Iconic filmmaker Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), also called K3G, was indeed a monumental saga of love and family bonding. It featured Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol, Hrithik Roshan and Kareena Kapoor. The songs of K3G are still fresh in our memory even today, the most memorable being its title song.
After the success of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Karan Johar wanted to make a film with an eternal shelf life. This time too he was very confident in his script and therefore he could easily manage to cast the biggest stars of the industry.
One day, Karan called me to narrate the script, which absolutely blew me away. This was probably the biggest and most challenging film of my career because Karan wanted me to write a title song with an aarti or devotional song like temperament. Not only this, he wanted to use it in a variety of moments in the film, such as those of love, happiness, sadness, family bonding, family separation and them reuniting.
After hearing his demands for the song, I laughed and asked, ‘Karan, you seem to be very ambitious and demanding this time, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I am, sir. But I’m sure that you’ll fulfill all my demands and will definitely help me make my most ambitious film by penning absolutely fresh lyrics,’ he replied with a sparkle in his eyes.
I met music directors Jatin–Lalit and discussed the song. We decided to begin the music sessions, but we were clueless about where to start. So that I could get some cue from the director, I decided to call Karan Johar.
‘Karan, who do you think should sing our song?’ I asked with inquisitiveness.
‘Lata ji.’ Karan was very sure about the singer. Eager to know the status of his project, he asked me, ‘Sir, are you through with the lyrics?’
‘Karan, I haven’t started yet,’ I laughed while replying and hung up the phone.
This call was very important for me because I wanted to know who he was planning to have onboard to sing this ‘reverential’ title song. Now, we had a cue—we could start thinking about the song keeping Lata ji in mind. I shared this information with Jatin–Lalit too and asked them to give me a tune to write the lyrics on.
Jatin–Lalit started working on the tunes and presented each one to Karan who kept rejecting them one by one. He had even given us a reference song from the 1986 Bollywood classic Ankush—‘Itni Shakti Hamein Dena Data’. We all were quite disappointed with our progress, as even working day and night for more than three months was proving to be unfruitful. While we were doing our best in our own capacities, Karan too was discussing the song with a few of his industry friends and well-wishers.
One day, Karan went to meet the film director and his mentor Aditya Chopra. He had been an assistant director and actor in his Bollywood classic Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995). In that meeting, Karan shared with Aditya Chopra that the title song of his upcoming movie was not working out the way he had wanted it to. After hearing about the situation, Aditya Chopra closed his eyes for some time and started humming a tune. Karan was astonished by his guru’s musical wisdom, who had naturally inherited the art from his father, the great film maker Yash Chopra ji. Tears started rolling down Karan’s eyes, and thus, the title song of Dharma Production’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham was born at YRF Studio.
Karan Johar rang Jatin–Lalit and me up for a quick music session at his office. He passed us the same tune that he got from Aditya Chopra. The tune was indeed very touching and soulful. After working on the tune for a week, we had the song in place. I wrote the lyrics keeping in mind the title of the film. Karan got emotional and hugged me when I presented the lyrics to him.
‘Sir, thank you so much for giving me the song that I can imagine being played in every Indian’s house,’ said an overjoyed Karan.
Karan went on to shoot the song at mesmerizing locations throughout India and abroad with the biggest star cast of the time. When the soundtrack was released, it sold copies by the millions. The music of K3G was a big hit, but the title song topped the charts. I’ve written innumerable title songs so far, but K3G’s title song will always remain special and close to my heart.
Lata Mangeshkar sang the track and made it even more soulful and emotional. The nightingale of Bollywood at 72 sounded as good as she was at her peak. The song pierced right through our hearts and souls. Jaya Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan performed it superbly well on screen.
I still remember that moment from the film premiere when I saw the audience wiping their tears when the mother senses the return of her eldest son. That’s when the first note of ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’, in Lata ji’s voice, reverberates through the hall. It was an exceptional on-screen magical moment created by Karan Johar by capturing a mother’s love and intuition in just a few shots.
Even years later after writing the lyrics, I still experience a sense of immense pleasure and satisfaction whenever I hear the song ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’ play unexpectedly around me, like it happened recently one early morning in Lucknow. It sounded to me exactly like an aarti being played, infusing divinity in the entire atmosphere Karan Johar is indeed one of our industry’s gems who had seen the future of the song even before it was born.
This excerpt from ‘Lyrics by Sameer: Stories behind the Iconic Songs’ by Sameer Anjaan and Shuja Ali has been published with permission from Rupa Publications.
