Saurabh Tankha
He is a singer, guitarist, music producer, composer, arranger and conductor for Bollywood films, all rolled into one. Meet Meghdeep Bose aka MDB who, at 27, has collaborated on popular songs like Tumhe apna banane ka (Hate Story 3), Tu bhula jise (Airlift), Bol do na zara (Azhar), Jab tak (MS Dhoni), Besabriyan, Kaun Tujhe Yun and Uff Ye Noor among others.
“I used to do backing vocal arrangements for Amaal Malik in 2014 and that was all he knew about me then. Until, in 2015, he overheard my work at YRF Studios and offered me to produce a song for his upcoming film. The song was Main hoon hero tera (Hero). Since then there has been no looking back,” shares MDB.
And then came another hit, the milestone track, Swag se swagat. “Till 2017, I was considered good to produce only romantic tracks. Swag se swagat ushered in a breeze of change. The song was completed within a day-and-a-half but worked really well. I was happy that the listeners loved that track so much that it came out top five in chartbusters,” he says.
Born and brought up in Indore, Meghdeep’s father, Dilip Bose is a renowned singer and music composer among the Hindi-speaking Christian communities. “Being the fourth generation of musicians in the family, I was nourished with rich musical sensibilities. I have had a strong attraction towards music since an early age so majorly my childhood was spent in the studios with dad. I used to accompany him during his conducting sessions. In 2002, we moved to Bhopal where I completed my academic life,” informs Meghdeep who feels there is huge responsibility when you come from a family of musicians.
“There is responsibility when you have seen your father working so hard in the same field. And there is pressure too. You often fall prey to the comparisons from within the family where you have to prove your abilities in the presence of your father who is already a powerful talent. But when you work in an industry which caters to a huge population, you have to do justice with your work. That’s what I have learned from my father and my mentors,” recalls MDB.
The music composer, however, doesn’t forget mentioning about his school’s music instructor, Abhijeet Raut. “I was encouraged and pushed ahead by him to pursue my dream to learn guitar. Being a quick learner, I started performing regularly for various recordings and stage shows locally. I eventually graduated to being an arranger/ programmer whilst working for my father,” says he.
At 17, Meghdeep felt a strong need to take up Western classical music to strengthen his foundation as a music arranger so he began learning piano from Dr Fr Charles Vas in Mumbai. “He trained me under the piano curriculum of Trinity College of Music, London, where I, keeping up with the professional pressures, could only reach “Grade 6” in Western classical piano. I’ve received Sangeet Sri from Rabindra Bharti University under the guidance of Mrs Madhuri Mukherjee (Bhopal). Also, though briefly, I had the privilege of learning the basics of tabla and Indian classical vocals under Pt Kiran Deshpande,” shares Meghdeep.
In 2012, MDB was selected for the prestigious Berklee College of Music, Boston. “I had a Dean’s Merit Scholarship and further about 50% on tuition. But I could not attend the college due to financial limitations in the family and for non-availability of loans and scholarships for music students. I had bumped into Mr Raju Singh during an audition for Berklee. By then, I had completed almost a five-year-long tenure under my father and needed to move on and push towards my dreams to reach out to cinematic horizons,” reminisces Meghdeep who, without further delay, moved to Mumbai in 2013.
“I began working under Raju sir as an assistant and arranger/ programmer/ producer for various film and television scores. I was an apprentice to him for three years in which he also gave me a freehand to work and grow as a freelancer with other composers,” shares MDB.
On how welcoming is the film industry to people coming from outside Bollywood and how easy or difficult is it to make a place, he says, “As per my experience, it is welcoming and where you come from doesn’t matter. All that matters is hard work. You need to prove yourself every single day through your work as we are the entertainment industry and being stale is being dead. There are so many young people in the industry who are working hard and their work is being appreciated and acknowledged.”
MDB’s upcoming projects as a music producer-arranger include Bharat and SOTY2 with Vishal-Shekhar; Eela with Amit Trivedi; Pop the Bottle, an upcoming collaboration of Vishal Dadlani with Diplo and a couple of films with Amaal Malik.
Ask him as to how is music composer different from a score composer and he explains, “Songs and film scores (termed as background scores), both are music, and whoever composes either of them, is a composer! Our films credit song composers under “music” and film score composers under “background score”. This way, the common man remains unknown to the contributions by the score composer in the film as they know only songs as “music”. Sadly, the credit of “music” is mistakenly reserved only to the ones who compose songs. Nobody realises that a film’s score is what drives it. Films should credit its composers as “music – songs” and “music – scores”.
