by SHWETANT KUMAR
An in-depth look at one of the unsung architects of alternative Hindi cinema.
The story of Vanraj Bhatia is a lot like that of the blind men and the elephant. To some, he is India’s foremost composer of Western classical music, the only Indian student of famed French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger and a man who hobnobbed with the likes of Igor Stravinsky and John Cage. To others, he is a pioneer of spiritual music, with such albums as the Bhagavad Gita and Anant to his credit. To yet others, he is the creator of over 7,000 advertising jingles, at least one of which – for Dulux – is still heard today. But to most people, he is the composer of Hindi New Wave cinema.
Taken as a whole, Bhatia’s work across these films is a testament to both his versatility and his technique. Each score inhabits a unique soundworld appropriate to the film’s setting, and each is unified by one or more themes that are incorporated into either the titles or a song that encapsulates the film. A lifelong opera-lover, Bhatia has always championed the song sequence in Indian film, and it is perhaps the irony of his life that he made his name in a cinema that had little time for music: most of his work was used at low volume levels, edited, and occasionally left out of the film to be included in a difficult-to-find soundtrack album.
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