MUMBAI: Hailing from the golden era of Bollywood, music composer duo, Kalyanji Anandji, were renowned for composing some of the best melodies like ‘O Saathi Re’, ‘Zindagi Ka Safar’ and ‘Mera Jeevan Kora Kagaz’, among many others. Recently, Anandji launched the CD which was a compilation of the best songs by the duo. According to him, when they started their careers, they were not scrutinised by the media, as there was less access to musicians, unlike today.

Then, we could go to the studio and without caring too much about our appearance as we were rarely seen on television. We were relaxed as we did not have media scrutiny. But now people become stars overnight. People hardly knew us by our faces then,” said Anandji. Talking about the changes witnessed in the industry he said, “Everything changes with time, including our language and our music. Today lyricists get a hold of hook lines. The songs are more like ‘lipstick lagale and plastic lagale’ and people like that. Now music is only made for people to dance. Songs are forgotten very easily,” he added.

For Kalyanji Anandji, music direction was like falling in love. “We did not take very long to compose music as the process was all about inspiration.” In his opinion, today, the young talents in the industry do not have the opportunity to showcase good work, and forcibly cater to the demands made by the industry. Reminiscing about his days of composing, Anandji elucidated, “When we composed, each song was a challenge and it was like passing an exam. We had to innovate constantly as producers and directors would keep us on our feet.”

The music composer duo also had a troupe called ‘Little Wonders’ who trained singers like Sunidhi Chauhan, Palak Muchhal and Aditya Narayan. “If you hear Sunidhi or any singers trained classically, they not only have great vocal skills, but proper pronunciations as well. Today, singers do not do their riyaaz and their pronunciations are pathetic,” he said. According to him, in order to become a good singer, you need to listen to a lot of music.