It was a 'chowkidaar’s’ late night rounds that inspired the philosophy behind 3 Idiots and its music. In the area where director Rajkumar Hirani lived, in his hometown Nagpur, a watchman would walk around the entire night to ensure the safety of residents. “He would hit his stick on the ground and shout out ‘Jaagte raho’”, remembers Hirani. “And occasionally, just so that everyone slept peacefully, he would shout out ‘All is well!’”

Simple philosophy
“But of course, robberies would still take place when we slept, but at least we slept in peace,” Hirani smiles. “That formed the basic philosophy of the movie and our title song — that even if there are problems in life, just fool your heart into thinking that all is well, so you can face the situation more bravely.”

As the music of 3 Idiots burns the airwaves, Hirani and the composer and lyricist for his movie, Shantanu Moitra and Swanand Kirkire, are a jovial trio. “You can call us the 3 idiots,” laughs Kirkire, as the three banter over composing music with a campus feel for the ‘young’ movie. Hirani laughs, “We may look old to you, but we are all young at heart.”

“It’s a very important film for us, since this is the first time we have come up with such ‘young’ music,” says Moitra, who’s worked with Kirkire as a team on several movies before, including Hirani’s Lage Raho Munnabhai.

“The philosophy behind the music is simple because it’s about common people like you and me,” says Hirani. “That’s the brief I had given to these guys — to give it a campus and buddy feel. The entire music of the film was made with the same vibe as well.

“Shantanu would just pick the guitar and start humming during sessions when I’d discuss the script with them. I find it strange when people say ‘ek love song chahiye’ or ‘ek item number chahiye’. To create a sound that’s not heard before takes its time.”

Back to college
Creating the music for 3 Idiots was a complete team effort, and the trio reveal how the lyrics and music were born out of brainstorming sessions. “Someone would come up with an idea, and that would trigger another idea in someone else, and eventually, we’d get a song,” explains Kirkire.

“For All izz well, we heard a song that had a hen’s cock-a-doodle-do sound and from that I remember a cartoon I had seen about a chick looking at an omelette and saying, “Is that you brother?” he laughs. “That’s how the lines, ‘Murki kya jaane ande ka kya hoga? Life milegi ya tawe par fry hoga? Koi na jaane apna future kya hoga’ came up.”

Even in the rest of the song and music, the carefree attitude of the college students, and the young vibe has been exemplified by the use of whistles during songs, bisleri bottles and bowls used as percussion instruments and completely wacky lines.

“All our college music influences fused together in the songs,” says Moitra. “While Raju and Kirkire’s influences were songs like ‘Kisi ki muskurahaton pe ho nisaar’ (Anari), mine were Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel’s songs about the same thing in a different language.”

Funeral song

While Zoobi doobi and Give me some sunshine are all part of the same philosophy, the trio laugh about a song Behti hawa sa tha woh they call “Aamir’s funeral song.” Laughs Hirani, “I can’t reveal when and why the song comes in a movie, but we had a running joke about how this song will be played on all channels after Aamir dies. Aamir got so fed up that he’d say, “Kamino! Main abhi zinda hoon! Mere marne ki tayyari kyun kar rahe ho!”

“That’s the kind of fun we had during the movie,” laughs Kirkire. “You may think Vidhu or Raju or Aamir are perfectionists, but at our hearts, we are all kids, and the music of the movie has taken back to those days.”