While his sudden demise is yet to be processed into some kind of coherence, music composer Wajid Khan’s going leaves a deep dent in Salman Khan’s creative repertoire. Salman shared a unique music bonding with Sajid and Wajid, especially Wajid whom he instinctively connected with.
Wajid’s musical journey began with Salman and ended with Salman. It was admittedly an acutely massy merger of interests. The first song that Sajid-Wajid composed for Salman was in Pyar Kiya Toh Darna Kya.
When in 1998 Sajid and Wajid met Salman with their songs he immediately liked the duo’s energetic music and easygoing attitude.
But Pyar Kiya Toh Darna Kya already had Jatin-Lalit doing the music. Salman coaxed Jatin-Lalit to let Sajid-Wajid do one song in Pyar Kiya Toh Darna Kya. As a career policy, Jatin-Lalit didn’t do collaborative albums. But then who says no to Bhai?
This beginning led into 4 songs for Sajid-Wajid in Hello Brother including the superhit Hata sawan ki ghata which Wajid and his brother composed. (Contrary to reports Wajid did not write the lyrics for this song, and it was Faiz Anwar who did). The song was an instant chartbuster and ballbreaker. Thereafter Sajid Wajid did the music for a majority of Salman starrers including of course Dabangg.
Speaking of the collaboration Wajid who loved and respected Salman almost as much as his own brother said to me once, “I think the reason why Salman Bhai clicks so well with us (Wajid and his brother Sajid) is because we know the kind of songs he likes to project on screen, thodisi masti thodasa romance and zero vulgarity. Bhai is as opposed to double-meaning songs as we are. The closest we came to doing a risqué number was Fevicol in Dabangg 2 and that also, if you listen to closely, doesn’t contain a single vulgar word.”
Besides the eschewal of crassness Wajid also shared Salman’s love for his family. If Salman’s world revolves around his parents, the same is true of Wajid who was so proud of his mother’s cooking that he made sure all his friends had a taste of her culinary skills.
I don’t think Wajid was ever the same after his father’s death some years ago. “It’s like a part of me died with Papa,” Wajid had told me. “My health also deteriorated after Papa’s death. It was like my world had come crashing down.”
Salman was a big help in those dark days. He stood by the two grieving shattered brothers, waited for them to recover from their mourning period to do the music of Dabangg 3.
Thought Wajid won’t do Dabangg 4 he did his career’s last two songs, designed especially for the coronova crisis, for Salman.
Wajid would not have liked it to end in any other way.