Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravijani are on a roll. Their soundtrack for Bang Bang!, the Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif action drama that smashed the box office earlier this month, is still at the top of music charts. And their compositions for Farah Khan's Happy New Year are going the same way. The musical-heist drama, partly shot in Dubai, has Shah Rukh Khan leading an ensemble cast, including Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan, Boman Irani and Sonu Sood.
Dadlani, a hard-rock music enthusiast, and Ravijani, who has a background in classical music, first came together in 1999 to compose for Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi, starring Dino Morea and Rinki Khanna, which tanked at the box office but the songs – especially the reggae-esque Musu Musu Hasi and the romantic Woh Pehli Baar Jab Hum Mile – went on to become cult classics.
From winning the R?D Burman trophy for New Music Talent early on for their work in Jhankaar Beats to composing the jingle for last year's Indian Premier League, Vishal-Shekhar seem to have found their comfort zone in fusion music, melding techno sounds, thumping beats and soulful lyrics.
They've also done some fairly unconventional work – they won critical acclaim for the Marathi film, Balak Palak; they've dabbled in Telugu music; and in 2011 collaborated with the Grammy award-winning English singer and songwriter Imogen Heap on her track Minds Without Fear.
Dadlani sums it up well: "If the song is good, it does not matter whether it's in English, Hindi, Chinese or Swahili. We are musicians and all we care about is that our songs should shine."
• Happy New Year opens in cinemas today. For our interview with the stars and all the red carpet gossip, visit www.thenational.ae/arts-lifestyle
pmunyal@thenational.ae
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There has been a longstanding need from the Indian community to have a religious premises where they can practise their beliefs. Currently there is a very, very small temple in Bur Dubai and the community has outgrown this. So this will be a major temple and open to all denominations and a place should reflect India’s diversity.
It fits so well into the UAE’s own commitment to tolerance and pluralism and coming in the year of tolerance gives it that extra dimension.
What we will see on April 20 is the foundation ceremony and we expect a pretty broad cross section of the Indian community to be present, both from the UAE and abroad. The Hindu group that is building the temple will have their holiest leader attending – and we expect very senior representation from the leadership of the UAE.
When the designs were taken to the leadership, there were two clear options. There was a New Jersey model with a rectangular structure with the temple recessed inside so it was not too visible from the outside and another was the Neasden temple in London with the spires in its classical shape. And they said: look we said we wanted a temple so it should look like a temple. So this should be a classical style temple in all its glory.
It is beautifully located - 30 minutes outside of Abu Dhabi and barely 45 minutes to Dubai so it serves the needs of both communities.
This is going to be the big temple where I expect people to come from across the country at major festivals and occasions.
It is hugely important – it will take a couple of years to complete given the scale. It is going to be remarkable and will contribute something not just to the landscape in terms of visual architecture but also to the ethos. Here will be a real representation of UAE’s pluralism.
