Woh Kaun Thi Redux: Will Deepika or Aishwarya hum those ghostly songs?

By Nichola

on March 02, 2018

Makers KriArj Films, helmed by Prernaa Arora and Arjun N Kapoor, reveal that the new version of the film which they have acquired the remake rights to, will feature both these iconic songs sung by the legendary Lata Mangeshkar.

The songs of this Raj Khosla film had been composed by Madan Mohan, and Prernaa reveals, “The minute we acquired the remake rights we thought of the songs. These two songs form the backbone of Woh Kaun Thi. The film cannot be imagined without those songs.”

Very pleased about this development, is ‘India’s nightingale,’ Lataji. The songstress, who is still fairly active at 88, maintains, “The melodies of Woh Kaun Thi were the soul of the theme. Take the songs away and you take away the film’s heartbeat. Did we think the songs would become such big hits? We never created music thinking of posterity. I never knew ‘Lag ja gale…’ would become so popular. But I do remember the film’s leading man Manoj Kumar was at the recordings and he predicted that the songs would be legendary.”

Lataji had been very disappointed back in the day when composer Madan Mohan, whom she considered to be her brother, did not get any awards for his music in Woh Kaun Thi. “Look at destiny. Madan bhaiyya got no awards. But the songs are remembered to this day,” she points out.

Quizzed on whom she would like to see singing her songs in the remake, her response was “Aishwarya Bachchan or Deepika Padukone”.

These are precisely the two names in contention for the lead role which had been essayed by the gorgeous Sadhana in the original. It is a double role, with one of the characters being a spirit. With the songs in place, it remains to be seen whether Aishwarya Rai Bachchan or Deepika Padukone will give us the shivers, crooning, ‘Naina barse…’