My idea of 'Rock On' was passed to Farhan, alleges Nadeem

Music composer Nadeem Saifi has alleged that writer Honey Irani passed on his idea of making a film on band of boys to her actor-filmmaker son Farhan and it was later made into the 2008 hit film "Rock On".

However, Honey Irani has denied the allegation. "Rock On", a 2008 musical drama film directed by Abhishek Kapoor, had Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal, Luke Kenny and Purab Kohli as members of the Mumbai-based rock band, "Magik" (formed in 1998), who reunite in 2008.

Farhan is presently working on "Rock On 2", directed by Shujaat Saudagar. The film stars Arjun Rampal, Farhan, Prachi Desai, Purab Kohli, who were all seen in the prequel, while Shraddha Kapoor is the new entrant to the franchise.

"My idea of making a film on rock band with four boys was stolen by Honey Irani (screenwriter)," Nadeem, of Nadeem-Shravan fame, alleged while talking to PTI.

"We sat with her for a year or so. We had signed her to do a film on a boy band. She had written it, but she wanted to direct it, we felt she is not right for it," he said.

"She had heard the songs and had loved it. She had come to London, we had paid her and signed her. But she went and gave the idea to Farhan who made 'Rock On' and is now making 'Rock On 2'," he said.

Honey was married to noted writer Javed Akhtar earlier and they have two children - Farhan and Zoya - both filmmakers. Nadeem claimed he was going to produce the film with his two friends in London and that he was also going to give music for this project.

"I had recorded 12 songs... they were sung by Sonu Nigam, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Shaan, Babul Supriyo and others. The original idea for this film was mine," he said. The "Dheere Dheere Se" composer said he had even planned to rope in actor Shahid Kapoor for the film.

"We were contemplating to sign Shahid Kapoor for the film and other four boys," he said.
After a long sabbatical, music composer Nadeem Saifi is back with the music of "Ishq Forever", a romantic drama musical film directed by Sameer Sippy. It features newcomer Krishna Chaturvedi as the male lead and Ruhi Singh as the female lead.

The film is slated to be released on February 19. However, Irani rubbished the allegations levelled against her as false. "It's not true at all. The story of 'Rock On' was not written by Farhan Akhtar. I had worked on a story of band ...who is looking for work. But the idea was from some English film. So it was not his (Nadeem) original idea," Irani told.