Swanand Kirkire, the accidental hero

Singer-songwriter Swanand Kirkire says his career happened more by chance than choice

swanand-1-amey Singer-songwriter Swanand Kirkire | Amey Mansabdar

“He is not a simple, straight person. He is passionate, interesting and volatile,” says film director Sudhir Mishra about singer-songwriter and two-time national award winner Swanand Kirkire. Mishra does not mince words when he talks about how easily Kirkire can get cranky and, at times, lose his cool. “But if you want a person to be interesting, one has to have these things, otherwise one becomes boring,” he says. “A creative person cannot afford to be boring. It will only lead to mediocrity.”

We met Kirkire soon after the release of Chumbak, a Marathi film in which he plays Prasanna, a middle-aged autistic person. The character and the film were as loved as his songs have been over the years.

Chumbak, directed and co-written by Sandeep Modi, is about a 15-year-old boy called Baalu (Sahil Jadhav), who does odd jobs at an Udupi restaurant in Mumbai. He is trying to save enough money to realise his dream of opening his own business back in his village. Running out of time to achieve his goal, he is persuaded by a friend to dupe people through a fake lottery business. Kirkire’s Prasanna falls for the con, and arrives from a distant village in Maharashtra to claim his money. Meeting Prasanna leads to a conflict in Balu’s heart—how to choose between his dream and his conscience. The film goes on to capture a journey that they both undertake together.

Kirkire is not in the best of moods when we meet him, irritated about some confusion in his office, but his eyes light up when he starts talking about Chumbak, which happened almost as a coincidence. Chumbak's producer Naren Kumar had contacted him some years ago to write the lyrics of the songs for Jolly LLB (2013). However, it never worked out. When he got another call from Kumar, he assumed it was to write the lyrics for the film's sequel, which he had heard was in the making. But it was, rather, to offer him the role in Chumbak. Earlier, Kirkire had acted in smaller roles in a couple of films, mostly as a friendly gesture, but nothing full-fledged until then.

“I was very paranoid initially,” he says. “First, you are doing something of this length for the first time, and then, the character is so difficult. You have to act, and then you have to act as Prasanna, a grown-up autistic man. I had to put in a lot of effort to understand the autistic spectrum, and in what space to keep it. It [falls in the] kind of mildly autistic category. People have done many such roles before, and we had a task in front of us.” He met a few autistic people, and approached the character very scientifically and methodically.

For instance, Prasanna, in one scene, sniffs at a lost gold chain to figure out whether it is his. “We think in layers, and I realised that the autistic people think very straight,” says Kirkire. “We, as normal human beings, keep adapting to smarter things; the specially-abled people are devoid of that smartness, they work on their instincts.” He needed to hit the right note for the character, he says. Anything more or less would have not have made it so effective.

chumbak-1 A scene from Chumbak

Playwright-actor Manav Kaul directed Kirkire in the play Colorblind in 2014. Based on the relationship between Rabindranath Tagore and Victoria Ocampo, Kirkire had played the interesting character of 'death' in the play. “Death was an important part of Tagore’s life because he started losing people since the time he was eight or nine,” says Kaul. “That is why it is present in all his works, too.” Kaul wanted an actor who could bring out the nuances of death—both symbolically and literally. “Kirkire did that beautifully, his vulnerability on full display,” he says. Kirkire has also written songs for Kaul's indie film, Hansa.

Mishra hasn’t seen Chumbak yet, but has confidence in Kirkire and his versatility. “He has studied theatre design and direction at the National School of Drama, diversification has to be there,” he says. “Then, he comes from a musical background; his parents are [both] classical musicians. His father learnt from Kumar Gandharva. And then he chose to come into cinema. He, by inclination and not by training, is also a poet. There is so much in him.”

Kirkire, a Maharashtrian from Indore, got to see a lot of world cinema from a young age, and was drawn to it. The only way to study films and arts in a disciplined way those days, was to either go to the Film and Television institute of India (FTII) in Pune, or the National School of Drama (NSD) in Delhi. Most of the courses at FTII required one to be a science graduate, and he had already taken a degree in commerce, so he ended up studying at NSD.

Afterwards, while he was training with Mishra to become a director, he kept talking about a song he had written. One day Mishra asked him for the song and included it in his film, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi. The song —Bavra Mann—went on to become very popular. “I don’t know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, but he became a lyricist,” says Mishra.

Fifteen years later, Kirkire has written and sung numerous songs. Two of his songs— Bande Mein Tha Dum (Lage Raho Munna Bhai) and Behti Hawa Sa Tha Who (3 Idiots)—have won him national awards.

Kirkire sums up his entire career as a series of accidents. “Everything is accidental,” he says with a grin. In 1998, fresh out of NSD, he had done a play about Bhagat Singh and Chandra Shekhar Azad, which caught the attention of TV producer Manju Singh. She was planning a show around the freedom fighters, and Kirkire was the only one who had done the research. “She offered me the job of writing it, and who would refuse a free flight ticket to Mumbai and [the] assurance of a job,” he says, adding that he has just been lucky.

Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, he had heard songs that were both entertaining and had depth, like Babuji Dheere Chalna, from the 1954 film, Aar Paar. “It is a crooner’s number, but gives so much philosophy, and talks a lot about life,” says Kirkire. It was the influence of such songs that inspired him, and many of his contemporaries like Amitabh Bhattacharya, Varun Grover, Irshad Kamil and Qausar Munir, to write thoughtful songs.

“In Hindi cinema, songs have a very distinct place and character,” he says. “We came into song-writing because of that. If it is All Izz Well, it would be fun to listen to and sing, but it should also have some philosophy to take home. Otherwise, there is no point. There have been lots of meaningless songs, the dance numbers. It does not interest me.” It is not that he is morally against them, he says, but they are just not his thing. He likes to call himself a lyrical contributor in a screenplay. That is the reason why he does not write a song without first going through the script of the film.

Earlier this year, Kirkire collaborated with R. Balki on the script of PadMan. He is also writing Balki’s next film. As a lyricist, he worked in Kajol-starrer Helicopter Eela. He is also working on a show for Amazon Prime. “Multi-tasking is fun,” he says. “Actually, it is really good to be able to do so many things because you don’t get caught into mundane routine. Plus, it helps you in pushing the envelope and understanding life better.”

Kirkire, as Mishra mentioned, has always wanted to become a director. But writing lyrics got him name, fame, and money, that was important to him then. “I have directed a lot of plays, and will soon direct a film, too,” he says. Mishra is aware of one of Kirkire's stories. “I am sure it will work really well as most of the things in his life have worked,” he says.

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