Hailing from Bihar, producer-director Anubhav Sinha had always cherished listening to Bhojpuri music during his growing up years but the producer-director feels the culturally-rich music has lost its charm over a period of time. With the aim of reviving Bhojpuri music and giving back to his roots, Anubhav has created, directed and produced a Bhojpuri music video Bambai Main Ka Ba featuring Manoj Bajpayee under his production banner Benaras Mediaworks, during the current lockdown.
“I have been wanting to do a Bhojpuri song for the longest time,” informed Anubhav as he went on to explain, “I was grown up in Bhojpuri environment in mid-70s and not many people even now realise that those days, Bhojpuri music used to be very classy. It was an integral part of Bollywood as Punjabi music is today. There are classic Bhojpuri-based Bollywood numbers like ‘Nain Lad Jai Hai To Manva Ma’ and ‘Chalat Musafir Moh Liya Re’ among others. This is how Bhojpuri music was to Bollywood and even to mainstream Bhojpuri music which used to play in educated people’s homes back then.”
“But now in the last 25-30 years, Bhojpuri music became double-meaning and crass,” informed Anubhav elaborating, “It left people’s homes and got into paan shops and chai shops and places like those where another kind of mass would consume it but the families who used to listen to it, got gradually cut off from Bhojpuri music. Since I belong to that part of the country, I can tell you that the percentage of people who consumes this music earlier is way larger than the people who consumes Bhojpuri music today, which has become crass and double-meaning today. In the past 10 years, I have been wanting to revive Bhojpuri music by making a classy, meaningful song, something which all generation can together consume it.”
Talking about his collaboration with the versatile actor Manoj Bajpayee for the music video, he said, “One fine morning, Manoj sent me a Bhojpuri song and wanted me to listen to it. By then I had made this song ‘Bambai Mein Ka Ba’ already and felt that Manoj should sing the song and feature in it. But I was not sure about it, so didn’t reach out to him. Then one day, he sends me another Bhojpuri song and I told him that I don’t like the new-age Bhojpuri songs. And then I told him about my song which I had created already. When he heard the song, he loved it. I asked him if he would sing and feature in it and he said yes. Next day, he was in the studio rehearsing and in a week, we were shooting. There were good reasons for both of us to get motivated and work on the song since it talks about migrant workers, and I hope there will be many more to follow.”
“I lost my mother in 2012 and she used to speak Bhojpuri mostly. After she was gone, suddenly Bhojpuri language disappeared from my life and that is when I started craving for it since my mother used to sing Bhojpuri songs too. The song that I have created is also in her memory. I want to take Bhojpuri music to the level that people start making more Bhojpuri songs,” Anubhav recollected. The song ‘was shot at a city studio in a day in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. “I have finished shooting most of my songs in one day, including the popular track ‘Dus Bahane’ and fortunately all those songs have been chartbusters,” informs Anubhav as he signed off.
Produced by Benaras Mediaworks in collaboration with T-Series, the song Bambai Mein Ka Ba featuring the versatile actor Manoj Bajpayee will be launched soon.
