Amit Trivedi on 15 years of Dev.D: Thought it would be my first and last film
As the film clocks 15 years today, composer Amit Trivedi shares how he wasn't sure of how the soundtrack would be received, forget the cult status.
He debuted in Bollywood in 2008 with Aamir and the soundtrack of Dev.D (2009) put Amit Trivedi on the map. Besides earning a cult status, the album won the composer a National Film Award. As Dev.D clocks 15 years today, Trivedi tells us, “I never thought it will become this big, cult status toh door-door tak nahin. In fact, I thought it would be my first and last film because it was completely opposite of what was going on in the film music space back then. I am glad I was wrong.”
Talking about the most difficult song from the album, Trivedi adds, “The most challenging, yet fun song was Emosanal Attyachar. It was challenging because I had never done a song with a raw wedding brass band, but once I cracked it, it was fun. I had around 12 members from a brass band in Bandra (Mumbai) record with me. We were in the studio the entire day and recorded till late night.”
Trivedi says he was “overwhelmed” with the kind of love and work that came his way after the success of Dev.D’s soundtrack. “It definitely put me on the map,” says Trivedi, adding, “Dev.D completely changed my life. The album means the world to me. I still perform a lot of its songs on stage and they receive so much love. It was a game-changer for me and there was no looking back for me after its release." Other songs from the film that did well include Pardesi, Nayan Tarse and Duniya.
Director Anurag Kashyap's Dev.D, which featured Abhay Deol, was a modern take on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's classic Bengali novel Devdas, which was previously adapted for the big screen by filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali in 2002, featuring Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Madhuri Dixit Nene.
