Music composer Debojyoti Mishra loves being in the thick of the action. After a stint in London's Royal School of Music, he trained under the tutelage of stalwarts like K.C. Bandopadhyay and Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, worked closely with Salil Chowdhury, played the violin for several of Satyajit Ray's later films like Ghare Baire and Ganashatru, assisted Chennai music director Ilayaraja for a couple of years and composed for a Govind Nihalani film (Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa). Of late, he has been a regular fixture on the credit rolls of Rituparno Ghosh's National Award-winning cinematic essays. And now, the Kolkata-based composer has crossed a boundary that no other Indian has ever done. He is scoring the music for a Pakistani film. It was the magic of a single song in Rituparno Ghosh's first Hindi-language film, Raincoat, that clinched the deal for Mishra. The number: Mathura nagarpati. The singer: Shubha Mudgal. When Pakistani filmmaker Mehreen Jabbar heard the composition and its rendition, she instantly knew that her search for a music director for her film Ramchand Pakistani had ended. Mishra was soon on board. Mails flew thick and fast between the Indian musician and the Pakistani filmmaker, as they lobbed ideas at each other and mulled over the finer points of the theme. "I had to read the script first. I believe in getting a feel of a film before I set about composing the music. Mehreen's script is excellent. There isn't any excessive sentimentalism, but at the same time it is very sensitive and evocative," says the 44-year-old. Jabbar's film, which will open in September, revolves around a Pakistani father and son who stray into India and are imprisoned. The emotional crisis that the family undergoes and the trauma of the child, who has no recollections of his mother, form the focal point of the film. Mishra was so riveted by the story that he was in Karachi within a month of the first telephone call from Mehreen to work on the blueprint of the musical score. "The film has no lip-synced songs, so the music is almost like a Greek chorus, blending in and out of the frame like a character artist," he says. He has roped in veteran singers like Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan and Shubha Mudgal to lend their voices to his compositions. Talks are also on with Abida Parveen, but no headway has been made so far. "Mehreen was pretty clear about what she wanted. She had a construction and I provided the embellishments. She wanted the music to have a global feel and I gave her sounds that aren't heard too often—music made by using instruments like the bouzouki, saaz, udh, cello and viola," says Mishra. There's also a chamber orchestra in the film, but Mishra says it's a simple earthy affair, despite the variety of instruments he has employed in it. A few years ago, Delhi-based Sufi singer Madan Gopal Singh had composed a part of the music for Sabiha Sumar's talked-about Khamosh Paani. Ramchand Pakistani is, however, the only Pakistani cinematic venture to have its entire score composed by an Indian. But Mishra is no stranger to big projects and even bigger names. The biggest influence on his life and work has, of course, been his decade-long association with Salil Chowdhury. "My love for music was bred by my father, but Salilda was the one who shaped my vision," says Mishra. His association with filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh goes back several years. Mishra had done the music for a couple of television serials directed by Ghosh, so it was only natural that he would compose for his films as well. Beginning with Dahan, that won him the Best Music Director trophy at the Bengal Film Journalists' Association awards, Mishra went on to compose for Bariwali, Utsab, Titli, Shubho Muhurat, Chokher Bali, Raincoat and Dosar. "Ritu has a great understanding of music, so our debates go on and on. When we work on a project we are like two friends—we fight, we argue, we sulk and then we get back and work hard to do the best we can for the project," laughs Mishra, who is just back from Cannes, where two of his films—Ghosh's Dosar and debutante director Bhavna Talwar's Dharm—were screened.
Mishra's next project will be a marked departure from his earlier work in 'serious' films. He's doing an entire lip-synced song routine for Malayali director Blessy's upcoming venture, Calcutta News. "I am dangerously young. If I don't experiment now, I'll never be able to break out of the mould," he says.
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