Tere liye hum hain jiye – Veer Zaara (2004)

Film: Veer Zaara (2004)
Music: Madan Mohan
Lyrics: Javed Akhtar
Singers: Roopkumar Rathod, Lata Mangeshkar

Don’t be surprised with this one here…it is more retro than you think! When Yash Chopra’s search for a new tunesmith did not yield the desired result, he turned to Sanjeev Kohli – none other than late Madan Mohan’s son – to use the maestro’s unused tunes and re-orchestrate, perform and string together beautiful ballads like this one. This track stood out with haunting opening piano riffs with a goosebumps-inducing soulful melody that goes deep inside the heart interwoven with some beautiful romantic poetry from Javed Akhtar. One cannot ignore the YRF-branded, trademark alaaps from none other than Lata Mangeshkar in tandem with Roopkumar Rathod’s silken vocals. It begins with a minor chord play in the mukhda meandering slowly into major-chord antara and then back to the soulful mukhda. A peculiar fact is that this is one of the very few numbers where the major and minor versions of same chord are used in the mukhda

Not many know that the unused Madan Mohan tune used for this number was originally composed for Dil dhoondta hai phir wahi (Mausam; 1975; also read: https://shailendra19.com/2018/01/26/dil-dhoondta-hai-phir-wahi-mausam-1975/). Like all great albums, very tough to pick a number from this one too with gems like Main yahaan hoon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6Y8xEfyXTs), Yeh hum aa gaye hain kahaan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA0k1ks5BIo), Do pal ruka (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOK3egx58CE), Kyun hawa (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw8Q7n_dWL4) and Hum to bhai jaise hain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_L5nSf91zs). I love this album so much that if I had to choose just one for the last 2 decades, it will be this one!