“It’s Quite Normal For Composers To  Seek Inputs From His Team,” Ram Gopal Varma

Ram Gopal Varma  refuses  to  take back his words regarding singer Sukhwinder’s  hand in the  composing  of  the Oscar-winning song Jai Ho .

“Why  would I  speak about something  I had nothing to do with  unless I was sure of what  I was saying?” Ramu reasons.

Although singer Sukhwinder  has denied Ram Gopal Varma’s  claim that the Oscar-winning song Jai Ho was ghost-composed by  Sukhwinder and not A R Rahman, Ram Gopal Varma stands by his statement.

“Of course what  I  said is true. It was Sukhwinder who did the tune initially. Even  Chaiyya  chaiyya  in  Dil Se  was  originally  Sukhwinder’s idea. I will tell you  the exact chronology  of what  happened. When Rahman gave the tune to Subhash Ghai(for the film Yuvraj) Ghai  rejected it  angrily saying he doesn’t pay  Rahman in crores for such tunes. To this, Rahman replied that Ghai pays for Rahman’s name,and not his output. It is true that  celebrated composers give their signature stamp  and their names  to  a tune  for it to become  famous. If it were not for the master’s stamp  no one would notice  a product. A  song or for that matter  a film, has many creative people behind it.In my Satya there was Anurag Kashyap’s contribution. I can’t  pinpoint  and say this or that is   his contribution.”

Coming back to the song Jai ho  Ramu says, “Rahman was on the way to the studio  for the song recording . He was late,so he asked Sukhwinder  to start warming up. When Rahman reached the  studio, he heard  Sukhwinder fooling around on the mike. Rahman liked what he  heard  and incorporated  it into  Jai ho. As  simple as that. There is  no duplicity in this,  no creative infringement , nothing of the sort.  Like  I said, it is common practice for composers’ team to provide  inputs, sometimes  whole song is  by some assistant, or  a singer  or  the lyricst.A  finished product is not about who did it first, but who packaged it and whose name  finally goes out on the  product into the market .”