Abhishek Bachchan is ready for Kajra Re 2.0: ‘Convince Aishwarya, my dad’ - The Indian Express
Back in 2005, over two decades ago, Amitabh Bachchan shared the screen with his son Abhishek Bachchan in Shaad Ali’s Bunty Aur Babli. The duo participated in the iconic dance number ‘Kajra Re’ with Aishwarya Rai, who, just two years later, became a part of the family when she married Abhishek. Even 21 years later, the song has a massive fan base, and in a recent interview, Abhishek recalled his memories of shooting for the song. When asked about a 2.0 version with the three of them, Abhishek said he was ready for it, but he couldn’t say the same for his father and his wife.
In a chat with BBC Asian Network, Abhishek recalled shooting for ‘Kajra Re’ and said, “I don’t know if I have had more fun shooting a song than shooting ‘Kajra Re’. It was just one big happy party. We enjoyed it so much. I still remember we were filming and it was my birthday, and they celebrated.”
Abhishek said that the film’s director, Shaad Ali, played the song for hours and everyone on the set broke into a dance party. Shaad recorded some of that footage and later used some bits of it in the song. “Basically, what Shaad did was just put on the song and for about four hours we just had a dance party. He actually shot a lot of that and inserted those shots of us just having fun, freaking out on set in the song. It’s absolutely, I mean, cult status of a song. I love it. I had a blast shooting it. It was just great memories, great fun,” he said.
When asked if he would be interested in doing a 2.0 version of the song, Abhishek said he would “love it.” He added, “I’m down for that. I’d love it. You have got to convince Aishwarya and my dad, though.”
In Bunty Aur Babli, Abhishek was playing a con artist alongside Rani Mukerji, and Amitabh played the cop who is on his trail. Towards the end of the film, Amitabh and Abhishek’s characters land up in a situation face to face. Aishwarya Rai had a cameo in the film for the dance number.
Composed by Shankar Ehsan Loy, and sung by Alisha Chinai, Shankar Mahadevan and Javed Ali, the song was choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant.
In an earlier chat with the YouTube channel Just Filmy Things, Ehsaan Noorani shared that the song was at the bottom of the marketing team’s list during the film promotions. “They did an internal evaluation about which song from the film will do well, and Kajra Re was at the bottom of the list. A bunch of people from marketing came together and gave feedback after listening to the song. It just so happened that 4 days after the song came out, I was coming out of the Mumbai airport, and a wedding band was already playing ‘Kajra Re.’”
Director Shaad Ali, in an earlier chat with SCREEN, had shared that even Amitabh Bachchan wasn’t convinced about the song. “Maine jab unhe bulaya tha sunne ke liye… toh he said ki yeh nahi chalega (When I called him to listen to it, he said it won’t work),” he said and added, “Amit ji ne kaha tha ki yeh gaana shoot hi mat karo (Amit Ji said don’t even shoot this song).”
