Optimistic about the betterment of country through demonetisation: Javed Akhtar

The   interactive session on cinematic perfection where he spoke was organised by Royal Stag Barrel Select Perfect Strokes.

Javed Akhtar was accompanied by singer and film director, Vishal Bhardwaj and playback singer Shankar Mahadevan.

While speaking about the effects of demonetisation on the newly released Indian films like Dear Zindagi, Akhtar said: “It is obviously the buying and spending capacity of average citizens now is a bit low, but we must consider the fact that Dear Zindagi is not a typical mainstream film to have a huge opening box office collection.”

The well known lyricist believes that the movies of recent times are much more sophisticated than 1980s and music had to change accordingly.

Witnessing the changes in Indian music, he added: “Music at present is under the influence of western world which targets club audience and not individuals.”

In the course of the interaction, Vishal Bharadwaj revealed that he turned himself into direction to do music of his own choice.

Vishal, who has used folk music in his films like Omkara and Ishqiya, said: “Classical music originated from folk music and whenever the latter is used correctly in a film, it has turned out well.”

Shankar Mahadevan who does not believe westernisation to have an adverse impact on so-called Indian music, said: “The fusion of Indian and western music were from very early days while many classical songs were originated from western background.”

However, Akhtar considered “too much noise” as a drawback of current Indian music.

In this context, he said: “Orchestra has become more important than composition of a song nowadays. Moreover, composition should be simple and the words must reach the audience and not the other way around.”

(Reporting by Souvik Ghosh)