DISNEY ABCD 2 EXCLUSIVE: Mayur Puri Reminisces #Chunar
THREADS OF MEMORY, FABRIC OF NOSTALGIA … #CHUNAR
When I was scripting ABCD 2, I added a layer of emotional baggage to Varun’s character – Suresh – the baggage of his mother’s memories. It was important for us to understand why winning was so important to him. His misgivings could only be justified by a strong emotional motivation. While scripting, we were clear that there will be an emotional mother – son song in the film.
Now, when you talk about such a song, there will be a lot of eyebrows raised because ‘you know, it’s like, 2015 dude! You can’t have a lullaby on screen in 2015!’ So the first rule I laid down with Sachin-Jigar and Remo sir, was that no one will call it a lullaby!
The concept was very clear and it was built within the first dummy Gujarati lyrics that Sachin sang for me. My job was to push the image beyond this obvious imagery as far as possible. And all I could think about was a boy remembering his mother’s ‘Chunariya’ – that sashaying, flowing part of his mother’s attire that became his armour against all the problems of the world. Every little Indian boy and girl knows that the all trials and tribulations of the world are on the other side of this shield, but under a mother’s ‘chunar’ nothing can harm us. I took the concept forward from here as much as I could.
There were many more lines written for this song which we couldn’t use due to length issues, so yes, I’m itching to write another song like this one soon.
Trivia: I always wanted to use the word ‘anchal’ (because it’s more north Indian and has a wider appeal than the seemingly Gujju ‘Chunar’) but I was strongly vetoed out by Remo, Sachin and Jigar.
I’m especially proud of how we used a part of this song in the climax. It starts off as a song for a mother and becomes a song for the motherland. And the mother’s #Chunar becomes the tricolour – our national flag.
#Chunar is a special song. All of us – Remo, Sachin-Jigar, Arijit, Divya and most importantly Varun Dhawan, have poured in their hearts and soul to make this song happen. It’s dipped in childhood memories and woven with threads of nostalgia. I hope everyone loves the song as much as we do.
– Mayur Puri
