Dev D To No One Killed Jessica: Amitabh Bhattacharya’s Journey

Amitabh Bhattacharya (right) has penned lyrics for films like Dev D and lent his voice for Wake Up Sid.

Amitabh Bhattacharya may be a much-in-demand lyricist today but he never came to Bollywood to write songs. He always dreamed of becoming a singer. Song-writing happened to him by accident. Actually, close friend Amit Trivedi pushed Amitabh into penning songs. Amit got his break in films with Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D when he was asked to score its music. Amit turned to Amitabh for the lyrics. Very reluctantly, Amitabh agreed to push his pen.

Once successful, Amit tried pushing his luck the second time when he soon bagged the assignment to compose songs for Aamir. Again, Amitabh Bhattacharya agreed but only grudgingly. In fact, so keen was Bhattacharya to become a singer that he did not give his full name in the credits of the two films, choosing instead to go only by his first name, ‘Amitabh’, for fear of being branded a lyricist. The songs of Dev D became huge hits and, as luck would have it, it was lyricist Amitabh Verma who started getting all the congratulatory messages for the lovely songs. Anyway, by the time Aamir released in 2008 and Dev D, in 2009, Amitabh Bhattacharya had been flooded with so many song-writing assignments that he had no option but to turn a full-time lyricist. Of course, his passion for singing persists and so, Amitabh occasionally also lends his voice to songs. Among the films for which the talented lyricist has sung are Wake Up Sid!, Housefull, Udaan, Band Baaja Baaraat and No One Killed Jessica.