Ram Gopal Varma says Gulzar messed up ‘Satya’ lyrics

When it was first released in 1998, ‘Satya’ became a rare example of a Hindi movie that wasn’t designed with song and dance sequences in mind, as per Bollywood tradition. Although the gangster drama did end up having a handful of musical interludes, they were shot in an unfussy manner, barring one. On the film’s 25th anniversary, director Ram Gopal Varma recalled a humorous anecdote about the film’s music, particularly the song ‘Goli Maar’.

Asked how he got the legendary Gulzar to write lyrics in the ‘tapori language’, RGV confessed in an interview with a famed entertainment news portal that he wasn’t impressed by the icon’s work and after a point, he stopped paying attention to the lyrics completely.

“Gulzar scre**d it up,” the filmmaker said. Manoj Bajpayee, who was also a part of the interview, turned red in embarrassment, as he said, “That’s Ramu for you.”

RGV said, “For me, Vishal Bhardwaj gave one lyric, which was much better than what Gulzar saab wrote. I told Vishal, ‘Vishal, Gulzar saab scre**d it up. I don’t think this is nice’.” Sitting next to each other, Manoj Bajpayee and Shefali Shah gasped. But RGV continued, undeterred, “Now, obviously, Gulzar saab is such a senior writer. Who’s going to tell him that?”

The filmmaker proceeded to sing the line that Vishal Bhardwaj had written for the song, which he preferred and said, “He wrote, ‘Gham ke neeche bamb laga ke rum udaa de’, which, till today, I believe is a better line, even after the song became a blockbuster hit. Gulzar saab when I told him the story of ‘Satya’, his first reaction was, ‘Oh my, so many people died.’ That was his only reaction.”

RGV wasn’t satisfied with a lyric that went, ‘Geela geela paani (wet wet water)’. “I don’t remember, maybe it was Anurag Kashyap who said, ‘But paani is geela. What is geela paani?’ So, to counter it, we told him that ‘geela paani’ Vishal has already written for Maachis and the word has been used in songs already. ‘So, one more will come. What’s the problem?’ Gulzar said, which is also true.”

Ultimately, RGV decided that Gulzar has more wisdom and experience in the field of poetry, so he stopped resisting. “Technically, many of the lyrics I didn’t hear. I didn’t understand. But they sound nice and it’s okay. That’s what a song should be,” he concluded, as Manoj once again hid his face.