23 years of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham EXCLUSIVE: When Nikkhil Advani had to search for a sea in Cairo to shoot just 1 line of ‘Suraj Hua Maddham’

Filmmaker Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham remains one of the biggest hits of his over two-decade long career. The film is also one of the biggest multi-starrers ever as it brought together Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Kajol and Kareena Kapoor Khan in a single film. The movie was an emotional tear-jerker with its story rooted in the romance between the characters of Shah Rukh and Kajol.

One of the high points of the romance between both the characters was the superhit song ‘Suraj Hua Maddham’, which was composed by Sandesh Shandilya and sung by Sonu Nigam and Alka Yagnik. Jatin-Lalit and Aadesh Shrivastava were the other two composers for the film. Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham was one of the earliest films to have more than one music composer on board.

Shandilya was a newcomer back then. In an exclusive conversation with Bollywood Hungama, he said that he was highly impressed by Karan Johar, who was directing just his second film after the mega success of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998). “I learnt from Karan Johar a lot because he is a very passionate human being,” he said. “He goes so much into detailing and does so much of homework that he had narrated each and every scene to me in ‘Suraj Hua Maddham’.”

Shandilya was amazed by how Karan went great lengths to find a sea in Cairo, Egypt near the pyramids just for one line from the song. “There is a line in the song, ‘Sagar Hua Pyasa, Raat Jagne Lagi’,” said Shandilya. “The whole song was shot in Cairo, Egypt. At a place where there were pyramids, he wanted a sea for this one line because that place has desert and sea both. So, me and his assistant Nikkhil Advani (who is today a well-known filmmaker) went to do a recce in a helicopter. We found a sea and Nikkhil instructed, ‘Wait wait, there’s water and desert both. Land over there’. We shot over there. Karan did all this just for one line in the song. This was a major experience for me.”

As Shandilya was a newcomer back then, he was asked how he landed an opportunity to compose music for such a big film. Interestingly, he didn’t have just one answer for this. “There are two answers to this question,” he said. “If you had asked this question around 20 years ago, I would have said that I called up Karan bhai and said that I make music and would like to work with him. He came and listened to this song, he liked it very much and took it for the film. But if you ask this today, I will say that it is someone else who makes the music and does the hard work and gave me this break; I didn’t do anything. He (God) does everything. We just observe. Today I can say with guarantee that I didn’t do anything.”

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