IPS officer Murlidhar Sharma makes debut as lyricist in Bengali cop drama

KOLKATA: IPS officer Murlidhar Sharma is known for his penchant for Urdu poetry and ghazals. In fact, he has published his works too. But now, the top cop has made his debut as a lyricist for an item song in a Bengali cop drama, titled ‘Mrigaya: The Hunt’. Yes, you read that right.

Sharma, Inspector General of Police, Training, of the state police academy, has penned the lyrics for director Abhirup Ghosh’s upcoming Bengali film ‘Mrigaya’, which stars Ritwik Chakraborty, Vikram Chatterjee, Anirban Chakrabarti and Saurav Das. The song, titled ‘Shor Machaa’ has been sung by Sunidhi Chauhan and Rana Mazumder.

An IPS officer, Sharma’s passion lies in Urdu ghazals but he never thought of penning lyrics for movies, especially an item song. It was Mazumder, also the music director of the film, who convinced him to write the lyrics in Hindi. The Bengali portions of the songs are written by Kolkata Police OC Debasis Datta and Aatish Bhattacharya. Interestingly, Datta has also written the story of ‘Mrigaya’. Another Kolkata Police official Pallab Malakar is involved in writing the screenplay too.

“I developed a passion for Urdu ghazals even before I became a cop. I have also written two books, one which is yet to be published. When the music director approached me and said if I can write an item number, my answer was no. I have never written any song for a movie before. I told him I can pen a ghazal. Later, he narrated the situation of the song and somehow I could relate it to as a cop as the film is about them,” said Sharma.