Mithoon is a total music composer. He can sing, he can play instruments and he writes lyrics as well. Out there in the West, this multi-talented lad would have been whamming out as an independent solo artiste or banging heads with his bros in a band, making the crowd run wild in a concert. In India, barring a few exceptions, most talented musicians take the Bollywood route to fame. It’s a crowded highway, perpetually jammed, where emotions run riot and fellow commuters happily run you over in order to cut lanes and jump ahead. But if you don’t mind the bumps and the road rage, you do get richly rewarded for your persistence. Mithoon, who has completed 15 years in the industry has been enjoying the journey. He asserts he believes in living in the moment. According to him, everything is a phase. One goes through different phases which help one grow. At the same time, he cautions that knowledge without application doesn’t tantamount to anything. “I learnt something about myself during my lean phase and used it to make myself better. What I’m saying is that learn to enjoy the moment but keep moving forward. That’s the key to happiness.”
If you feel Mithoon is going all Rumi on you, you’ve hit the philosophical jackpot because Sufi thought has been a big influence on his life and music. He’s grown up reading books on Sufism and loves listening to Sufi music. “I’m like a butterfly who’s exploring every area of the garden,” he quips. He’s not throwing a random quote at you but is someone who actually leads such a life. “People keep asking me how I survived during the lockdown. For me, it wasn’t anything different from what I do. Even when things were normal, I was always inside my studio, creating, exploring stuff. Instead of a studio, I was in my house now doing the same thing. It didn’t feel anything different.” He says technological advances have helped people remain focussed in their disciplines. He’s even heard of people editing shows right from their homes. “So if that can be done, music can certainly be made from home. And that’s what I was doing. In fact, these months have been spent most creatively as everyone was at home so we could all exchange ideas freely and collaborate.” He lives with his parents and even otherwise is a homebound lad, who loves spending time with his family rather than go out clubbing. So in a sense, he got to spend more time with them. “Some people may call my life boring. But I genuinely believe in the comfort, the safety of the family. Your parents are the ones who love you the most and trust me, everyone realises it sooner or later. And this lockdown has helped people realise it better. It was something I’ve always believed in.” Mithoon’s father, Naresh Sharma, is the younger brother of Pyarelal of the Laxmikant-Pyarelal duo. His father was a famous arranger himself though he never branched out as an independent composer. Mithoon remembers his father’s pride and joy when he won the Filmfare Best Music Director trophy for Aashiqui 2 (Along with Jeet Ganguly and Ankit Tiwari) in 2014. “My father is a musician’s musician. Everybody in the industry knows him but he never won recognition among the masses. Never won an award for his contribution. So my award that night was his award.”
He adds he doesn’t have many friends. And his idea of spending time with the few friends he has, doesn’t include going on drinking binges with them. Whenever he meets them, they just yak till the cows come home. He stayed in touch with them over the phone. He’s an old soul who still likes to call people. And isn’t on Whatsapp even now. He misses writing letters, saying that we’ve lost the art of articulating our thoughts through pen and paper. “Earlier, people used to cultivate friendships, even love affairs through letters. Nowadays, people are in a hurry to get a reply the next moment. I’ve even heard that it has led to divorces. It’s crazy.”
He reveals he composed the entire music of Khuda Hafiz, the Vidyut Jammwal actioner, which recently released on OTT, from home. He was able to compose tunes, interact with his session musicians and singers, as also his fellow lyricist Sayeed Quadri, in much the same manner as earlier. Skype and email were a big help. “The only thing missing was sharing that cup of chai during breaks, where we get to bond a bit more. Nothing can replace human interaction. That warmth was certainly missing,” he reflects. The film got appreciated for its music. Normally, action films don’t need music per se. But the project was sold to him as a romantic love story where the music would be part of the narrative. That’s the reason he took up the project. Mithoon feels songs shouldn’t serve as bathroom breaks. They should be there for a reason and claims that he’s never taken a project where music acted as a filler. “The film’s leads are normal middle-class people who get separated and have to experience all kinds of hardships in the course of their love. The songs reflect their journey,”
he assesses.
The project gave him the opportunity to work with Sonu Nigam, who has sung the song Aakhri kadam tak, in the film. Mithoon holds Sonu in high esteem and says he’d been waiting to come up with the right tune for the singer. His Sufi-consciousness again comes to play here as he reflects that it’s the tune which chooses a singer. “This particular tune felt just right for Sonu’s voice. And when I approached him, he too felt it was something special and immediately agreed. I’ve never approached him these past fifteen years and was waiting for the right moment.” Inspiration aside, surely other forces are at play as well when it comes to deciding singers. The director, the producer, even the music company might want to have a say in it. While Mithoon does agree that such pressures might exist, he says he’s been fortunate enough to escape them so far. “All my directors, be it Faruk Kabir, who directed Khuda Haafiz or Mohit Suri, with whom I’ve worked the most, have never put any kind of pressure on me. In fact, they’ve given me extensive creative leeway.” He’s a good enough singer to have sung all the songs he composed. Mithoon says he’s not greedy for such things. He reiterates that he’s committed to using the best voice for a tune and has always worked towards that. “I sang Ji huzoori from Ki And Ka on director Balki’s insistence. He wanted to listen to the song and I just sang it for him. Balki liked it and said I should think about recording it in my voice. At that point of time, I didn’t have a singer in mind, but if I had, I would have gone with my earlier choice,” he insists.
He states that he never works with a set template and points out that he got many offers to recreate Maula mere maula from Anwar (2007) after the song became a hit but he rejected them all. He says there’s no fun in repeating a tune. He understands that’s how this industry works. That people want to replicate something that has worked. He knows there are people who do it but so far he has avoided it. He’s okay with the current wave of recreating tunes, as long as it’s done creatively. He’s remixed Woh lamhe, woh baatein from Zeher (2005) and Aadat from Kalyug (2005), which were much appreciated. More recently, he was part of the reality show Times Of Music, where he recreated VIju Shah’s Tip tip barsa paani from Mohra (1994) and Shah reciprocated by recreating Mithoon’s Tose naina lage from Anwar (2007).
“I enjoyed the process because I was working with someone who had originally created the tune. I feel that’s how it should be, ideally when it comes to song recreations,” he points out.
Another trend which has the purists fuming is having a multi-composer, multi-lyricist film album. Mithoon surprisingly has no complaints with it. In fact, he was part of the successful soundtrack album of Kabir Singh, where he had written and composed Tujhe kitna chahne lage, sung by Arijit Singh. He even won the Filmfare Award (along with other composers Sachet-Parampara, Vishal Mishra, Akhil Sachdeva and Amaal Mallik) for his efforts. Mithoon feels it’s the director’s call how well to use the talent at his disposal. “Did you ever feel that Kabir Singh’s music wasn’t given by one person? As long as the director has a singularity of vision, a multi-composer set-up will deliver the goods, as it did in the case of Kabir Singh. Director Sandeep Reddy Vanga was able to extract our best and make it work as a whole,” reveals Mithoon. He mentions that they all worked in isolation and came to know much later that other composers were involved. “We didn’t brainstorm or anything but worked individually on our tunes. And it should be that way because everyone has their own unique style of working.” True that.
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