-That's it. -Wonderful.
You see, he has inherited music.
Roshan saab, of course, was a genius.
Rajesh Roshan, tremendous talent.
And Rakesh ji, great ear for music.
So one way or another, it's a very musically inclined family.
When two brothers work together, there's this understanding.
and then also, there's an emotional aspect of the relationship.
That then translates on the big screen.
The combination is fantastic.
It's like two bodies, one soul.
So I think Rajesh ji and Rakesh ji are like that.
Genuinely like Karan-Arjun.
Actually, they're the real Karan-Arjun.
So the love, the bond,
I think both of them have really enhanced each other.
It was never that, "I'm the director and I'll overrule you."
He has never ever done that.
But until the song is absolutely perfect, he is never satisfied.
For all the success I have achieved, behind me,
there was my brother, Rajesh Roshan.
There was a magical charm, very good to the ear.
The work done by all the other music directors was on one side
and Rajesh Roshan's work was on the other.
I end up singing his songs.
He should never hear me singing, because he'll probably stop composing.
But I end up singing his songs,
because he's got, like, such deep melodies that you just… It sticks with you.
All the girls in the neighborhood, we used to sit on the swings
and sing this one song which was "Julie, I love you."
-Julie was which year, sir? -Around '74 or '75.
-I wasn't even born back then. -You weren't born?
And Julie took the whole industry by storm.
As beautiful as his compositions are,
equally beautiful are his orchestrations for them.
And you know his pieces, his hook lines,
they are as popular as his songs.
Especially "Mungada."
I mean, even now, sometimes I wake up in the morning singing…
Small stature, quietly he will come, sit down,
and create sound which was humongous like…
And as vast as the location used to be,
the feeling in the song was the same.
Whether you take Karan Arjun or all the way up to Krrish,
he has always given us new compositions.
He used to, you know, make me hear some tracks that he had just made.
Then I used to say, "Chacha, this melody is really nice."
And then sometimes, I used to see
that he's picked that track
and it's become a song.
And I used to feel like a giant.
The soundtrack of Kites, that was quite trippy.
Completely unexpected from the man
who did Julie and Mr. Natwarlal.
R.D. Burman saab once said to me,
"Wow. I'm a fan of this music director. How wonderful."
Now if R.D. Burman is a fan,
then that music director must be something.
Let's start from the stanza.
Get us a cup of tea, please.
If anyone wants to have tea, speak up. Who wants tea?
Come on, guys, it's showtime.
Start singing.
Go easy, or people won't value me.
There is a unique process that he has
where he will take a breath,
think, smile,
then he'll touch the harmonium,
bring it closer,
and then, he will smile to himself.
And he's really enjoying it.
And then he'll start.
It was a joy to watch.
All this music that I have, this wealth I've received,
actually, it comes with the genes, I mean, it's hereditary.
And also, listening to music makes a huge difference.
So, Daddy used to play his music.
Sahir saab would drop in.
Papa and Sahir uncle would ask me to join them.
They would say, "Look beta, we've made this song, what do you think?"
And I would say, "This is good, this is fine,
just add some conga-bongo to it."
I used to go to their place.
When Raju was a kid,
I used to make him sit on my lap,
I would massage his legs with oil and…
How was I to know that one day,
this tiny little kid would make me sing for him.
When my father passed away,
Mummy got me a tuition teacher at home.
Faiyaz Khan was his name.
Mummy pretended like she was the one who was learning.
In fact, many a times, she would say to Khan saab,
"Why don't you call Raju to sit with you?"
And you know, he would then
teach me a ghazal in the evening and head back home.
I'd then take the same ghazal and make another tune out of it.
Guddu's mummy
felt that at least one of the two kids would be drawn to music and take it up.
She knew it.
And then Mummy said to Anand Bakshi saab,
"Please get Raju an assistant's job somewhere."
"Call Raju now." Raju was there. She said to Raju, "Now you choose."
"You want to work with R.D. or with Laxmikant-Pyarelal?"
Now, because I used to learn L.P.'s songs, Lata ji's songs
I used to sing that one very well.
So, I said, "Uncle, I would like to assist Laxmikant-Pyarelal ji."
I went there and for five years, I worked with them.
This is that same instrument, conga,
that I played with Laxmikant ji and Pyarelal ji for full five years.
This might be easy to look at,
but it takes the song in a whole new direction.
My entire orchestra is actually Pyare ji's orchestra.
I was so immersed in it that I used to stand like Pyare ji.
I remember I used to wave my hands like him automatically.
I didn't try to copy him in front of a mirror.
It just happened to me from inside. I became Pyare ji.
Like Laxmi ji used to… If any producer came to him,
"He is Raju, Roshan ji's son." He'd introduce that way.
And Laxmi ji
was very fond of Raju, he loved him.
Even I did.
And in those days, he was very young,
but look at his compositions.
There was this song "Jhooth Bole Kauwa Kaate."
So Pyare bhai said, "Where is Raju? Please call him now."
I was telling everyone, "Please, play with me."
Just then Pyare ji shouted from inside,
"Raju will be playing solo, no one will play with him."
Now I started to panic.
Didi and I, we didn't know each other back then.
So, she kept looking at me.
This boy is playing well.
That line.
Let's keep this uptempo.
I used to go home with two or three musicians,
and we started coming up with some tunes.
We kept making them, polishing them, using some dummy words.
We started to play it to all the producers.
We used to have a group back then,
Anwar Ali and Shaukat.
They were all Mehmood's younger brothers.
So one day I said to Shaukat,
"Shaukat, let's take Raju to meet your older brother."
So we went there and we played our songs to him.
"Very good, they're amazing.
My music is always scored by R.D. Burman.
But I'm making a movie in which the father is singing a lullaby."
Two days later, early in the morning, without any appointment or anything,
we went to meet him and plonked ourselves outside his bedroom.
And I began to sing the tune.
He said, "This tune is making me cry."
That was a song that made me weep,
because it always reminds me that my father is just mortal,
and he is going to go away one day, so…
What we do first is, about 70 to 80 musicians
start rehearsing without singers.
And then, Lata ji gets on the mic for a bit,
then Kishore da gets on the mic.
The song gradually begins to form and "Aari Aaja" took shape.
"Aari Aaja…" the violins began to play…
That was like magic for me.
So this is a poet when he understands the tune,
and he writes.
That was Majrooh saab.
And I used to sometimes say,
"Majrooh uncle, can you change this a little bit?"
And he'd say, "Of course I can."
We too, tried composing several lullabies but they never worked.
How we'd write was,
"Sleep, my baby, sleep…"
We were forcing it.
His was, "Come, o, come, dear sleep,"
it was a request.
I was completely blown.
I must have heard that song at least two lakh times.
Such a novel composition.
You see, Kunwara Baap had this very famous song
because the film demanded it
wherein the hero played by Mehmood saab
was singing along with a group of eunuchs.
Now if it was any other common music director,
they would have cheapened it by bringing in vulgarity.
But see his mastery that even a song like this,
Rajesh Roshan treated it with such decency and dignity.
Now the song is being sung with full gusto out there,
the ghungroos are jingling, Rafi saab is rehearsing on set.
My friends are clapping on rhythm over there.
You hear the clapping in the song, right?
Their hands went red.
I was very dissatisfied with the song.
I said, "What the hell have we recorded?"
The news reached Mehmood bhai,
he said, "Please tell Raju, he's crazy.
He made a hit song."
So, Mehmood bhai took one look at me and said,
"Raju, I make you a promise today.
From today onwards,
all the films Mehmood makes, you will be the music director."
And from there my career took off.
Oh, lovely.
At the time I entered the industry,
light western type songs were not being composed.
This… I knew for sure that this was my domain.
The fusion with English,
he would do that very nicely in a song.
And when I was working with Juhi Chawla, I used to tease her by singing this song,
Juhi…
Didi… she was the only singer
who understood my song to the T.
Exactly how you made the song.
"Beta, here you go, here's your song."
She wouldn't even look at me, as to how I was singing the song.
She'd just keep looking down like this.
"Julie, I love you," we rehearsed on the spot.
But the way she said "Julie…"
If you have to break it down, he loves long notes.
He loves glides. He loves those pauses.
So, even if you take one of his pacy songs,
even there you find this pausing and repeat value.
And that is coming through the tune, through the choice of sound.
When Kishore da sang "Dil Kya Kare…"
He sang it in such a way that he too wasn't looking anywhere around him.
During a live recording, I'm saying, "Wow, Dada!"
"Wow, Dada, you're sounding awesome," and this is going on.
And everyone's staring at me, thinking, "Is he mad, this new music director?
What does he think of himself?"
And I believe he was 18 or 19, when he did it.
It is unheard of. That is so mature, that work.
It is so melodious.
I think Roshan saab would have been so proud of hearing
his son create music, which is…
You know, when the father is very extraordinary,
it's always very difficult for the child to match up to it or reach that level.
And here was Rajesh Roshan saab, whose work was as melodious
and unusual as Roshan saab's.
It was actually by coincidence
that I got Dev saab to listen to the songs from Julie.
So he said, "Should we sign up Rajesh for our next film?"
So I said, "We should definitely do that."
When I met Dev saab,
So… "Come, Raju. Come on, Rajesh. Come."
Wouldn’t call me Raju, only Rajesh.
He sat me down on the carpet. He too came and sat with me.
"Wow! Great job. What a note! How did you manage to hit this note?"
And Amit Khanna called me the next day saying,
"Congratulations! Dev saab is taking you."
So after Kunwara Baap, Julie, Kaala Patthar was in between.
That too gave me a huge push ahead.
Amitabh saab, Yash ji.
And then came Des Pardes, the ultimate push.
Because even Dev Anand saab had endorsed me.
We got along so well together,
I felt as if we had known each other for years.
He was not at all like Dev Anand. He was just…
"Let's chit-chat together.
There's so much more to life than just films."
"Haaye…"
So this "Haaye" word that was there,
Dev saab kept going repeatedly,
"Haaye" to show me how to do it.
And Kishore Kumar used to say,
"Whenever one of Rajesh's songs comes up, I enjoy myself a lot."
While growing up, every night my father used to play
Literati on the computer and he used to have his drinks.
And every night at 10:30, he used to sing only one song. Every night.
And that was "Chal Kahin Door…"
And that has such a deep childhood impact on me, that song.
The characters they played, Rakhee ji and Rishi ji,
and what their dilemmas were,
that has been explained so beautifully in this song.
The song begins with him saying,
"Chal kahin door nikal jaayen…"
And in the end, Rakhee ji's character says,
"Accha hai sambhal jaayen…"
I would say, that explains the film
in just the genius of Rajesh Roshan.
So he could, I think, read the ideology or the thought of the film.
And it was from that level that the music would come,
which you find very seldom in most people.
Because people would usually write for the situation,
but I think Rajesh Roshan wrote songs for the film itself.
So actually in the movie, Yaarana,
when I heard the song, "Sara Zamana,"
And there was so much of crowd applauding.
Everyone went…
And then there was Amitabh Bachchan's walk.
So I'd think about how someone actually must have sat down
and, more than the song, he has actually developed the whole scene.
They've made a whole screenplay here which…
For the composer to come out like that
and say, "Here. This is your star's entry.
And this entry, it won't just be part of the background music,
but also be a part of my song."
I don't know many kids
that grew up in the '80s,
that did not dance to the songs of Yaarana.
Amit ji visited the music room a lot
during the making of Yaarana.
He used to come, sit down, right in front of me.
I asked him quite shyly and hesitatingly, "Amit ji, will you…
will you be able to act to this dholak and tabla
for "Tere Jaisa Yaar Kahan"?
He just looked at me and he said,
"I'll do it."
There's a lot of things that I've taken from my chacha.
The first thing is his style of singing.
Because when I sing, and if someone has shot me and I see myself,
it's like, it's my chacha's face, you know.
He goes so deep into what he's trying to express,
and he enjoys it so much.
Countless producers kept coming, and Raju, in full form,
music after music, song after song, every song going on to become a hit.
But he had one problem.
He always used to come home late.
So I used to think to myself, this is not good.
We used to drink in the night at that time.
You know, how they say, "Our band of brothers."
An artistic brotherhood.
So one morning when I opened the door, it was four in the morning.
And he was pretty drunk.
So I raised my hand and gave him a tight slap.
"Is this the time to come home?
Your career's going so well these days
and you want to ruin it by behaving like this?"
Raju looked at me and burst out laughing.
He said, "I know,
you can't do all this, can you?
Because you're married now, you're home bound.
And I'm single, so I can do it all."
I remember, I didn't want to get married.
And Guddu said, "I've given my word to someone.
At least, meet the girl once, that's all."
I said, "Look, I'll meet the girl but I'll never get married."
All my family members said to me, "Hey, someone's coming to meet you."
But I'm here on holiday.
So at the first meeting, there were so many people there.
Who am I supposed to meet?
I was so, like, in my, like, chirpy, Punjaban mood.
And once I entered the room and everything…
I went there and immediately we looked at each other.
Our eyes met and the magic was sparked off.
I felt that sinking feeling,
"Hey, is this actually happening?"
When I got back Guddu said, "So tell me."
I said to him, "Hang on."
And these people, they never let me return to Punjab.
So now I belong to Bombay.
So, it was like a very beautiful feeling.
Imagine, I used to listen to his songs as a teenager,
and now I'm about to marry him.
-Was it love at first sight? -No, nothing like that happened.
Love at first sight happened much later actually.
Before anything, settling in Bombay itself is a task.
My mother-in-law,
she was the one my…
Though Mummy was not an easy person, a tough person.
But she had good reason to be tough.
She knew that I'd just come from Punjab.
I was about to face a lot of challenges in life.
My English was very weak.
So she first got me an English teacher.
She made me a Bombay girl.
Don't say anything to start a fight. Say something we can laugh about.
-The weather is so off. -No, today is…
My dad has music in every single cell of his being.
He would listen to one tune continuously, day in and day out.
Multiple times a day,
to the point where the rest of us would be absolutely sick of it.
And when that song would become a big hit
is when everyone from school would come around
and they would be like, "Oh, that's your dad's song."
And I would proudly say, "Yes."
One thing about Amitabh saab
was that he was singing the song himself.
That took away the song to a very great extent.
We had a recordist, our Robin Chatterjee saab,
at Mehboob studio.
When he heard his voice, he said,
"In 70 years, I have never seen such a good singer.
What a fabulous voice."
You know, there were conversations in his songs.
He had these kind of things in his head
which were like, "Guys, here's a story,
which I want to share with you
through the medium of music."
One thing that Raju bhai used to say was,
"This tune is good, but there's no spice in it."
Now, in lay terms,
by "spice" what he meant was,
a song could really be good,
but if it's bland, it won't stick to your memory.
While we were writing the song, we were making the song…
"Tumse badhkar duniya mein na dekha koi aur."
These were my dummy words…
"Zubaan pe aaj dil ki baat aa gayi."
Indeevar ji went on writing for the whole day.
And then he told Rakesh.
He said, "Guddu, can I say something to you?"
He said, "Yes."
"I can't write anything better than this."
From then on, I got fascinated.
I thought, I too can be a writer.
And "Mai se, Meena se, na saaki se, na paimaane se."
These were the words I found in some book of poetry.
So keeping this in mind, I wrote the song in one shot.
"Mai se, Meena se, na saaki se."
I had to become very versatile very fast.
I went to Vijay Anand saab, and he liked all my songs.
And then after a while, then he told me,
"I don’t know why are you obsessed with long notes, Raju?"
I understand now what he meant.
"Just because you want to express pain…"
"You know, you're going there.
So, you're deeply immersed in it. That’s not necessary."
Which means he adapted beautifully to that change.
His melodies were something
that a youngster could sing with a guitar.
He could sing with a flute.
And he'd design them in such a special way
that during that era, his work stood out spectacularly.
In those days, we used to do live recordings.
So, the duet singer and I,
we would stand together and sing in the studio.
It was done at Mehboob Studio. "Jaati Hoon Main."
Question-answer, question-answer.
And that song was something like we were competing with each other.
He would sing a line
and I felt I needed to sing the next line even better, you know.
And the variations he has,
you know, can turn from a purely romantic number
into a, how do we say, like…
So he had a variance.
So, it'd never seem like
one music director had composed all those songs.
Because normally, music directors, like actors and directors,
develop just one kind of style, you could say.
It's true that whenever Raju bhai
invited you to his sitting room,
the best part
was that he was always in such a very relaxed and happy mood.
A gentleman you could say, a gentleman music director.
Even if he wanted to tell me something,
let's say, if he wanted me to do a second take,
He would say it to me in such a way
that I'd happily sing the song again.
His sitting room is not a sitting room,
it's a meditation room.
As if you could sit and meditate there.
You know, tranquility. Silence.
Earlier I used to have a bad temper, Shashi.
And I used to fight with musicians,
and with the producers too. I had no control over my anger.
And I used to drink a lot. I used to smoke a lot.
In one drinking session of two hours, I used to finish a packet of 555.
And she was bearing the brunt of that.
Because I fought at home too.
And I was looking at her, how well she took all that.
Lot of adjustments, lot of changes I had to go through.
I started understanding him.
He's a very creative human being.
His working style was very unique.
When I'd go for rehearsal, he would say,
"You please have a cup of tea."
Very carefully, he'd take out a sheet of paper.
On it would be the song, in his handwriting,
neatly written down, he would give it to me.
And he himself would sing so softly while teaching it.
I'd have to strain to hear it.
So I used to say, "Please can you sing it once more?"
So, patiently, two, three, four times, he'd sing the song and teach me.
So you see, the gentle quality of his,
that is part of his personality,
you'll find the same in his songs like…
This can also be a tune.
But this gentleman created this tune differently.
So it all depends on how much respect you have for the lyrics.
He gave very good emphasis to the lyrics.
And that was his scoring point.
After understanding the song,
understanding the lyrics,
he'd compose the tune.
So, using Raag Yaman, Raju bhai composed this song.
For three to four days, he called me continuously,
and he said to me, "I'm sure you can do better with this song.
Just put some more effort in this song, you can do it."
Until he got exactly what he was looking for in a song,
the flavor he wanted, the texture he wanted, he wouldn't let you go easily.
A music director has a certain vision in his mind,
an idea, how do I want my singer to sing this song, to interpret it.
He was absolutely focussed on that.
"Look this is exactly what I want."
He told me to try it like this.
In a slightly husky tone.
When I used to play the song to them
I would make them think that the song is easy.
If I scream and sing it, they might get worried,
"What has he composed?"
And when they sing, and they used to say,
"Sir, this is not easy. You've composed a tricky song."
For Koyla, when I sang
"Dekha tujhe toh."
During the recording, I kept getting stuck in one or two places,
So I said, "I think,
there's one place where I'm feeling
I should take this line in my own style."
"Okay, show me how you'll do it."
He accepted my suggestion in a minute.
And said to me, "Sing it like that."
A good music director has that quality about him
where if a singer is contributing something
and if that is good, you must accept it.
Every music director should have this quality about them,
and Raju bhai has it in abundance.
When he smiles and says, "It's good."
And his "It's good…"
The way he says it so softly,
and then he'd smile at us and say,
"The work you've done all afternoon is good."
And that would just make our evening.
I always consider him, now when I think of him…
If you think about the Beatles for a minute,
So George Harrison was always known as 'The quiet one.'
You know, so he is to me that person. He's the quiet one.
Other people, you know, they'd blow their trumpet,
saying, "I've composed this album."
"We've done this." He was not the kind of person to do that.
But you had to research to find out who did this song.
Sometimes I get a bit dismayed
because I feel he was never the kind of person
who stood up and took claim of his work.
He was very happy being quiet and being in the background.
I mean, I find it unbelievable
for somebody to be so unassuming when they are so, so talented.
He's extremely diffident.
He hesitates a lot.
He has never taken the effort to go out
and approach people and talk to them.
Whatever work came to him, he would do, what didn't appeal to him, he wouldn't do.
My mother was persistent to such an extent
that she once met Yash ji somewhere,
and told him,
"Yash ji, you've forgotten Raju."
He said to her, "Bhabhi ji, I haven't forgotten Raju.
Raju has forgotten me.
Tell him to come to my office and meet me.
Is it going to wear out his slippers to come and see me?"
She came and told me that. "You should go and meet Yash ji."
I couldn't. In here, in my mind…
I kept working, kept working.
Whoever's work. Small project, big project.
He gave work more preference
than going out to any of these things.
But he never realized
that in life, these things are also important.
To meet with people.
The thing is that, so many producers would approach me,
that I got used to it.
When producers come to me,
then why should I go and approach them for work.
He had a great phase.
And during that phase, he made some amazing songs.
But this phase doesn't last forever.
These phases they keep changing.
New people come in. Someone else takes over.
So many of my songs were hit, but the films didn't do good.
Nobody wanted to venture it out with me.
So when that phase is coming to an end,
fewer producers begin to approach you.
Of course, I felt left out.
But these are the very people who got me habituated
when they used to approach me.
"Give us more, we want more."
The habit got so addictive that I got spoilt.
To this day, they keep saying, "Come to us, please work with us."
In my view, my chacha…
is authentic.
He is…
He is himself, and he is not afraid of being himself.
He has chosen a path
and he knows what works for him.
And that's what he has done.
His quiet grace can be mistaken for shyness, but…
like a true artist, he has lived his life on his own terms and with utmost dignity.
And I know very few men as happy as my chacha.
And that's the definition of success.