From camera to kalam

Turning lyricist with Saaqiya, Sultan of Delhi director Milan Luthria says Vidya, Emraan and his friends’ reactions have given him confidence to pursue songwriting

Sultan of Delhi promises to be a signature Milan Luthria fare, complete with larger-than-life characters, well-mounted action sequences and dialoguebaazi. At the same time, the gangster drama marks a departure for the director, who has turned lyricist with the number, Saaqiya. Penning the song was an organic process, says Luthria. “When the melody was sung to me, I gave them a rough line, but couldn’t go further than that. I have worked with some of the best songwriters of my time, be it Vishal Dadlani or Rajat Arora, and the musical great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. You end up watching and learning from them,” says the director.

After giving the first line, Luthria started thinking how he could take it forward. “That night at home, I said, ‘Forget it, it’s not my job’ and went to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I realised that I had written the mukhda at some point last night. My assistants, my producer and the music composer loved it. Later, on a holiday, one of my friends insisted that I complete the song, and I did!”  

Now that he is bitten by the writing bug, he is keen to pen more songs. “My mother, wife and daughter loved Saaqiya, as did Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan, Vishal-Shekhar, Pritam, and Manish Malhotra. That has given me some confidence, but I don’t know when I will crack the next one.”  

So, is a book of poems on the cards? Nope, maybe a book on his experience of shooting films, says the director. “I’ve worked with some of the biggest stars, including Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgn, Rani Mukerji, Vidya, Akshay Kumar and Sanjay Dutt. I got to see a side of actors that few see—they are light-hearted, kind and caring. The book [can capture] the behind-the-scenes anecdotes of my film shoots. I’ll start working on it soon.”

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