Vishal Bhardwaj to compose for Nair's Monsoon Wedding musical

The 2001 Punjabi wedding flick with the undercurrent of child abuse is expected to hit the broadway in about six months in New York and then afterwards worldwide.

Its music will be given by filmmaker-cum-composer Vishal Bhardwaj and is currently being written by Nair and Sabrina Dhawan who also wrote the screenplay of the film.
"I hope to approach them (original cast) because they are so brilliant but don't forget that in a musical you have to sing and dance and perform as a theatre actor live for two hours. Naseer is an amazing theatre actor and he can do anything be it singing, dancing or acting so I would love to have him onboard. But presently we are writing the script," Mira said on the sidelines of Pravasi Film Festival.

The Oscar-nominated filmmaker plans to recreate the city of Delhi which was the backdrop of the film in the musical. It will have three plots essentially the bride and groom (played by Vasundhra Das and Pravin Dabas in the film), the father, uncle and Ria (played by Naseeruddin, Rajat Kapoor and Shefali Shah) and the incest. The third will be the love affair between Alice and Dubey (Tillotama Shome and Vijay Raaz), said the 'Salaam Bombay' director.

'Monsoon Wedding' also had a pinch of Bollywood masala with item number 'Chunari Chunari' performed in the film but Nair says that the musical will not have that feel.

"The choreographer of the musical is an American artist Bilty Jones who has his different adaptation so it will not Bollywood style dancing in the film," Nair said. But the director clarified that it is not going to be Amercanised or changed to suite a particular kind of audience.

"Not at all. It will be just like the film. Like a local folk for the world," she said. But filmmaker added that the grandeur of the wedding will be of a kind which could be wrapped up and then taken to different places.

"We plan to do a spectacular thing which can travel. It will not be all hi-tech at one place but something like we can wrap up and perform a 'Monsoon Wedding' where we want because it is essentially about a tent and a tent can be set up anywhere," Nair said.

Nair, 52, is an Indian filmmaker director and producer based in New York. Her 'Salaam Bombay', which chronicles the day-to-day life of children living on the streets of Mumbai, was nominated for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1989. The director was felicitated with the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival for 'Monsoon Wedding'. Her latest outing is Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank and Richard Gere starrer 'Amelia' which is set to hit the theatres in March in India.