Raj Shekhar remembers his early days in the music industry being marred by the hit-chasing machinations of Bollywood, which left little room for him to indulge his love for Hindi literature. But perhaps the most important thing the writer and lyricist—who now has over 100 songs to his name—learnt over the course of his journey from Tanu Weds Manu to the upcoming Aap Jaisa Koi is the importance of finding the right collaborators.
“You form an understanding with people,” he says, referencing his close bond with Vishal Mishra, with whom he has worked on multiple hits since 2014. “A lot is said about trust between artists. When I was younger, I didn’t understand what [that] meant. Now, I get that when someone plays a tune on their piano, it’s so gentle—the music room is so beautiful because there’s two people who trust each other. Me and the other person are so vulnerable that a third person being there in that moment would totally ruin it.” However, he admits, it’s not always an outsider who breaks that intimacy. “You know who that third person often is? It’s our own thoughts. When that sneaks in, the magic of that place ends.”
It’s been a long road to gaining recognition and, more importantly, a livelihood for Raj Shekhar. Whether in film songs like “Pehle Bhi Main” from Animal or OTT tracks like “Ishq Hai” from Mismatched season 3, the lyricist admits he’s now writing from a place of self-belief. “It’s not like I’ve reached some incredible height, but I’m just saying: I’m on this journey that’s good and don’t have too much self-doubt now about being a lyricist,” he tells Rolling Stone India.
In the last year alone, songs like “Ishq Hai,” composed by Anurag Saikia and sung by Romy, Madhubanti Bagchi, Varun Jain and Amarabha Banerjee, and “Pehle Bhi Main” by Vishal Mishra have topped streaming charts. In the process, it has spotlighted lyricists as equal players in the mechanics of a song.
That wasn’t always the case in Bollywood.
It also wasn’t always the case that hit songs meant more projects, as Raj Shekhar found out after writing songs like “Sadi Gali” and “Yun Hi” from Tanu Weds Manu in 2011. Only a handful of projects followed in the years after, until 2018 when he wrote songs for Hichki, Veere Di Wedding and Tumbbad. “More than three years after a song, if you don’t get work, you ask whether you’re on the right path or if you should do something more,” he admits. “When a film releases, you get a lot of exposure, a lot of praise and then you’re not getting any work, so you wonder, ‘What happened?’”
Streaming has brought more visibility to lyricists, with their names equally credited and given artist profiles. To that end, Raj Shekhar’s Spotify stats show over 12 million monthly listeners and over 253,000 followers. While most artists are attaching their self-worth to streaming stats, the lyricist says, “Once the song is made, I rarely hear it again. So if I enjoy it at the stage that it’s being made (and not in any indulgent way), then it reflects in the numbers of millions of streams. It’s something that people attach their worth to, but it should reflect the joy.”
That rough patch in the early years of the Bihar and New Delhi-bred assistant director-turned-writer is in the past now. “There are definitely people who come to me because of my hits, and I’m happy about it,” he says with a laugh.
From then to now, Raj Shekhar says “nothing has changed” in his creative process. He’s still looking for that ideal time when he writes best. He wonders out loud, laying out the combinations, “Is it spring, winter, late night, early morning, after coffee? Too much information, without info, too much control or just writing freely?”
There is definitely a zone that he can get into, so that’s not a myth. “When I’m writing, for a short while— could be 15 minutes or 1 hour—I go into this meditative space where I don’t realize whether I’ve had my tea, when’s the deadline, where’s the AC remote… I never know. Once I get into this meditative space, I don’t feel like leaving. It often comes for a brief while and when you’re snapped out of it, you think, ‘Arrey yaar, where was I?’”
It can be elusive, though. But Raj Shekhar insists he’s not trying to mystify the creative writing process. “But this is what happens with me,” he adds. His songs are for everyone, from school-goers to bank staff to a “farmer working in the fields” or the “girl who’s about to propose for the first time.” The lyricist says, “All of them are my friends. I want to do something for their lives with my words. Not every poem will become a song, but if I give them a word to communicate what they’re feeling, that’s my job.”
Collaboration and trust between composers, singers and the film’s directors is key, as he notes how songs like “Ishq Hai” and “Pehle Bhi Main” were lengthier than the usual 2-3 minute songs that are the norm these days, but still became hits. “With Anurag Saikia, I’ve had a relationship that’s so understanding that we can always tell each other, ‘This is not working, let’s try something else.’ I would often say this in front of producers, ‘I’m not having fun, this is feeling difficult.’ This space is created mutually.”
For the upcoming Netflix film Aap Jaisa Koi, Raj Shekhar has three songs, working with South Indian composer Justin Prabhakaran for the third time, after Meenakshi Sundareshwar a couple of years ago. “Mila Tujhe” is sung by Vishal Mishra and Prateeksha Srivastava, “Jadu Wali Chimki” includes vocals by Devenderpal Singh and Vidhya Gopal and “Saare Jag Mein” features the voices of Abhay Jodhpurkar and Aanandi Joshi. He says about the project’s music, “It’s beyond the binaries of a sad love song, so it deviates from that, and that was fun.”
From deliberation over what is simple and what feels simplistic (“I observe and relish this battle sometimes,” he says) and writing up 70 drafts before what he calls “the first draft” even reaches people, Raj Shekhar likens the writing process to battling his own ego. But he’s always got a larger picture in mind. “Whenever I go astray, I go back to this line and it brings me back to my purpose—the function of art is to sweep off the dust that gathers on our souls with time,” he says.