Saurabh Shukla turns lyricist

Since songwriter Amitabh Bhattacharya was busy, the actor penned track for debut film Pappu Can’t Dance Saala. Saurabh Shukla, who for the first time ventures into making a full-fledged entertainment film with Pappu Can’t Dance Saala, has also penned a song Abhimani Maan… for it.

Actor-screenplay writer, Saurabh Shukla, who for the first time ventures into making a full-fledged entertainment film with Pappu Can’t Dance Saala, has also penned a song

HT Image

Abhimani Maan…

for it. “Amitabh Bhattacharya has written most of the songs. Later, a situation in the film demanded a song, which I planned to shoot in Varanasi. I desperately needed the song, but by then, Amitabh was busy with some other projects, so he requested me to take someone else on board for it,” says Shukla.

It was in the process of conceptualising the brief of the song, that Shukla hit upon the lyrics. “I showed them to music composer, Malhar and he just grabbed it without any changes. That's how I accidentally became a lyricist,” says Shukla, who who has written films like Satya (1998) and Salaam-E-Ishq (2007).

“I am a writer and I keep experimenting with different forms of writing. I am primarily a screenplay writer, but have ventured into other faculties of writing too. I have written poems earlier and even lyrics, but I never claimed that I am a professional lyricist,” adds Shukla who has made films like Mudda:The Issue (2003), Chehraa (2005) and Raat Gayi, Baat Gayi? (2009).

Pappu Can’t Dance Saala is a light comedy, starring Neha Dhupia, Vinay Pathak The story revolves around a man who comes to Mumbai from Varanasi and finds it difficult to adjust to a place away from his city that’s rich with cultural heritage.

“My films are character-driven, instead of being plot-based. We all come from different backgrounds and keep justifying our background and rejecting other’s. Your initial resistance towards accepting the culture of the city creates a human drama,” says Shukla, adding, “The most appreciable trait of the city is how beautifully it adopts you and makes you a Mumbaikar. That’s what comes across in the film quite strongly. In a very subtle way, that’s the underlying message of the film.