by Subhash K Jha

Mr Aadesh Srivastav had been approaching me on a regular basis since past couple of years expressing his desire to give music to my films. All along since the past 18 years for my past 5 films music has been given by eminent, Socio-cultural, political icon and great musician Dr. Bhupen Hazarika, who also happens to be my partner in all my feature films, Television and Documentary Cinema.

His decision to not to give music in 'Chingaari' was his own for which Mr. Aadesh Srivastav cannot compare himself to the experience, knowledge, seniority, and position of Dadasaheb Phalke award winner Dr. Bhupen Hazarika.

When Dr. Bhupen Hazarika decided not to give music for my film 'Chingaari' for his own Socio-cultural, political reasons my immediate thought was of Mr. A.R.Rehman whose music I adore, I didn't have the courage to approach him because my producer Mr.Vikas Sahni told me that the film was of a small budget and our film was to be made in a mere 2 crore 30 lacs.

It would be impossible to accommodate Mr.A.R.Rehman's fees, his working conditions and his time requirements. Jointly Mr.Vikas Sahni and I thought of Aadesh Srivastav who has been so perseverant in wanting to work with me and why not take him and we jointly approached him and finalized all terms and conditions together.

Aadesh Srivastav was given a package deal of Rs.10,00,000/- which included his fees, Sameer the lyricist's fees, and all payments to be made to various musicians,singers and studio hire by Aadesh which was not to be paid by Producers.

Not only he didn't comply within Rs.10,00,000/- given to him he also made us pay for the background music studio over and above the stipulated amount of Rs.10,00,000/-which he has received by cheque and cash and lab letter fully and final within the stipulated time period.

October, November, December 2005 & Jan 2006 Aadesh took 4 months to tune only 4 songs. He was never available, constantly stating that he was very busy travelling abroad for his various work. With great difficulty and literally just before 2 weeks prior to my shooting I received 4 songs duly recorded.

This was a major set back, for the Artists could not rehearse for 1 month with the choreographer prior to shooting and it had its negative impact during our shooting schedule time deadlines in February 2005.

During my public promotion with all the TV channels and print media I have personally invited Aadesh Srivastav, Himani Kapoor, Vijeta Pandit etc. and the whole world has seen them on TV. Though I cannot comment in any way indeed whether Sameer was present or not.

Why would I promote Aadesh and his troupe of singers and Sameerda? Why did he participate in any of the TV interviews and was seen on Screen by the world?

I have specially arranged a programme for Sahara TV for the "resurgence" of Vijeta Pandit where I had given full credit and I specifically spoke about her hard work, sincerity and perfection for both the songs which I feel were sung extremely well.

I have her SMS crying with happiness and gratitude and love to me where she calls herself a "neglected singer" and I have given her a break. Why would I go against anyone who has delivered professionally towards my film 'Chingaari'?

I personally feel she is a wonderful human being and truly a very fine singer with a great classical music gharana background.

Not even once did Aadesh Srivastav come to check whether I as a director was efficient enough to carry out his work and not once did he bother to find out the result and completion of background music. I wanted to give credit to Mr. Alok Punjani for his creative work on the background music but I refrained from doing so because of Aadesh Srivastav's poor reputation of being quarrelsome in the industry.

I was not called and was not present and was never informed of doing a new thumri. He recorded it in front of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa's television crew whom he had called without informing me during my background music score.

Not once were I or Vikas Sahani called nor were informed during the composing and lyric writing of the song "Baju Ban" Whereas we were present during the making of all the previous four songs. Why were we not called or informed this time ?

Times Music included this 5th song. Times Music had already advertised in their CD's and cassettes as Aadesh's original composition and Sameer's original lyrics.

I verified with Times Music and it was unfortunate that the music of Chingaari has failed. Neither public nor critics have talked of the music. Which is not my fault Subhash. Music by Dr. Bhupen Hazarika in my five films have sold tremendously well, were a superhit right from Ek Pal, Rudaali, Darmiyaan, Daman and Kyon.

I didn't do publicity in those days as we did not have Satellite or TV which do exist in these days.

The money for the publicity of music was paid by me and my Producer Vikas Sahni and hammered on as many as channels for one and half months and was paid publicity. The Times Music also hammered for one and half months on Zoom channel for free of cost.

Besides this I held a meeting with Times Music and with Aadesh Srivastav in my office, he was told that the only 15,000 copies were sold and Mr. Padmanabhan of Times Music said there is no question of Royalty being paid to Aadesh for they could not even recover the cost of CD's, Cassettes, inlays and neither its marketing costs and printing and publicity costs.

I have not badmouthed everyone related to Chingaari. My Sound Desinger Mr. Parikshit Lalwani has given excellent work, My Cameraman Vishal Sinha was excellent, My Associate Director Vishal Verma was also excellent, and my actors who came in all character roles along with Sushmita Sen, Ila Arun and Anjaan Srivastav did excellent work and were extremely professional and ethical towards work both on and off the sets.

Only three people whom I have complained to you about were Mr. Mithun Chakraborthy for his profanities uttered against me on the sets publicly.

Mr. Anuj Sawhney for his obnoxious harassment and interference from him and his father right from the commencement of the film till the release of the film because they were part financers of the film and Mr. Aadesh Srivastav whose lack of concentration has caused the film's music to fail.

I alone will not take the responsibility of the success or the failure of, any department of the film, because each head of department was given full freedom of creativity and have been paid in full with accordance to our mutually decided terms and conditions."