Salim Merchant: Bappi Da showed child-like enthusiasm when collaborating on our film

Salim Merchant

He was a loving human being, and always supportive. In my last meeting with him in 2019, we had a long conversation with him. I've always known him to be appreciative. Even long ago, when [my brother and I] were [young] musicians, he was always supportive.

He loved to talk about his time too - his relationship with Kishore [Kumar] da, and his international collaborations. He was a non-stop factory - continuously creating and producing music, and the most hard-working composer I've known.

He sang our song for Prakash Jha's Jai Gangaajal. It was my dream to record with him. He wanted to know the treatment we were going to give the song, and be part of the mixing and arranging processes.

He would say, ‘I want to see how you do it because I like your sounds'. He was enjoying the process, and was as interested as a child. When I told him we were recreating Disco Dancer [for the musical] and revisiting his songs like Jimmy Jimmy, and Tera pyaar, he said he was looking forward to it.