/> It's been a long journey for Vishal Bhardawaj. From struggling music composer to hugely successful filmmaker. For his stunning new film Omkara Vishal has donned a new role.

Vishal has sung the love ballad O saathi re with Shreya Ghosal. It's filmed on Ajay Devgan and Kareena Kapoor.

Vishal smiles shyly at the melodious reminder. "I thought I'd use my voice just as a raw track. But then everyone thought I had done fine. So we've retained my voice. Don't Shreya and I seem like chalk and cheese?"

The love ballad, filmed beautifully on Ajay Devgan and Kareena Kapoor, is part of an amazing soundtrack for Omkara which will be released by a brand new music company Eros (to be floated by international film exhibitor).

Says Vishal, "Though Omkara is a full-on virile drama I've found just the right spaces for the songs. No matter how raw and real, my films must have songs.

Sometimes I joke that I became a film director so I could hire myself to compose music. I remain a music composer at heart," confesses the filmmaker whose Omkara stars half the film industry Ajay Devgan, Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Viveik Oberoi, Bipasha Basu (who has two of the sauciest item songs to perform) and Konkona Sen-Sharma.

All the actors look radically different from whatever they've done do far. "I've worked really really hard on the soundtrack. You know, I had to record six songs in two months. I bought myself a cellphone. While hunting locations I recorded the songs on the phone.

I recorded all the songs while travelling...in dhabas sipping tea and lassi, with a hundred things on my mind. I enjoyed the experience. I made a very conscious effort to create mass-friendly songs.

When I was writing the script of Omkara I made sure that all the songs were written into the script. I wanted to bounce back as a music director. I wanted to put two item numbers. But I wanted them put so intelligently that they wouldn't look like items within the narration.

The story continues during Bipasha's item songs. Interestingly all the songs except Bipasha's are in the background. From the language of the characters which is a hard-core UP dialect to the songs that are done in-sync with the robust theme, I've never worked so hard on sound in my life."

Incidentally actors like Kareena, Saif and Bipasha who think in English have spoken incredibly earthy dialect of UP Hindi in Omkara.

"I worked very hard on their diction. The soundtrack is in fact, done with great care. Gulzar Saab has written lyrics like never before including two item songs which are saucy and playful but never raunchy," says Vishal who turned music direcrtor a decade ago with Gulzar's Maachis.

Laughs Vishal, "In fact I'm the only music director to direct a film since Salil Chowdhary. And now I'm the only film director to turn singer for his own film."