Do you know that when Javed Akhtar wrote Madhuri Dixit’s ‘Ek Do Teen’, he was asked to compose a song for ‘Nautanki’? what happened here

Madhuri Dixit has made her mark in the film industry with her exceptional acting and memorable dance sequences. Recently, Javed Akhtar recalled that he came up with the idea of ​​writing lyrics in a unique way for the actress’ popular song Ek Do Teen. This happened when he suddenly heard music director Laxmikant humming a catchy tune using the scores, and he liked it to such an extent that he wrote a song based on it.

Javed Akhtar recently sat down for a chat with writer-director Roshan Abbas at the Repertwahr Season 12 cultural festival held in Lucknow. During the conversation, he shared interesting anecdotes from his experience writing different songs, including the Bollywood song Ek Do Teen from Tezaab (1988), which was picturized on Madhuri Dixit.

The lyricist explained that he was asked to write a song suitable for the Nautanki genre with a rustic and dramatic performance style. Since the setting was unique, he became confused and thought he should write something in Ghalib’s style to match the tone of the song.

He shared, “The gist of this song was that it was set in a nautanki type of setup. As a writer, I couldn’t write a song in the Ghalib style for such a sequence. It was set in a typical rustic There was an atmosphere of drama to match the setting, we were confused as to what kind of song to write.

While thinking about how to approach it, the film’s music director, Laxmikant, shared an interesting observation with Akhtar. He mentioned that the music director demonstrated the tune heard on the banjo during the Ganpati puja pandal by playing numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.

Javed said, “He sang the tune with dummy lyrics using the numbers ‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6’. I liked it so much that I said, ‘Why not use it as is? it is?'”

Initially, Laxmikant was hesitant and worried that the audience might mock the song due to its overly simple lyrics. Also, they may think they made the song by mistake. But, the writer of Sholay was confident that he could write it creatively with emotional depth using numbers. As a result, they came up with Ek Do Teen, a chartbuster and a cultural sensation, while Madhuri Dixit’s dance made it all the more memorable.