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'I like to compose my own music, lyrics'

Last Updated 25 February 2015, 15:15 IST

How does one feel, when their work is credited to someone else? Something similar happened to Gajendra Verma from Haryana, when his song Emptiness was reverberating in every campus and hummed by every lonely lover.

The song became sensational when it was backed by the story that ‘an IITian named Rohan Rathore had sung this song for his lost girlfriend and soon after committed suicide’.

The song was sad, with painful lyrics, with the dejected lover saying, “Tune meri jana, kabhi nahi jana, ishq mera, dard mera.”

Little known for his work, till then, Verma was just a college boy composing his own music and lyrics with Aseem Ahmed Abbasee. When this rumour reached his ears he filed a litigation for the song’s copyright and also won the suit.

Metrolife spoke to Verma about the incident and his reaction to it. “That time I was furious, kind of impatient to blank out the rumour and own my song. But now when I look back, I think I am grateful to that guy, whoever he was, to have contributed to popularising my song.”

Verma, 24, has already worked in several Bollywood movies like, Table no.21 (2013), Yariyaan (2014), Bajatey Raho (2013) and Samrat & Co. (2014). Table no.21 brought his name into limelight, which Emptiness couldn’t in 2011. 

“Though I have entered Bollywood but I like to compose my own music and lyrics. The lyrics for all my song are mostly done by my childhood friend Abbasee. We have worked together for a long time now,” he says.

“I have learnt professional classical music from my father and brother, they were my gurus. Both were professional singers and musicians. I think the hardest for me was to lose my father at the age of 14,” the lyricist says softly.

In the midst of all the Bollywood contracts he signs and works for, Verma feels it is more important to ‘compose music for one’s own sake and not for money or fame’.

“My interest is not in fame. Though I have worked with professionals like Honey Singh who are very popular, but I like to restrict myself somewhere. When a person composes for a film, they have to stick to a certain concept. I feel my freedom is being controlled if I get inside films completely, that is also something I have learnt,” explains Verma.

So what kind of songs does he like to compose? “I like slow, sad songs, but I also like alternate rock and pop,” he tells Metrolife.

Verma’s new single Anjaam has been recently launched. It is again his composition and the lyrics are done by his companion Abbasee.

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(Published 25 February 2015, 15:15 IST)

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