Madan Mohanji’s 25-year career, from 1950 till the end in 1975 with MAUSAM and LAILA MAJNU, comprised many memorable songs that are still loved today by all generations. But these were all songs he had personally recorded in his lifetime.

In 2004, thirty 30 years after his untimely demise, Madanji’s name adorned the titles of a new film yet again!

Madanji had composed some additional tunes over the years, some kept aside for future use, some alternative tunes which did not get used, others just some dummy notes as they struck him. These tunes were found in his tapes by accident after he passed away… 30 years later when Madanji’s son, Sanjeev Kohli, casually mentioned this to Yash Chopraji, the legendary director decided to take a risk and do something that had never happened before. He decided to base the entire soundtrack of his film VEER-ZAARA on these tunes. There was much opposing advice from associates that these old tunes would sound outdated and would harm the freshness of his big budget film, but Yashji was firm in his conviction. From the various tunes found, he selected 9 to suit the different situations in the film and asked Sanjeev to supervise the music. It was a very daunting task to adapt a chosen melody to the entirely different situation in the film, to keep a balance between an ‘old world’ charm, yet to appeal to the young listeners who were so attuned to modern sounds.

Yashji was insistent that Lataji should sing all the songs, as most of the tunes were originally made with her in mind. She was already 75 years old, and singing much less for the new films but made an exception for this unusual project. Throughout the recording of the songs she would be very emotional on hearing the original voice of Madanji’s tune, reliving the memories of so many years of singing for him and so many memorable melodies created together.

Javed Akhtar wrote fresh lyrics to the fixed meter of Madanji’s original tunes.

Apart from the 9 songs in the film, two additional songs were specially recorded only for the CD as the tunes appealed to Yashji, even though they could not be part of the film.

VEER-ZAARA went on to win many awards including the IIFA award for Best Music of 2004 and became the highest selling album of its time.

Each song has a different story behind how it was created… how the original was sometimes a tune made by Madanji for another film which remained unused, or a tune he had made in 50s and kept aside for some use in future.

We are also giving below links to short video presentations on the ‘Making’ of the songs, in which we can hear the original tune as left behind by Madanji for 10 out of the 11 songs.