OZIL DALAL SAYS HE WANTS TO BE QUALITATIVE AS A LYRICIST AND NOT QUANTITATIVE
By JYOTHI VENKATESH
He may have breezed in on the music scene as a lyricist with a big bang thanks to Amit Trivedi for the first lyrics in the Show Coke Studio season 3 @ MTV but he prefers to climb the ladder slowly and steadily and that too on his own terms and conditions. Not that Ozil Dalal, who hails from Gujarat is lazy but only because he wants a qualitative growth than a quantitative one. “I had always a keen interest in Shayree & poems right from the time I was in school but it took a serious turn when I started studying for software engineering in college at “home town”, says Ozil Dalal on the telephone when I ping him for this interview.
It was actually music director Amit Trivedi who gave Ozil a big break in Coke Studio Season 3 for the song “Kyun Na”. His tryst with Amit Trivedi with whom he obviously gelled well continued to flourish.The journey continues with him for another biggest Anthem for gaana.com “Bas Bajna chahiye gaana, “Dil ka gaana” and it’s series.From then onwards he has not looked back at all. Gaana.com also wins the most pretigious Abby award. Music Director Monty Sharma also played a vital role and asked him to write a song in Suman Ganguly’s Golden Elephant award winning children’s film Blue Mountain. The film starred Ranveer Shoray, Gracy singh, Raajpal Yadav and Yatharth Ratnum.
Ozil says that he considers himself very lucky as he has also written a party track for a film in which the director Mahesh Bhatt had actually acted in the first ever full-fledged role of his career. The film was directed by Tariq Khan and released two years ago. He kept on adding feather after feather to his cap by creating eyebrow raising moments among listeners. He wrote a football song in a movie Penalty followed by a Dada Saheb Phalke award winning short film MOH starring Adaa Sharma..
Yet another music director with whom Ozil gets along famously is Tanishk Bagchi for whom he has written a travel song for the Sushant Singh Rajput-Jacqueline starrer Drive produced by Karan Johar and directed by Tarun Mansukhani. “I have known Tanishk Bagchi right from my very beginning days and we too bond well as a music director and a lyricist. I wrote the song Makhna for the film Drive. It was sung by Yasser Desai and Asees Kaur. I feel happy and satisfied as a lyricist and have no regrets”, says Ozil.
Being a Gujarati his keen interest was to contribute his talent to Gujarati Industry in a unique manner. He got a chance to write for Jatin-Pratik in award winning Gujarati first sports film “Diya..The Wonder Girl”. The film was a real biopic of an 8 years old international martial arts champion girl from Gujarat. He gave different colors to all songs in order to make it universal.
With gratitude, Ozil says that Amit Trivedi praised him for the additional lyrics that he wrote recently for the remake of “Allah Tero Naam” , which was appreciated by the audiences worldwide when the showTIMES OF MUSIC by MX player was aired on Sony TV. Says Ozil, “When in general, lyricists struggle for ten to fifteen years in the film industry and get the opportunity to write lyrics for legendary music directors when they are at the peak of their popularity, I think I am lucky and blessed too because I got the opportunity to write lyrics for Amit Trivedi at a very early stage”
I ask Ozil to name his latest five favorite lyricists and he does not hesitate to name them frankly. “Among my top five favorite lyricists are Gulzar, Amitabh Bhattacharya, Shelle, Piyush Mishra and last but not the least Irshaad Kaamil. Ozil adds that among his top five favorite music directors are Amit Trivedi, A.R. Rahman, Pritam, Shantanu Moitra and last but not the least Vishal Shekhar. Ozil names Sonu Nigam, Benny Dayal, Harshdeep Kaur, Shashaa Tirupathi and last but not the least Arijeet singh as his favorite singers.
Ozil asserts that for a lyricist to gel with a music director, the lyricist should not sport any attitude. Also good relations, natural spiritual bonding etc go a long way in taking the relationship between the music director and the lyricist forward in their journey. Ozil also adds that besides one’s talent, destiny also plays a very vital role in shaping the career of a lyricist. Writing lyrics is God-gifted and what’s more, the lyricist should remember that each lyricist is endowed differently and has a particular style to express his thoughts.
Ozil reiterates that over the last several years, lyrics has also undergone a lot of changes, like basically film making itself or for that matter the way music is composed in films and cites the example of a lyricist like Sameer who reigned supreme at one time with his song after song becoming a hit chartbuster in Bollywood.“Sameer had the tendency to write his favorite words like angdaayi, dheere dheere or for that matter aansoo and every song that he wrote used to click in a big way in the good old 90’s. Unfortunately or fortunately, the flavor has changed altogether nowadays, because in the first place the way people talk in their day to day conversation also has changed in a big way and you need to write something modern and different in terms of language today” says Ozil.
Ozil cites the prime example of Amitabh Bhattacharya in Dil Bechara for music director A.R. Rahman. “Each and every song in Dil Bechara has it s own distinct as well as unique and special identity”, Ozil exults. When asked if Ozil also plans to take up the task of composing music eventually, he vehemently denies that telling he is not nursing any desire as such. “I have absolutely no inclination to take up tension and end up as a music director too, and am happy in life writing lyrics for other music directors”, he says.
Ozil Dalal knows his priorities right and does not at all mince words at all when I ask him why he is not prolific as a lyricist and continues to choose his assignments. “You see, I as a lyricist want to be like a showroom and not just a small roadside shop and my mantra will always be to be qualitative and not quantitative as a lyricist.
Right now, Ozil is committed to writing lyrics for his upcoming films, singles, jingles and sighs that like in the case of all the other creative guys in Bollywood, his work has also taken a backseat because of the CoronaVirus “which has pushed all of us behind by several leaps and bounds” and hopes and is confident that the tide will change soon.