Irshad Kamil has finally emerged as the new star writer in Bollywood. The talented lyricist was finally given his dues in the Bollywood industry with Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar.

Holding a Doctorate in Hindi literature, Irshad Kamil started his career by writing for television in 1998. After penning scripts for television serials, his first assignment in the film industry was writing dialogues for Manish Goswami’s ‘Kartavya’. Kamil got his first break as a lyricist in the film ‘Socha na Tha’.

With chartbusting tracks in films like ‘Jab We Met’, ‘Love Aaj Kal’, ‘Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai’ and ‘Mausam’, Kamil aims to continue his winning streak and is all set to reign on the Indian music industry. In a freewheeling chat with Radioandmusic.com’s Chandni Mathur, Kamil talks about his journey in bollywood and the significance of lyricists in films.

Excerpts:

‘Rockstar’ has bagged you honours at all major award functions.

Every artiste is rebellious by nature. If you are not rebellious or discontented, then you cannot be an artiste. Similarly, Rockstar was an artiste’s story and therefore I could relate to it very well. Whenever such a situation arises in films, I feel that this is the kind of situation I have faced in my life. Keeping this in mind writing the songs for ‘Rockstar’ was like reliving many moments of my life.

How was the experience of working with AR Rahman? How different is his style as compared to other composers?

Rahman is a great magician, undoubtedly. I have worked with several music directors before but Rahman helped me connect with myself. He is an ocean of music and expresses numerous things through his art. Overall he is a man who knows everything about music. When you work with him he gives you so many anecdotes and actually teaches you many things unknowingly. He works without any fear.

You have a lot of hit films to your credit but you still maintain a very low profile. Why?

There is no specific reason but I prefer that my work speaks for me instead of my presence at page 3 parties. Fortunately, the work that I have done has been appreciated by people so I am happy that it speaks for me. It is your work which makes you immortal and gain respect among the fraternity and fans.

You started your career writing scripts for television. When did you get the urge to write music for bollywood?

Writing is an art in itself be it for scripts or songs. For a person like me who has a literature background and comes from school of languages, I felt that I could express myself best through this art form. It gives me great satisfaction to write a piece of poetry or story. The talent of writing was present in me from school days and luckily I discovered it at the right time.

Your musical voyage started with Sandesh Shandilya in ‘Socha na Tha’. Tell us about the experience.

Sandesh is a very talented composer. He gave me my first break in ‘Socha na Tha’. He was also the music director of my next film ‘Chameli’. Working with him for these two films was an enriching experience. After that we also worked on an album titled ‘Ustad and Divas’ with Sultan Khan saab, Shreya Goshal, Sunidhi Chauhan and more. We are very close friends now and working with him has always been amazing. When I joined the industry I was not aware about how the industry functions and did not know much about the process as to how a song is created etc. All that I learnt during my initial days and this is because of Sandesh and I am deeply indebted to him.

How does it feel when your work is compared with Javed Akhtar or Gulzar?

Javed saab and Gulzar saab are legends. Both of them have done such a wide variety of work in their respective careers. I am nowhere in comparison to these ace lyricists, but still people feel that somewhere I am doing good work and being recognised for it is a very good feeling. I feel more responsible towards my work after receiving so many accolades.

Do you think infusing Urdu words gives the song a new meaning and sound?

The feeling of a song doesn’t change if you infuse Urdu or English words into it. Be it in any language the word has the same meaning so languages are no barrier. There are some situations or scenes where a lyricist feels that a particular word should be used. If it’s a modern song picturised in a UK disco then we have to use English words for it. The words and feel of a song all depend on the situations and characters.

Whenever a song becomes successful, it’s the singer and music director who receive the most recognition. Do you agree?

Somewhere I feel it’s true, but not always. If a lyricist is penning good songs for every movie he does get recognition eventually. There are lyricists who have been awarded in time. People know writers like Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri and Anand Bakshi. For audience to recognize you as an ace lyricist, one needs to work very hard and continuously make efforts to pen good lyrics.

What are your views on giving copyright credits to lyricists and composers?

I know the entire copyright issue is still on and not yet sorted, but personally I feel that the whole fraternity of writers should be getting due credit for their work. It is us who are writing and creating something so copyrights should belong with us.

Which are your upcoming projects?

I have a film tentatively titled ‘Cocktail’ featuring Deepika Padukone and Saif Ali Khan. Apart from that I am also working on films like ‘Ranjhana’ of Anand Rai, ‘Once Upon a Time Again’, Divya Kumar’s untitled directorial and the Hindi version of Rajnikanth’s  ‘Kochadiyaan’.

What kind of songs have been penned for ‘Kochadiyaan’?

I have penned all the tracks of the film which is in Tamil but it is simultaneously being made in Hindi. The story is a period romantic so the tracks have been penned keeping in mind the romantic taste of the film along with a hint of epoch.