Just over a year ago, one of
Kannada
cinema’s most popular
music
composers,
Arjun Janya was in hospital, battling a heart attack. He had blockages that needed to be attended to, but he also needed to honour his work commitments. “Hours after I had an angioplasty, I had to get my family to sneak in my laptop to the hospital room as the team of
Roberrt
was on location in Kutch, waiting for the song
Kannu Hodiyaka
to be shot. I managed to send them a version on email from my hospital bed,” says Arjun, adding, “I had a heart attack towards the end of February, a time at which I had multiple releases slated in quick succession. In fact, just prior to the health scare, I was stressed about the next few months – there were projects that I had worked on and needed final tweaking and some new ones too. I was looking at hiring a studio in Chennai and spending a few months there to speed up the process. But then I had the health issue and the lockdown followed shortly after, which, truth be told, came as a blessing in disguise. If it weren’t for the lockdown, life would have been tough for me.”
In the time since, Arjun has been focusing on his road to recovery, losing 10-12 kgs, without letting it affect his work. “Apart from physical fitness, the doctor has also asked me have a more stress-free environment, which, of course, given my field of work is not really an option. The volume of work is not the issue. I am used to even doing 25 films in a year; composing is not an issue; recording it and getting the sound just right is. There is a lot of trial and error in that process and that can lead to pressure. But what has been most challenging is dealing with the rumours surrounding my health condition. Yes, I have had a heart attack and I am on the mend, but there are people talking about not giving me work because I cannot handle it – this is, after all, a field that puts a lot of responsibility on you. Music is my bread and butter and while I myself have thought about giving some projects a pass, doing that means having to return an advance, for which I may have to take up some other project. Thankfully, a lot of filmmakers have shown faith in me and are allowing me to work at my pace. What’s also helped is that these days film teams are not doing audio launches with the entire album. They are releasing song-by-song in a phased manner, which allows me to focus on a particular number,” he explains.
This week’s Roberrt, is Arjun’s first big release since the lockdown. “Tharun (Sudhir, the director) was very clear about what he wanted in terms of music. He gave me five concepts – one about Ram, another about friendship, a third that has a distinct Hubballi flavour, a typical tapanguchi number and finally, one that sings praises of the hero. And that’s how I went about working on the music of Roberrt, which, thankfully, audiences are appreciating. In this day and age, it is difficult to please people and often an opinion is formed about a song based solely on the number of views than its musical value. With star films, the expectation of the music is also high, so whatever you do, they may not fancy it immediately. It is impossible to have a song that everyone will like from the first hearing, as there are tunes that need to grow on you. These are, after all, composed for certain situations and not as stand-alone elements,” he signs off.