Thaindian News

By Subhash K. Jha
Mumbai, July 11 (IANS) From hip-hop with son Abhishek, Amitabh Bachchan has now moved to devotional songs. He has recorded the “Hanuman Chalisa” Hindu religious chant and is set to do a new musical interpretation of his father’s version of the Bhagavad Gita. The Big B describes “Hanuman Chalisa” as “divine and heavenly”.

“A new youth-oriented rendition has been on my mind for a very long time. Finally, Aadesh Shrivastava, with whom I’ve done a lot of singing, has done it. I’d call it his great creative effort,” the Big B told IANS.

Trailers of “Hanuman Chalisa” will be released in September, but Amitabh says those who have heard it are giving a positive response.

“Wherever I’ve played the ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ so far people have found it to be a divine experience - hair-raising, goose bumpy, that’s how the endeavour has been described so far.

“I guess it’s more to do with the nature of the project than the singing. There’s a deep connect with the ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ in perhaps every Hindu home. We’ve all grown up reciting it. It still plays an important part in our lives.”

But if you think this is as far as the Big B tryst with divine singing goes, then think again. He will now go into an even more ambitious spiritual project.

This one is for his father, late poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan.

“Aadesh and I will now be collaborating over a new interpretation of the ‘Bhagavad Gita’. It’s one of my father’s unknown and unacknowledged masterpieces, of immense literary and religious value.

“We’ll be doing a musical version of my father’s ‘Bhagavad Gita’ that he had translated into the language and meter of the Ramayan. In this, the centenary year of my father’s existence I can think of no better tribute,” said the proud son.

As a singer Amitabh has been actively doing his own playback from “Mr. Natwarlal”, “Silsila” to “Nishabd” and “Baabul” and “Bhootnath”.