All hands on this musical deck

Despite a long line-up of composers, Runningshaadi.com’s music achieves what it sets out for: a fun soundtrack

The crew that worked on upcoming Bollywood film Runningshaadi.com features a lot of new names, beginning with Amit Roy, who makes his debut as a director after working for a while as a cinematographer in the industry. The music composing faction, a fairly large one at that, also features quite a few new and relatively unknown names. Anupam Roy is the only established name, and even his prominence is largely in the Bengali film industry. The fact that Shoojit Sircar is the co-producer of the film probably has something to do with the presence of Anupam Roy. After all, his last two Bollywood projects were Piku and Pink , both directed by Sircar.

In Runningshaadi.com , ‘ Main Faraar Sa ’ is everything you expect of a Roy song: a nice, very likeable melody, simple, guitar-led arrangement with some nice touches from the flute. For a change, the lyrics aren’t penned by Roy. Instead, it’s Tanveer Ghazi whose words we hear. But Roy does get behind the mic along with a lovely sounding yet rarely heard Hamsika Iyer. ‘ Kuch To Hai ’ composed by Anjana Ankur Singh and Sandeep Madhavan (a.k.a. Bangalore producer The Burning Deck) starts on a similar note. It takes you on a pleasant, breezy ride helmed by the current Bollywood favourite Jubin Nautiyal. The ride gets even better towards the end as Nautiyal’s voice fades away to a tumult of horns and drums.

The makers get MTV India Creative Head Keegan Pinto to debut as composer-lyricist with ‘

Faraar ’, a song that alludes to freedom in a fashion evocative of ‘

Udaan ’. Despite sounding familiar, it’s Nautiyal’s singing that helps the song soar. Then there’s ‘

Bhaag Milky Bhaag ’ an inspirational track that fails to impress. It’s very predictable and singer Sanam Puri’s delivery doesn’t quite seem to carry the required punch. The folksy digression the composer makes to incorporate a cameo from Sonu Kakkar is a nice touch, but it’s the only surprising element in the song.

Lead composers on

Runningshaadi.com , Abhishek Arora and Akshay Verma are responsible for the album’s three most fun tracks. It is Bappi Lahiri and Kalpana Patowary’s exuberant delivery of Manoj Yadav’s jolly verse that is the highlight of ‘ Pyaar ka Test ’. The composers do well to incorporate the disco ode to Bappida in the arrangement. In ‘ Dimpi De Naal Bhaage Bunty ’, Abhishek-Akshay follow the Punjabi dance tune format to a tee, yet the song is incredible fun without letting that familiarity come in the way. A large part of it is owing to Shellee’s lyrics peppered with some of the cutest Punjabi nicknames. And of course singer Labh Janjua, who unfortunately passed away in 2015, does a splendid job. After ‘ Idiot Banna ’ from Dangal we have a ‘ Mannerless Majnu ’ here, an equally light-hearted song with the composers at their imaginative best. Sukanya Purakayastha makes a fine choice as a singer for this track, and doesn’t disappoint with her well-nuanced performance.

It’s been a while since we have had a soundtrack with these many composers produce entertaining results. And to achieve that with a set of lesser-known of names is even more commendable.