South Asian Business news and information

A Delhi court on Saturday issued notices to the Bollywood film producer Aditya Chopra and three others, on a petition filed by the noted Punjabi pop singer Daler Mehendi alleging that his voice was replaced by that of another singer in the title song of soon to be released film Jhoom Barabar Jhoom.

Additional District Judge (ADJ) Param Jeet Singh also issued notices to Shaad Ali, Gulzar and Shanker Mahadevan --the director, lyricist and singer of the film and asked them to file their reply on July 12.

However, the court refused to stay the release of the film as also the release of cassettes and CDs of its music in the market, as sought by Mehendi in his application.

Shankar said that this is a very trifling matter. For creative purpose they had to remove the track sung by Daler. Ehsaan said that they changed the vocal as per Amitabh Bachchan’s wish. In 2005, Amitabh Bachchan and Shankar sang the most successful item song of the year “Kajra Re” and Amitabh Bachchan wanted to see a continuation of that success. The surprising thing is that few years back Amitabh Bachchan and Daler appeared in a movie song together. Daler does not believe that Amitabh Bachchan has taken such a decision.

Yash Raj, the head of Yash Raj films, said that this matter has been solved 11 months ago. A spokesperson from Yash Raj Films said that they have removed the song because Daler Mehendi’s secretary requested them to do it. Daler said that he has no secretary and deals all the things by himself.

It is true that there are many last minute changes in a movie but is it really good to entirely remove a singer’s song? I also hard the song and I admit that the decision was good because Shankar and Amitabh’s voice have done a great job but shouldn’t they have taken such decisions a bit earlier? A singer after singing a song expects that his/her name would come up in the album and people would know his name. I do not know about you guys out there but I think this whole incident reveals the poor management system of Hindi movie industry. Whether a singer sing or not sing a track should have been decided earlier and it should be a clear cut decision. After singing removing the track degrades the singer’s reputation.

Useful links:

http://news.sawf.org/Bollywood/38218.aspx

http://www.indiafm.com/news/2007/05/23/9449/

http://www.saharasamay.com/samayhtml/articles.aspx?newsid=76802

http://www.indiafm.com/news/2007/06/04/9518/

http://inhome.rediff.com/movies/2007/may/29daler.htm

http://www.santabanta.com/cinema.asp?pid=15087

http://www.indlawnews.com/5466CD2A2031D7CC2926E08578DFD66D

http://www.planetbollywood.com/displayArticle.php?id=053007085440

http://www.apunkachoice.com/happenings/20070531-0.html

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C05%5C31%5Cstory_31-5-2007_pg9_2

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/City_Supplements/Bangalore_Times/Legally_speaking_/articleshow/2089414.cms

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Court_issues_notice_to_Aditya_Chopra_three_others/articleshow/2094154.cms

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/City_Supplements/Calcutta_Times/Daler_wants_his_pound_of_flesh/articleshow/2089489.cms

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/no-controversy-in-jhoom--music/42144-8.html