Exclusive! Kishmish’s music director Nilayan Chatterjee reveals that he’s bagged Dev’s next film with Prosenjit Chatterjee

Since 2007, Nilayan Chatterjee has been associated with the radio industry playing multiple roles. He does a primetime show for a popular radio station in Kolkata and he’s currently multi-tasking as the composer and lyricist for the upcoming film Kismish, which stars Dev and Rukmini Maitra.

Kismish is directed by newcomer Rahool Mukherjee and it also stars Kharaj Mukherjee, Anjana Basu, Kamaleshwar Mukherjee, and June Maliah in pivotal roles, and Rituparna Sengupta, Jisshu Sengupta, Ankush, and Srabanti Chatterjee in cameos.

Three songs from Kishmish have been released so far and the responses from fans and the audience have been overwhelming. At the promotional events, the assembled fans are already singing the melodies, and the songs are doing pretty well in the countdown section. The first song Tui bolbo na tumi is sung by Nikita Gandhi along with another debutant vocalist Subhadeep Pan. Arijit Singh crooned out Oboseshe, a feel-good romantic number. The third song Kanna was released today, which is sung by Papon.

In a candid chat with OTTplay, Nilayan Chatterjee opens up about the experience of working with Dev, Rukmini, Arijit Singh, Papon, and other members of the team.

Excerpts

Suvo Noboborsho (Greetings for Bengali New Year), so tell us about the soundtrack of your first film, Kishmish.

Suvo Noboborsho to you as well. Kismish has four songs and I composed and wrote them all. The first one Tui bolbo na tumi is a romantic foot-tapping number and is sung by Nikita Gandhi and debutant vocalist Subhadeep Pan who’s also worked with me as an arranger for the soundtrack. Subhadeep teamed up with Soumyadip Basak and delivered an amazing arrangement for all the tracks. Subhadeep is not a regular vocalist and I knew him since he was a young adult. I tried recording this song with some other artists but I liked his tonality and rendition so I shared two options with Dev Da and the director. And they chose Subhadeep. Since I’m being introduced, I also wanted to introduce someone new into the big league (smiles). And that’s how the collaboration happened. And the second song is called Oboseshe which is crooned amazingly by Arijit Singh and the third song is called Kanna which Papon did a fantastic job with. The fourth song is another romantic number Jani naa Valo Laga naa Valobasha, and it’s sung by Sashwat Singh and Nikita Gandhi. I’m a happy man right now (smiles).

And which one is your daughter’s favourite?

I tried asking Hridaya about her favorite one but she said she likes them all and remembers each one of them by heart. And she sings them out with her gibberish verses (smiles).

The soundtrack of Kismish has already created a space for itself and the fans are going crazy about the songs. You are the man of the hour. From an RJ to a music director, I’m sure it was a fascinating journey. Tell us about it.

This fascinating journey started at my radio station itself. One fine morning, I received a call from my office that I have to create a brand-new spoof or any other funny creatives because Dev is going to be there to promote his film Password. This was back in 2019 and whenever any promotions or any other creatives happened related to music, I was the one they would end up calling. I had been doing live shows with my band as a vocalist, composer, and lyricist for a long time and they knew about it. When I asked them, what time is he coming? They said in 5 minutes and I told them that creating a spoof within 5 minutes is going to be a difficult task for me but I thought of performing an original romantic number, which is exactly opposite to what the film is about. The film is an action thriller genre (smiles). So, Dev came down to our studio with his team members and I performed this song live and he immediately started asking me about the song and who made it. That was his first question and when I replied that it's me, he asked me to give it to him (chuckles). I said sure please take it away. I have no issues.

And then nothing happened after that day. So, I stopped thinking about it. After two months, I received a call from his office and they asked me to meet a new director to discuss a project. This was during the fall of 2019.

So, this all was happening before the dreadful pandemic when things were normal?

Yes, and the pandemic ruined it all. They called me and explained the basic plot treatment and the kind of songs they are looking for before the pandemic. They also explained to me the character details and I prepared some song ideas. I then met Rahool Mukherjee who was supposed to direct the film and liked his vibe immediately. We almost bonded instantaneously but I don’t want to indulge in that chapter any further (smiles). That’s an entirely different chapter (smiles).

After listening to my pitch, Rahool said that he could taste that freshness he was looking for. He called up Dev and asked him to listen to my songs and he replied by saying I already liked one song. Rahool coerced him to listen to the new songs and we went to meet him after a couple of days. Dev then asked me if I had composed and written them as well? I said yes and his immediate question was how many songs do you have in total? I replied that I have many and that I had reshaped these songs for his project. After listening to a couple of my songs, he offered the entire film (smiles).

He was also surprised in a way because all this while, I was interviewing him and he never knew that I am a composer and writer as well. He immediately asked me to prepare some material because his production house was all set to do an animated film announcement during Durga Pujo. So, I first created a background score for the same. This was happening in February 2020 and we were already hearing rumours about the coronavirus but we had no clue it would affect us so badly.

So, the big announcement happened and the music caught up with the crowd and people were downloading the ringtones, so everyone was happy. And the shooting plans were in action and the team was ready to start scouting for the locations but the lockdown happened.

And the world went to a standstill and we all moved into our kitchens.

Absolutely. All our plans came crashing down and it was such a depressing time. Rahool Mukherjee was about to start his career just like me and it was a huge blow for us both. Gradually, uncertainties, insecurities, and other vices started triggering. But we had each other and we convinced each other about the inevitability of the situation. Globally, people were dying like livestock and it was a truly dark period. Amidst the pandemic, Dev da kept messaging us, constantly trying to boost our morale. He reached out to all of us like one true leader and encouraged us all to restore our faith. He kept on repeating that it is just a bad phase and will surely pass. The whole team was super kicked only because of him and we were eagerly waiting for this storm to pass like everyone else. During this period, Rahool and I bonded really well and eventually became great companions. In between, Rahool made an independent film Ami O Amar Madhuri but it had no BGM, so he approached me and I took it. We decided to utilise our isolation periods and turned them into musical harmony (smiles). That kept me busy during the lockdown and the film is currently screening at various international film festivals. We almost sat through the rest of 2020 and almost till end of 2021 as Dev da was busy with another film, Tonic. He was also doing another film called Golondaaj for which he had to put on a lot of weight. We had to wait for him to finish them.

In Kismish he played a college student called Tintin and he’s looking really fit.

Exactly, in order to essay Tintin, he had to lose a lot of weight and the journey from Golondaaj to Kishmish was a challenging one but this man did it in just two months. He’s the epitome of determination and leadership. For Golondaaj, he weighed almost 98 or 102 kilos but from there to Tintin, he came down to 76 kilos approximately. He went for crash diets and staggering exercise routines to make it happen. Finally, the shoot of Kishmish commenced in August 2021 (sigh). The first schedule was in Kolkata and the second in Darjeeling. I was desperately looking for a break too and I decided to join them. During the shooting, the songs were being played and Dev da liked the reactions because our team members were humming and singing along with the track. So, the initial reaction was really inspiring. And in between his shooting schedule, Dev da called me up and asked if I would like to do his next film. And naturally, I was elated (smiles) and replied why not?

And can you tell us some more about that project as well?

I can only say that this is the first time that two groundbreaking icons of the Kolkata film industry are going to collaborate on screen - Dev and Prosenjit Chatterjee.

That surely is legit breaking news. Tell us some more.

It’s going to be an epic showdown and one can only imagine the mammoth scale of production, so it’s going to be a pretty tough journey for me (smiles). But I love taking up new challenges. It’s called Kaacher Manush and right now, I’m not in a position to give away anymore details but one thing is for sure, it’s going to be completely opposite to Kishmish and I’m eagerly waiting for it.

He signs off.

Meanwhile, Kishmish is slated to release on April 29 in theatres.