as a raw version, made without background score or dubbing. The confession he offered between laughs was simple: “Mujhe film dekh ke kuch samaj nahin aaya.” He said he began wondering what he would say if Kashyap asked, “Kaisi lagi film?”
Released in 2007, No Smoking starred John Abraham, with Paresh Rawal and Ranvir Shorey in support. Seeing it in that unfinished state is the detail that makes the story feel lived-in: the composer was once just a visitor trying to find the right response.
What to take from the origin story
- Trivedi began with four to five years in advertising and television, not cinema.
- Shilpa Rao took “Dhol Yaara Dhol” to film directors against his original plan of pitching a video to MTV or Sony.
- His first screen exposure to Kashyap was a raw No Smoking without background score or dubbing.
The story is a reminder that careers are often pushed into motion by collaborators who see a door the person themselves would not knock on. For readers who care about Hindi cinema’s memory, it places a familiar name at the point before the body of work: reluctant, confounded, and about to be pulled into the room.
Source: bollywoodHungama.com
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