Dia, Shantanu at Paanch Adhyay music launch !

The music album of Dia Mirza’s first Bengali film, Paanch Adhyay, composed by Shantanu Moitra, was launched on Saturday evening at a glittering ceremony in a star hotel in Kolkata. Present at the launch were Dia, Shantanu, the film’s writer-director Pratim D. Gupta and singers Usha Uthup and Kaushiki Chakrabarty.

“I loved the way Pratim narrated the idea of the film and it gave me an instant opportunity to try something new and different; I want people to hear the songs and ask, ‘Is this Shantanu Moitra?'” said the music director who is currently working on Sudhir Mishra’s next and Rajkumar Hirani’s next. “The sound is very fresh, young and energetic. I am waiting for the reactions.”

Dia sounded excited about the album. “Right from the time we shot the songs for the film, I have been humming the tracks,” she said. “Shantanu and I go back a long way, right back to Parineeta, which he scored and I did a cameo. In Paanch Adhyay, there’s so much soul in the songs, you have to hear them to believe it.”

Paanch Adhyay is the story of love found and lost in the lives of a contemporary Indian couple, told in moments past and present. Plunged into passion from the moment they meet in Kolkata, Arindam (Priyanshu Chatterjee) and Ishita’s (Dia Mirza) different ideologies – towards life and art – push them apart. The film releases on October 19, the Durga Puja week in Bengal.

The “dream team” album of Paanch Adhyay brings together some of the greatest singers of Indian cinema, of then and now. The album opens with the catchy and zesty Baavri, a Shreya Ghoshal solo in Bengali about a young girl falling in love for the first time. Shreya partners with Shaan for the next song Agontuk, about two strangers coming together on the streets of Kolkata. Uda jaaye, written and sung by Swanand Kirkire, is next. A song about loss and longing, it is the soul of the soundtrack.

Ash King sings the Phire paoa’r gaan, a happy song about the return of love. Next up is Rahoon tere peechhe, Kaushiki Chakrabarty’s paean of love. Shubha Mudgal sings her first Bengali film song in the dramatic Ure jaay. And finally Usha Uthup closes the album in her inimitable style with the jazzy You & Me.

The four Bengali songs have been written by Anindya Chatterjee and Chandril Bhattacharya, the two Hindi songs by Swanand Kirkire and the English song by Pratim himself.