Singer Atif Aslam revamped the old song sung by Lata Mangeshkar and it’s a disaster. While Lata Mangeshkars “Chalte chalte yuhi koi mil gaya tha”, the mellow ‘mujra’ melody composed by the great Ghulam Mohammed for the mythic Meena Kumari’s swan song in Pakeezah is still a favourite of many, the new version of the song by Atif Aslam for a Bollywood film titled Mitron saddens Lata.
Lata Mangeshkar has not heard and song and The Quint quotes her saying, “And I don’t want to hear it. This trend of remixing old songs saddens me. Where is the creativity in simply lifting acknowledged, beloved classics and shuffling the notes around? I’ve even heard that the lyrics are changed in the remixes. By whose consent? The original poets and composers wrote what they had to. Nobody has the right to tamper with the creativity of these great composers and lyricists.”
Singer Alka Yagnik, whose song Dilbar Dilbar was recently remixed for Satyameva Jayate, said to The Quint, “Why don’t they make a new song and make it a superhit if they can, instead of picking up an already superhit song, distorting it, and releasing it again… and then saying, ‘See, it’s become so popular’!”
She added, “Chalo humaare gaanon ke saath ye zulm kartey hain (They do this with our songs)… but their audacity is increasing by the day. Now they’ve started doing this to Lata Didi’s song as well.”
Singer and BJP MP Babul Supriyo, expressed his displeasure too and said to the website: “Today, even the‘’poetic’ term ”artistic liberty’ is at the verge of extinction. With due respect (and disrespect) to Atif Aslam, as a singer myself, I will observe a 2 minute silence to mourn rather than offering a comment.”