The music of Laaga Chunari Mein Daag is as solid as the man himself, and as self-effacing and deceptively low-key. But then for Shantanu Moitra, it’s all about the job satisfaction that he gets. “Like my all-time idol Salil Choudhury, I can never do anything primarily for the masses. I should do what excites me, and after that one person may like my song, or if am lucky several thousands will!”

His limited but truly illustrious oeuvre comprises of the Shubha Mudgal album Ab Ke Sawan, the famous Mann Ke Manjeere spotlighting women’s issues, and films like Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, the variegated songs of Leela (with Jagjit Singh as composer), Parineeta, Lage Raho Munnabhai and the single but winsome Chanda re from Eklavya - The Royal Guard.

On release also is Sudhir Mishra’s Khoya Khoya Chand, Rajkumar Hirani’s Idiots, Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s EFX-heavy Talisman with Amitabh Bachchan and Shyam Benegal’s Malgudi Days-like satire Mahadev.

Smiles the placid Shantanu as he restlessly sits, gets up and paces and sits again at the studio console, “To me, all this is just too much work. I am going to take a break after this. I am very fond of mountaineering and the mountains are now beckoning me!”

Laaga… , he says, was a good experience as director Pradeep Sarkar and he have been doing ad films for 15 years together. “So I know exactly how his mind works, and where he will take my song. Adi (Aditya Chopra) gave me a completely free hand and yes, Yashji did come in on three occasions.”

Shantanu feels that the Parineeta team was a package that came pre-sold, which explained the YRF trust in them. “Swanand Kirkire is not just my lyricist and great buddy now but was the one who recommended me to Sudhir Mishra without even knowing me, only because he had heard my albums. Though we both have no inhibitions about working with others, the success of our music seems to have made us into a combination deal!”
His amazing tuning with Swanand is explained also from their common views and work ethic- neither is into quantity or the rat-race. “We both never imagined that films would happen to us and so are not ‘filmi’ at all!” says the young composer.

“We passed a hoarding of Laaga… the other day and laughed when we saw our names splashed on it like some Harry Potter magic!”

Shantanu states that acoustics are his weakness, and since Laaga… is a story of two small-town girls, one of whom goes to the city but remains at heart what she is, acoustics became a perfect tool for expressing her emotions.

“For "Hum to aise hain bhaiyya, I ensured that not a single electronic instrument or keyboard was used. The director’s homework was thorough and I had seen and studied the storyboard and noticed every cow, lane and temple. This may seem silly, but the song had to introduce six or seven characters.”

Shantanu’s approach to a film score is completely different from the pack. “The story triggers off my tunes and I do not keep a bank!” he smiles.

“I insist on seeing the script, the sketches and the floor plans whenever possible. The biggest difference between a song and a film song is that the latter has to be of a film, must come from the film and must go to the film. I have to align with his sensibility and vision of the director and get into his psyche. I even try to go on location and suggest background music riffs to go with scenes.”

He explains that when he is offered films by such eminent names as Aditya Chopra, Sudhir Mishra and Shyam Benegal, it is never about the money but the fascination of looking at their take on music and their sensibility and mindset. “It’s fascinating to study how their brains function!” he says. “When I did my first film, I did not even know of Sudhir’s work, so I went purely by instinct and kept M M Kreem’s Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin in mind somewhere because I had liked the music but never known before that it was Sudhir’s film.”

While believing that good things are happening on the current music scene, Shantanu is not exactly a convention-breaker himself, unlike most of the new pack. I have been brought up on folk and Rabindra Sangeet as well as Western music till Class XII when I discovered Hindi film music, which completely mesmerised me,” he says. “While the packaging keeps changing, there are some time-tested techniques in old Hindi film music that are mind-blowing DNAs that can never become dated.”