“I feel honoured when my songs get recreated” – Nikhil Kamath

Recreating old songs is a commonly followed trend these days. Recently, composer Nikhil Kamath witnessed two of his classic melodies being released in a new avatar. These two songs, ‘Achcha Sila Diya Tune’ and ‘Tum Bin’, were originally created by Nikhil along with his erstwhile musical partner Vinay Ram Tiwari. As a duo, these two have been two of the most iconic songs created by Nikhil –Vinay. While ‘Achcha Sila Diya Tune’ is the first song to be recreated under Bitter Betrayals, a new property floated by T-Series, the title track of ‘Tum Bin’, originally sung by K.S Chithra, has been re-rendered by Paushali Sahu.

“I feel honoured when my songs get recreated. This shows the longevity of the melodies we created and serves as a testimony to the fact that they are relevant after all these years. Having said that, I think the listeners prefer the original tracks over the recreated ones. Magic is created only once and it is not possible to create the same effect by tweaking a song a little bit. When you make a 15-year-old listen to a good song that was created twenty or thirty years back, they will appreciate it”, says Nikhil.

Both ‘Achcha Sila Diya Tune’ and ‘Tum Bin’, interestingly, had very long journeys. ‘Achcha Sila Diya Tune’ was originally composed by Pakistani singer Attaullah Khan. It was one of the many songs Gulshan Kumar bought rights to when he reached out to the Pakistani singer in the early ‘90s. Nikhil – Vinay were given the responsibility to re-arrange and give a new shape to the song. 

Elaborating on the same, Nikhil says, “Nikhil – Vinay always did original music and we never lifted anybody’s tunes. T-Series had bought the rights to some of the songs by Attaullah Khan sahab. When the cassettes and CDs came out, it was clearly mentioned that the songs have been composed by Attaullah Khan sahab and rearranged by Nikhil – Vinay. While rearranging ‘Achcha Sila Diya Tune’, we changed a lot of notes keeping the sensibilities of the Indian audience in mind and presented the song to them in a new avatar.”

Nikhil has had a long-standing association with Sonu Nigam which started with ‘Achcha Sila Diya Tune’. In the following years, the composer and the singer collaborated on several films and popular non-film albums like ‘Jaan’ and ‘Yaad’. The composer have, on multiple occasions, referred to Sonu as one of his favourite singers.

Reminiscing about the early days of their association, Nikhil shares, “Amar Haldipur had made me hear some of the songs he had recorded with Sonu Nigam. At that time, Sonu had just come into the industry. I really liked his voice and the way he sung.  Even Gulshan Kumar ji believed in his talent. All of us believed that he would be the best choice for ‘Achcha Sila Diya Tune’. Working with Sonu on every song has been a memorable experience”.