20 years of Rang De Basanti: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra reveals how AR Rahman created Luka Chuppi

When Rang De Basanti came out in 2006 it was not any other movie from Bollywood. Rang De Basanti came like a storm that changed the way young people, in India think and feel about things.

Now it has been twenty years. It is hard to believe how much Rang De Basanti has affected people. Rang De Basanti is still talked about in college debates it is still used in protest slogans it is still played in playlists and people still remember it as a time when movies were brave enough to show what it means to love your country to fight against things that’re not right to have good friends to feel sad and to have hope all in a very honest way. The music is really what makes this legacy special and one song that really stands out is “Luka Chuppi”. This song is very personal. It is, about being really sad because you have lost someone. “Luka Chuppi” is a sad song that shows how much it hurts to lose someone you care about.

Rang De Basanti is twenty years old now. The director, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra talked about how A.R. Rahman made the song Luka Chuppi. This song was not supposed to be a hit or anything. It was like a prayer. It was, like a mother crying about her lost child. The story of how Luka Chuppi was made is really emotional. It shows how sensitive the people who made Rang De Basanti were. They really cared about the art they were making. Rang De Basanti is a film and the song Luka Chuppi is a big part of that.

To really get what Luka Chuppi is about you need to know what Rang De Basanti is. Luka Chuppi and Rang De Basanti are two movies that’re quite different but if you want to understand Luka Chuppi you have to understand Rang De Basanti first. The thing is Luka Chuppi is a movie that has its story but it can be connected to Rang De Basanti in some ways. So to understand Luka Chuppi properly you should know what Rang De Basanti is, about.

The movie is about some college students who do not have a care in the world. They are happy and free.. Then they start to see the bad things that are happening around them like corruption and injustice. They also learn about sacrifice. What happens to these college students is similar, to what happened to Indias freedom fighters. The movie shows the stories of these freedom fighters. The movie combines the day with the past. It shows that revolution is not something that happened a long time ago. Revolution is a spirit that’s still alive today. The film Indias freedom fighters is a part of the movie.

The movie has some strong conversations and exciting moments when the characters stand up for themselves.. It is Luka Chuppi that shows us its gentle and sensitive side. This is the part where the characters feel sad of angry and where saying nothing is more powerful, than shouting slogans. Luka Chuppi is where we see the side of the story.

The Need for a Song Like Luka Chuppi

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra has often said that Rang De Basanti was not about revolution it was also about the consequences that come with it. When young people decide to stand up against things that’re not right they have to deal with a lot of bad things like loss and pain. These things can change their lives forever. The death of a character that people loved in the film was a sad moment. At that moment people did not know what to say because words were not enough to express their feelings, about Rang De Basanti.

Mehra did not want a background score or a loud mourning song. He wanted something that felt personal almost private. The grief had to feel like it belonged to one mother, not to the nation. That was when the idea of Luka Chuppi was born.

The song was thought of as a lullaby. A mother is looking for her child. The child will never come back. The song does not need to be about being angry or being sad in a way. It needs to be about being innocent and sad at the time. The song needs to sound like love is calling out to nothing. The song is about love. The song is about heartbreak. The love, in the song is calling out into emptiness just like the mother is calling out for her child.

This was a huge creative challenge.

Bollywood songs about loss usually have loud singing, a lot of instruments and super dramatic words.. Mehra did not want that. He wanted something. Mehra wanted Bollywood songs about loss to feel real, not like someone’s trying to show off. Mehra wanted to feel the pain in Bollywood songs, about loss not just hear someone singing about it.

So he turned to A.R. Rahman because he really likes the music of A.R. Rahman.

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and A.R. Rahman: A Meeting of Minds

By the year 2006 A.R. Rahman was already a famous musician.. The movie Rang De Basanti was a special project, for A.R. Rahman that needed him to create music that was emotional and deep not just something that sounded big and impressive.

Mehra explained how he went to Rahman and did not give him instructions but he talked to him about feelings. He told Rahman the scene, about the mother who was very sad and the quietness that was left when her son was gone. Mehra said to Rahman:

“This is not about death. This is about absence.”

Rahman listened quietly. He did not say anything away. Mehra said that Rahman needed time to think about his feelings before he could make music. He never made music quickly. For Rahman music was something that he found it was not something that he made up.

Rahman knew that Luka Chuppi was not supposed to be a movie that makes people cry loud. The movie Luka Chuppi was supposed to make people stop and think for a moment. The movie Luka Chuppi was meant to make them feel empty inside and remember things. Rahman thought that the movie Luka Chuppi was meant to do that.

The Meaning Behind the Title: “Luka Chuppi”

The movie title “Luka Chuppi” is actually a game that kids play it means “hide and seek”. Kids have much fun playing this game they laugh and have a great time. But using “Luka Chuppi” for a song, about death that was a smart idea, “Luka Chuppi” is a happy game but the song is not happy at all.

The title itself is really ironic. It is very surprising that the title has this kind of irony in it. The title itself holds a lot of irony that’s hard to bear.

A mother calls her son because she thinks the son is hiding somewhere. The mother really wants to find the son. The son is probably hiding from the mother.

The person is not playing anymore. The game is over, for him. The person is just not playing anymore.

The person is really gone he is gone forever the man is gone and that is it he is gone forever.

The song is really powerful because it has this mix of innocence and tragedy. This mix makes the song haunting. The song takes a memory from when you were a kid. Uses it to talk about loss. It is like the mother does not want to believe what happened. She keeps calling out to her child the same way she did when the child was little. The mother keeps calling her child just like she did when the child was young.

Mehra said that he did this on purpose. The film is trying to show that people do not always react to things in a loud way. Sometimes people deal with sadness quietly. They do not want to believe what is happening. The film is saying that grief is like that it does not always scream, sometimes grief whispers to people and they are in denial, about what’s going on with the grief.

Why Lata Mangeshkar Was the Only Choice

When we knew how the song was supposed to make people feel the next thing we had to figure out was: who could sing this song without sounding fake? We needed someone who could really express the pain in the song. The voice had to be perfect, for the song so we thought about whose voice could carry the pain of the song without making it sound much.

For Rahman and Mehra, the answer was obvious: Lata Mangeshkar.

Her voice was really special it sounded like a mother talking to you. It had a lot of feeling, in it a lot of love and kindness that she had built up over the years. A younger singer just could not sound like that they could not have the motherly sound that she had the same depth of being a mother that her voice had.

Approaching Lata Mangeshkar was really tough. Lata Mangeshkar was very picky, about the projects she chose. The thing is, this song was not flashy or happy. This song was actually very quiet and slow. It was very sad. Lata Mangeshkar only did songs that really meant something to her. This song was a very sad song.

When she heard the composition she just stopped talking for a long time. Then she said yes to the composition.

This itself was a blessing for the film.

Her voice did not just sound sad. It was actually filled with sadness. Her voice was sadness.

The First Musical Sketch by Rahman

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra said that Rahmans first try at making Luka Chuppi was the same as the last version. This is something that does not happen often. Normally songs are changed times before they are finished.. Rahman was able to get the feelings just right on his first try, with Luka Chuppi. He really captured the truth of Luka Chuppi in that first version.

The music was really soft and quiet. The other instruments playing in the background were not very loud. The song had a lot of space in it which means you have space to breathe to feel things to think about your life. The song had space to reflect on things that’re important to you like the music itself the song.

Rahman did this on purpose. He made a choice to avoid something. Rahman wanted to stay from it. The thing Rahman avoided is not clear. Rahman just did not want to do it.

Heavy percussion

Loud orchestration

Dramatic crescendos

He decided to do something so he chose:

Simple piano notes

Gentle strings

Subtle rhythm

The simplicity of this song makes it feel really personal. It is like the music is being sung in a room that’s empty, not, in a big studio with a lot of people around. This minimalism is what makes the song feel so personal like it is being sung for you in an empty room.

This song was not supposed to be a hit. It was a song that someone made. The person who made the song did not think that it would be famous.. Sometimes things do not go as planned and this song became really popular. The song that was never meant to be a hit is a song that a lot of people know and like.

In Bollywood people usually make songs to be really popular or to go well with dance performances or to be a hit, on the radio. But Luka Chuppi was different it was not made for any of those things. Luka Chuppi did not follow the path that Bollywood songs follow.

Mehra said that Mehra never thought it would become so famous. Mehra just wanted Mehra to be truthful.

That honesty actually turned out to be a thing, for it. The honesty of it is what made it strong.

People did not listen to Luka Chuppi just to have a time. They listened to Luka Chuppi when they missed someone a lot. When they felt really sad, about something. When they could not think of what to say they listened to Luka Chuppi. Luka Chuppi was something that helped people when they were feeling down.

The thing is, even after 20 years have passed the song still feels like it was made yesterday. It is a song that does not feel old the song still feels timeless the song is really good. That is why people still like the song.

Emotional Role of Luka Chuppi in Rang De Basanti

The movie Rang De Basanti has an important part, which is Luka Chuppi. This is the point where the story changes a lot. At the beginning Rang De Basanti is about young people being energetic and rebellious and also about them waking up to what is happening around them.. After Luka Chuppi Rang De Basanti becomes very serious and sad. The story of Rang De Basanti gets heavier and darker. Rang De Basanti is not the fun and energetic movie anymore, after Luka Chuppi.

The song is the bridge between innocence and consequence.

This thing reminds people that behind every thing someone does there is a family that suffers because of it. The family of the person who does something has to pay the price for that act of courage.

This is what made Rang De Basanti different from typical patriotic films. It did not glorify sacrifice blindly. It acknowledged its pain.