‘Lyrics By Sameer’ by Sameer Anjaan and Shuja Ali: Back stories of hit songs

Rakesh Chopra

There are music lovers who do not just enjoy a song but take pains to know who sang it, which film it featured in, who wrote it and who composed it. Then there are those who even want to know how a particular song came to be, the stories behind its making. The book, ‘Lyrics by Sameer’, is for the latter variety.

The book chronicles 50 hit songs written by lyricist Sameer in the 1990s and 2000s and recounts how they germinated and, going through various processes, became finished products.

The Eighties was an era of action films till ‘Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak’ bucked the trend. The Aamir Khan-Juhi Chawla starrer brought a breath of fresh air to the film industry and its music did wonders. Love stories once again were in vogue.

Sameer, the son of veteran lyricist Anjaan, had been writing songs for quite some time till ‘Dil’ happened in 1990 and gave him his first major hit in ‘Mujhe neend na aaye, mujhe chain na aaye’. Next came ‘Aashiqui’, a film woven around a bunch of songs written by Sameer and composed by Nadeem-Shravan. ‘Nazar ke saamne jigar ke pass’ from the film brought Sameer his first Filmfare trophy. With ‘Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahi’ and ‘Saajan’, Sameer stamped his authority on the film scene as far as romantic numbers were concerned.

The book is replete with interesting anecdotes. One such incident is that while ‘Phool Aur Kaante’ was being made, director Kuku Kohli was asked by music composer Nadeem if he could bring the hero for the next music session. One day, Kohli entered the room along with an average-looking young man who looked nervous. He introduced the man as Ajay Devgn. Nadeem got upset and immediately left the room. He said that if this was the hero of the film, then he could not make the music. But the director assured the composer that the man had potential. The movie went on to be a big draw at the box office and its song, ‘Maine pyar tumhi se kiya hai’, was a chartbuster.

Then there is the story of how filmmaker Mukul Anand wanted him to write a grand patriotic song for his film ‘Dus’. When he, along with composers Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, presented the song ‘Suno gaur se duniya walo, buri nazar na humpe dalo’ to Mukul, he loved it so much that he announced that while the budget of the film was Rs 6 crore, he would allocate Rs 8 crore only for this song. But destiny had other plans. One morning, Mukul passed away following cardiac arrest and the film was shelved. T-Series, the producers of the film, turned the song into an album. The song was shot with a small budget on Juhu beach.

It is not that Sameer always wrote good poetry. He pandered to the public taste and even wrote meaningless lyrics like ‘Main to raste se ja raha tha, main to bhelpuri kha raha tha’. With producers making a beeline for his door, Sameer became so prolific that soon his name featured in the Guinness Book for writing the maximum number of songs.

In this book, Sameer has narrated innumerable incidents behind his successful songs. Co-author Shuja Ali has presented them in such a way that it makes for interesting reading.

I relate more to the music made till the Eighties but there are some songs of the present era that have the old-world charm. One such melody is ‘Tere naam humne kiya hai jeevan apna saara sanam’. Music director Himesh Reshammiya put his heart and soul into the composition. No prizes for guessing who wrote it.