Is it true that the story is based on Dostoevskys short story, White Nights?
A. Yes, it is. I read the story after I made the film ‘Black’. I read many more stories, but they lacked that potential in them to make a good movie. This story had a lot of passion, movement and situations. The characters touch your heart. And yet, it is a simple story. The protagonist can be a Hindi movie hero. I made the story a movie which would imbibe any kind of music. It is a story of pure love, the stuff that Hindi movies are made of. It was a challenge for me to capture the Indianness of the story and to make it a commercial film. Q. In the two years that you worked on the music for ‘Saawariya’, you must have recorded some 17-18 songs. You included only ten songs in the movie. Where are the others? A. I have recorded them on a CD and I listen to them every night, wondering why I have not used them in the movie. If I had my way, I would insert one song in every scene. Maybe I will use these songs in my next movie. Like the song, “Thoda Badmash’ – I had recorded it during my ‘De
