Mera number kab aayega?(baabul)

Baabul's album is released, but without Big B's theme song which he has composed and sung. Who has goofed up?

The Baabul title song is unarguably Amitabh Bachchan's most poignant number ever. The irony is, what's possibly the Big B's career's best song is missing frofsm the album. In the album, the song has been rendered by Jagjit Singh, much to Bachchan's surprise.

A strange state of affairs since AB has even composed the song and took time off to record it too.

Curiously Bhooshan Kumar of T-Series, the company that has released the Baabul album, has no knowledge of the Big B's contribution to the theme song of the film. "Has Amitji really composed the number? I wasn't aware of this. All I know is that he has sung the number. I believe Aadesh Shrivastava recorded it last week. We've only released the music that was given to us by the producers. And that contains Jagjit Singh's theme song. We were told that Amitji will dub the song later and that we should add it in the second edition of the music. I have no more information," he says.

But why the rush to release the music? "BR Films and Ravi Chopra had an event planned. The music release had to coincide with that," explains Bhooshan.

Aadesh Srivastava, music director of Baabul, admits the whole rush-release has created an awkward situation. He says, "Jagjit Singh did ask me what was the arrangement. I explained to him that there are two distinct versions of the theme song. Each time Amitji comes on screen we'll be playing his version, other times we'll play Jagjit Singh's version."

Will the Big B be credited for his song? "He doesn't want any credit. He simply loves creating music with me. In fact we'll soon be doing a whole album of UP folks songs together. Amitji told me, 'Aadesh, let's get together and freak out.'"

I can wait to watch this film