To explore fresh avenues for Indian classical music through Bollywood, music icon Pandit Jasraj's daughter Durga Jasraj will soon produce a Hindi film with a number of classical songs.
"These days no one in Bollywood is making films like Baiju Bawra or Tansen, where classical music is part of the storyline. The last such film was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, which had references to classical music," Durga said.
To fill in this void, the singer-turned-anchor will produce a film based on classical music under her production and event management company 'Art and Artistes'. "I will definitely make such a film within the next 2-3 years," Durga told PTI.
She is, however, yet to finalise a script and casting for the project. Her reality show Jalsa on Doordarshan brought together classical music and reality show. Produced by her company, Jalsa had begun as a concert tour spread across 40 cities in India in 2006 but was later spinned into a reality show.
"Based on our belief that Indian culture is deep-rooted, we packaged our show on the lines of 'Indian Idol' to get the new generation hooked. We made our editing crisp keeping in mind the television medium, used the best technology, huge sets and a multi-camera set-up." The show had young maestros, selected through a talent hunt, and legendary artists performing in all genres of Indian music like Hindustani, Ghazal, Carnatic, Bhajan, Sufi, folk.
Born and brought up in a musical household, Durga always had music in her blood and started her career at the age of seven as a classical vocalist, before turning into other music-related ventures. On Bollywood music scoring over traditional, the artist said that filmy music has a visual appeal and glamour. "When the voice is of Lata Mangeshkar and the face of Waheeda Rahman it is bound to create a huge impact," she said adding that through her film, which is yet to go on the floors, classical music will get the same visual appeal.
Durga, however, is of the opinion that Indian classical music has always received the patronage of Bollywood in some way or the other. "Bollywood has never dropped classical music from its menu. But it depends on the subject of the film where you may have the scope of including such music like the way it was done in the case of Hrithik-starrer 'Jodha Akbar'," the 45-year-old said.
She gave the examples of contemporary hit songs like Tauba Tera Jalwa from Dev D, which is in Raga Bageshri and Shankar Mahadevan's song Sapnon Se Bhare Naina' which is in Raga Bhairavi. "It is just that Bollywood needs a different kind of packaging for classical music. And I want to fill in that void through my film," stated Durga, who founded the Indian Music Academy for the welfare of musicians.
