Bappi Lahiri on the recreation of Pag Ghungroo: “Nobody has approached me”

Recreations are currently a massive part of Hindi film soundtracks and recently, it was reported that the super hit song, Pag Ghungroo from the 1982 Amitabh Bachchan starrer, ‘Namak Halaal’ was next on the list.

Producer Murad Khetani had reportedly bought the rights of the song, and now legendary composer Bappi Lahiri has shared the same, however he said that he had not been approached by anyone for the remix yet.

Box Office Worldwide reveals Lahiri saying, “Nobody has approached me. So I don’t know what their plans are. But the music that I did for Namak Halaal is remembered and hummed to this day. One cannot imagine ‘Namak Halaal’ without ‘Pag Ghungroo’. It was shot by Prakash Mehraji in an 11 minute sequence, the longest song sequence in a Hindi film. Kishoreda (Kumar) sang ‘Pag Ghungroo’ as only he could. He rightly won the Filmfare award for his vocals. I consider ‘Pag Ghungroo’ among my best achievements.”

Talking about the joy he felt while composing the song for ‘Namak Halaal’, he went onto say, “It was my first film with Prakash Mehraji. Before this, he worked with the great Kalaynji-Anandji in ‘Haseena Maan Jayegi’ (1968), ‘Zanjeer’ (1973), ‘Haath Ki Safaai” (1974) and ‘Muqaddar Ka Sikandar’ (1978). ‘Namak Halaal’ was a big challenge for me. After this Prakash Mehaji and I did ‘Sharaabi’ (1984) with Bachchan Saab, again taking the songs to unexpected heights.”

Another Lahiri creation, Raat Baaki Baat Baaki, also from the ‘Namak Halaal’ soundtrack was recreated for the film ‘Ittefaq’ in 2017 by Tanishk Bagchi.