Manoj Muntashir: Find your heroes to find success

Manoj Muntashir appears to make a reference to his own life when he says ldquoIf yoursquore a pure artiste it may take 10 years for you to find fame in Bollywood par phir aapke din nahin aapka daur aayegardquo Having come into the spotlight after his work on Ek Villian in 2014 the Teri mitti writer has grown from strength to strength establishing his foothold in Bollywood He connects with midday for a conversation after his recent National Award win for SainaEdited excerpts from the interviewLooking back at your work on this project what do you think was among its most defining factorsThe music took five years to make I have to thank Amaal Malik who was determined to make this his most defining work Also you would imagine that a man like Bhushan Kumar who produces 50 films at a time would possibly not be able to invest his time in small things but he will sit in on meetings of each song and will pin point every word if needed Finally Amol Gupte gave me such a brief of Sainarsquos Nehwal life that it helped me in my process If you hear the track Parinda it doesnrsquot have details of her life it is a portrayal of her attitude towards life and reflects that she didnrsquot want to be part of one small page in history books but wanted to make history I thought about how I would feel if I was Saina And thatrsquos how all great artistes work They either live like the character or create one I have been lucky to have worked on stories of reallife people in a major chunk of my projects and they give me an idea of how I should approach the music At the onset of my career when Irsquod write for Kaun Banega Crorepati both for Mr Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan I would think about how they would speak in those situationsAlso Read Manoj Muntashir Priyanka Chopra Jonas has the fire conviction to play roleWhen you look back at the beginning of your career in this industry what was your approach to writing 20 years agoI was heavily inspired by Sahir Ludhianvi among others Having a role model can set you off in the right direction I have seen youngsters saying that they donrsquot wish to follow writers or practices in films but if you do not have a hero a certain frame you canrsquot fill a picture in it If you donrsquot study the basics you canrsquot sit for the medical examination and these role models help you easily learn the basics As soon as we stop getting influenced by the works of the greats we will start digging our own grave I also think there was a seed of writing in me If yoursquore not a born writer nothing in this world can make you one Do something else and you can still succeed After a lot of introspection I knew that words support me and I can articulate subjects Finally I think itrsquos important to reiterate the importance of reading Bank mein agar paise nahin daloge toh nikaloge kya Aur yeh roz ki sadhana hai You have to wake up each day with the aim of creating something that outlives you I am glad that with Saina being awarded it is good music that has been recognisedLooking back at your career what have been the defining milestones for youI donrsquot think one song can define you Often you may write something that you think may be great but it may elicit no response But you need to keep writing well If I still have to point a few out Irsquod say Galliyan was a defining one After that song people appreciated the fact that there was someone in the industry who was writing in that way From there I got a lot of work Tere sang yaara was another important song in which Akshay Kumar and producer Neeraj Pandey allowed me to use lyrics that were poetic even though they were using the song in a commercial film and needed the track to be a defining one Irsquom fortunate that they gave me that chance For a while our industry has harboured the notion that femaleled songs donrsquot do well even though we have legendary female singers in India At such a time the fact that I got to use the femaleled track Kaun tujhe as the crux of MS Dhoni was special Phir bhi tumko chaahunga was a track that had been penned 15 years ago People rejected it until it was finally accepted But finally it is Teri mitti that really revolutionised my life People saw me as someone who was more than just a writer After it did well people would touch my feet and I would feel ashamed and ask them to not do that Theyrsquod say that they werenrsquot bowing down to me but to the talent that wrote itAlso Read Manoj Muntashir With Parineeti Choprarsquos expressions the lori has come aliveWhat about the importance of poetry in cinematic music do you think people are not identifyingEveryone loves poetry even if they donrsquot know it It is in the DNA of this soil People are mistaken to assume that the young generation doesnrsquot enjoy poetry Look at my followers ndash I have 55 million followers on the internet Who uses the internet The young generation does Poets like to ignore this huge audience because they think kids donrsquot like poetry But thatrsquos wrong I realised that poets have just not delivered to them something thatrsquos of their interestCan you tell us whatrsquos in the pipelineIrsquoll talk about three of them The first is Vikram Vedha Irsquove penned the dialogues and the songs and it has VishalShekharrsquos music Then therersquos Maidaan which has been beautifully made It marks my first collaboration with AR Rahman and I am so excited about it I am also very excited about Adipurush which is the story of Ram it has been narrated several times in India and there is always an audience for it With Prabhas as Ram Kriti Sanon as Sita and the music of Ajay Atul this is something to look forward to