When the teaser of Gehraiyaan released in December, there were two elements that caught everyone’s attention. First was that Deepika Padukone, Ananya Panday, Siddhant Chaturvedi and Dhairya Karwa were joining Shakun Batra to present a different, relatable story, and a bold story. The second was the background score and music of the film.
Gehraiyaan’s album and background score has been composed by Kabeer Kathpalia, better known by his stage name OAFF, and Savera. The refreshing music took the internet by storm, with the recently released song Doobey and the title track of the film being featured in several Instagram Reels. In a recent chat with News18, the Ahemdabad-based music composer opened up about working in Gehraiyaan, collaborating with school friends — fellow composer Savera and Doobey singer Lothika – and the future of indie music in Bollywood. Read on…
Firstly, what’s the story behind your stage name?
It comes from the word oaf, which means foolish, clumsy, awkward person and I was doing a lot of these advertising tracks in Bombay and I decided that I want to make my own music and I wanted to put it out independently. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go under my real name. I thought I needed to do something different. I was thinking, oaf is a short word and it means clumsy, awkward, I kind of relate to that and I wanted to have fun while making music, I wanted to be free and wanted to allow myself the space to experiment, explore and really go wherever, whichever direction so I thought it was an apt name I went with OAFF.
How did Gehraiyaan come to you?
A common friend of ours suggested my name to Shakun. He heard mine and Savera’s independent works and dropped a message on Instagram asking if we could meet. I was always a fan of his work, I had seen Kapoor and Sons and I had really enjoyed it. So, I was like ‘Wow, I’m getting a message from Shakun Batra!’ So I was like ‘of course, we can meet.’
He had already placed some of my independent music on the film just to get a vibe. After we read the script, we (Savera and Kabeer) made some music based on our instincts of what the script is. Savera and I were doing the score (at first), then Shakun asked if we want to try working on the songs for the film. We tried one song and he liked it. Then he’s like one more song, do you guys want to try? So we tried one more song and then we ended up doing the whole album.
Did you think Gehraiyaan’s title track would become such a rage?
One really doesn’t know what is going to happen. Savera and I were so busy working on the music and we really didn’t have much time to think (about it). Suddenly, it’s blowing up on Instagram and people are tagging me on reels, it was pretty cool.
Speaking of Instagram, people are using the track in reels where they are doing some unusual activities, such as making bhel puri and poha. Have you seen them?
I love it, we — Savera, Ankur (Tiwari) and I — have this group and we keep sharing the funniest ones that we find. I have seen chicken lollipop videos with Gehraiyaan, I have seen beautiful people like beautiful rivers, lakes and mountains to Gehraiyaan, I’ve seen people having issues with finding their boarding pass, and all kinds of things. I am just grateful that people are resonating with it and I am happy. Once you put out something, it’s everyone’s so everyone can do what they want and it’s cool.
Not many people might know that Gehraiyaan’s title track is an adaptation of your old single, Frontline. Who’s idea was it to make a Hindi version of it?
Frontline was written three years back by Lothika (Kabeer’s friend and the singer who sang Frontline) and me. It was a time when her grandmother had just passed away and we were in Bombay together. We were supposed to make music together. We were talking about this, it was sort of like music but also therapy for us. I was going through some stuff, she was dealing with this. So we made Frontline then. It wasn’t really much of an attempt to make a pop song as such but just allowing us to deal with what was going on and allowing her to cope with this loss. That’s how Frontline came about. Then, at some point in the film, Shakun heard Frontline and Karan Kapoor, who was working on the film, he placed it on a scene and the song really resonated the feeling of hollowness and the feeling of this pain and melancholy vibed with the visuals and the story. So then he was like ‘Can we try creating a version of this for the film?’ Ankur Tiwari wrote the lyrics and we kind of tailor-made for the film.
How has the cast reacted to the soundtracks?
I do know through Shakun that the cast really enjoyed the music and I briefly spoke to Ananya on Instagram, she put up something on Instagram that Doobey is her favourite song. I spoke to Sidhaant but it wasn’t about a specific song. It was just like on Instagram he told that he really enjoyed the music and I told that I really enjoyed the film and the characters. I haven’t really met them since I started working on the film but hopefully, everybody gets to be in the same room closer to the film. We were all in different places. Savera and I both got Covid so we were somewhere else working, Shakun is in Mumbai, it was an adventure.
Many Indie songs have been featured in mainstream Bollywood films recently. Prateek Kuhaad’s Kasoor was seen in Dhamaka and Firefly by When Chai Met Toast in Jee Le Zara’s announcement poster. Do you think Bollywood and audiences are ready to experiment with non-traditional filmy songs?
When the pandemic happened, Bollywood kind of was on a break for a bit and people wanted new music and they started listening to a lot of Indie music at that point. I remember reading articles in Indie publications that Indie music numbers are suddenly shooting up during the pandemic. I think people realised there’s this whole other world of music which has so many different flavours and varieties that we can also listen to and it’s really nice. I think if people like Shakun and Dharma are allowing Indie musicians to make songs in a film like Gehraiyaan, that sets nice precedence for other people to really open up to possibilities of what music is could be in a film and we can have new stuff.
