Akshay Kumar Hogs Credit For Viju Shah’s Song(And What About Viju Shah, Raveena?)

It’s a fiercely patriarchal entertainment industry in India, no doubts on that score.Akshay Kumar who 19 years ago serenaded Raveena Tandon in the rains with the Viju Shah composition Tip tip barsa pani, is back at it, this time with Katrina Kaif.

Same rains, same song, same hero. Different heroine. In a different-coloured saree. Must be original even when immersed in imitative desecration.

Akshay’s gleeful tweet announced, “I would’ve definitely been disappointed if any other actor would’ve recreated Tip Tip Barsa Paani,a song which has been synonymous with me & my career & I can’t thank Ratan Jain ji enough. At times like these you realize,we may have come a long way but we also go back a long way.”

The ever-alert social media users were quick to point out that the song is remembered to this day for Raveena Tandon’s sensuous moves in a clingy yellow saree, and not for Akshay.

However a larger shame in this ritual of remixed vandalism is the way the original composer Viju Shah’s name and credit has been completely obliterated from the re-mix.

Quoting a source, a Mumbai tabloid announced, “The reprised version is composed by Tanishq Bagchi while Farah Khan has come on board to choreograph Akshay and Katrina’s moves.”

I don’t know who this ill-informed source is. But Tip tip barsa pani is NOT composed by Tanishq Bagchi. It was composed by Viju Shah, the son of the legendary composer Kalyanji of Kalyanji-Anandji fame.

Kalyanji-Anandji composed music for a majority of the films produced-directed by movie moghul Gulshan Rai and his son director Rajiv Rai.Mohra being a film about the young , needed a peppy score.

Here is where Viju Shah stepped in place of his father Kalyanji and uncle Anandji.

The entire sound design and the way the composition was conceived and executed was done by Viju . Then why are others claiming to have ‘composed’ the song?

Speaking of the blatant copyright infringement iconic lyricist Javed Akhtar had said in another context , “This has to stop.And I’ve taken the legal recourse in the past.I had sent legal notices to the people responsible for doing this to the song Ghar se nikalte hi from the film Papa Kehte Hai. Unfortunately Anand Bakshi Saab (who wrote Tip tip barsa pani) is not around any more to protest against this kind of desecration. Today they change the lyrics well-known songs. What is to stop them from changing the lyrics of Ae mere watan ke logon, the patriotic classic that has the nation weeping, may make us weep in another way altogether if, God forbid, they decide that poet Pradeep’s immortal lines need updating and revalidation. This is sheer vandalism.”