Daily Times

Daler Mehndi never ceases to stop entertaining his fans. After a super duper hit hat-trick with “Mirzya”, to the Rs 2,000 crore spinning motivational ‘Dangal’, to singing in four languages for the world’s biggest blockbuster ‘Bahubali’.

Daler Mehndi’s next super hit is his evergreen song “Kurriyan shehr diyan” from Rahul Rawail’s 1999 action-packed-drama ‘Arjun Pandit’, for a Shreyas Talpade production ‘Poster Boys’ featuring Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Shreyas Talpade himself and Elli Avram.

The song is originally composed and written by Mehndi extempore during his “Coca Cola Tour Daler Da” on stage in Nagpur and featured him with Juhi Chawla in the film. Tanishk Bagchi who has previously worked on “Tamma tamma” for ‘Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya’, OK Janu’s “Humma humma” and “Mast mast” for ‘Machine’ does Kurriyan Shehr Diyan’s new version.

Neha Kakkar accompanies Mehndi on the vocals and Ganesh Acharya has choreographed the song.

“We wanted a vibrant and energetic track for the opening sequence as it sets the tone of the film. When someone suggested this number, all of us unanimously agreed as it fits the bill and has great nostalgic value since it comes from a Sunny paaji film even if it didn’t feature him earlier. And we thought of recreating it with Daler Paaji,” Talpade said.

The year was 1999 and “Coca Cola Tour Daler Da” was in full swing. Producer NR Pachisia and veteran director Rahul Rawail were on an eager lookout to get Mehndi to give their upcoming film its super hit number. The tour was keeping Mehndi super busy as they had to wind 30 concerts within 60 days. They finally managed to catch the live wire Bhangra King at the Coke tour’s Nagpur show. “Hummey ek Daler Mehndi USP wala gaana chahiye paaji,” Rahul Rawail had said just as Mehndi was climbing the stage amidst a huge roar of applause from 50,000 fans and then much to everyone’s delight Mehndi started singing “Oye hoye ke kurriyan shehr diyan” – the crowd encored “Shehr diyan” as though they had come rehearsing a song that was evolving, getting created real time on stage, extempore!

Mehndi composed and authored the song on stage – live in front of his audience dedicated to the front row of girls screaming his name. Rawail got his blockbuster seeing the crowd react to a brand new song and Mehndi added yet another jewel to his dance-a-thon repertoire.

Creator of “Tunak tunak” and crowned with titles like “King of Bhangra”, “Messiah of Masti”, “Sardar of Swing” and the “Voice of Entertainment” to the guy who makes “Happy Music”, Mehndi is currently exploring newer sounds, apart from churning soul stirring Sufi and Gurbani music.

Published in Daily Times, July 21^st, 2017.