“It was wonderful composing a song like Awargi for Raisinghani vs Raisinghani” – Nikhil Kamath

As a composer, Nikhil Kamath has worked on several successful films and non-film projects over the years. As a part of the composer duo Nikhil – Vinay, Nikhil composed for films like ‘Bewafa Sanam’, ‘English Babu Desi Mem’, ‘Tum Bin’, ‘Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam’ and ‘Phir Milenge’, and non-film albums like ‘Shikhar’, ‘Jaan’ and ‘Hasrat’. For more than 15 years, Nikhil has been working independently as a composer and has composed several soulful melodies. ‘Awargi’, a romantic number composed by him, has featured in ‘Raisinghani vs Raisinghani’, one of the most popular shows in the streaming space.

In the last few years, you worked on a few web shows. ‘Raisinghani vs Raisinghani’ has been the biggest project you have done in the streaming space.

Yes! ‘Raisinghani vs Raisinghani’ has been one of the biggest web series launched by Sony LIV. They wanted a song that would show the commitment made by the characters played by Jennifer Winget and Karan Wahi. They have had an on-off relationship. Sometimes, they care for each other and at times, they have a fight or argument over something. Now, Virat (Karan Wahi) wants to be fully committed to Anushka (Jennifer Winget). The team wanted a song which would have a strong melody and good lyrics. Bhavna Sresth, who is the showrunner of the series, got in touch with me. She told me that they were looking for a soulful melody. When I went to the office of SoBo Films, I met her and Anuradha Tewari, who is the writer of the show. They wanted a song which would gel properly with the narrative of the series. I played some of my melodies to them. They loved this particular song. I worked very hard on polishing the song. The song has three antaras. The team said Karan plays a mature character and we need a heroic voice for him. I suggested a few names. They were keen on getting Aditya (Narayan) to sing the song. I got in touch with his mother Deepa (Narayan) ji. I sent her a scratch. After a while, I received a message from Aditya. He agreed to sing the song.

Years back, Aditya had sung the title song of ‘Papa The Great’ for you. He was a child then. How was it working with him this time around?

When Aditya arrived for the recording, he was thoroughly prepared. He got every expression in the song right. He did a brilliant job with the song. He is a very focussed and committed professional. He is an extremely versatile singer. When he was a child, he would grasp things quickly. Even now, he has that quality. The entire team at Sony LIV, including Akash and Smita Ghosh, loved the final track.

When Vinay Tiwari and you started your career in the ‘90s as composers, one of the first projects you took up was a TV show. After that, you did the title track of several other TV shows. Now, with you doing a song for a web series like ‘Raisinghani vs Raisinghani’, life has come full circle for you.

Yes, ‘Jockey’, which was a Marathi TV show, was one of the first projects Vinay and I worked on. After that, we worked on a few other TV shows like ‘Thoda Hai Thode Ki Zaroorat Hai’ and ‘Teacher’.

Did you face any challenges while putting together this track?

Not at all! When I presented the track, they loved the melody. They just wanted the lyrics to be changed as per the story or narrative of the show. They told me that there is a lot of techno music around these days and they would prefer to have a song which is driven by acoustic instruments and sounds soothing to the ears. When we wanted to record the song, Aditya was not in Mumbai. However, as soon as he came back, he dubbed the song for me. Anuraadha Tewari, Bhavna Sresth and Smita Ghosh were the main pillars of this project. We recorded the track at 7 Sonik Studio which belongs to my friend Pranil More. He is a brilliant programmer. The song has some very good lyrics written by Vimal Kashyap. I am grateful to the entire team at Sobo Films and Sony LIV, including the producers Harvindar Arorra and Smruti Sushilkumar Shinde, for making the entire process so smooth and comfortable for me. I would also like to mention Kush Kaushal. He was the production head and ensured I had all the resources I needed while putting together this track. 

These days, one gets to listen to more music as a lot of web shows have songs as well.

Yes, I think it is a very positive trend. I had not done too many projects in this space. It was wonderful composing a song like ‘Awargi’ for ‘Raisinghani vs Raisinghani’. After working on this project, my confidence has gone up. Now, I am looking forward to doing a lot more work in the streaming space. I realized people making web shows are looking for songs that would have strong recall value. I would love to provide them with such songs.