Mohit Suri completed 20 years as a director earlier this year. On March 25, 2005, his debut directorial venture Zeher was released and got noticed not just due to its content but also its songs. This Emraan Hashmi-Shamita Shetty-Udita Goswami starrer started a new trend of having a remixed version of slow, soulful numbers from the film album. The experiment worked and how. Many other films then picked up on the trend big time. exclusively spoke to Mohit Suri as part of the promotions of his latest flick Saiyaara and he opened up on this aspect.

EXCLUSIVE: Before she became a star, 12-year-old Alia Bhatt unknowingly shaped a music trend; Saiyaara director Mohit Suri shares the INSIDE story behind Zeher’s ‘Woh Lamhe Woh Baatein’ remix

When asked how the idea originated, Mohit Suri replied, “It (Zeher) was a film with new actors. I was wondering how I should get attention for the film and its songs. At that point, I used to frequent nightclubs and I realized that no matter how many English songs you are playing, at the end of the night, people crave Indian music, especially after some amount of intoxication! But during those times, just before closing, nightclubs would play remixes of foreign songs. Also, it was a time when the trend was to remix old Hindi songs. I asked – why not remix songs of our film and leave it to the listeners? Honestly, even the music companies didn’t believe in this idea. They feared that it might ruin a good song.”

Mohit Suri added, “I remember I went to Bhatt saab (Mahesh Bhatt) with the video of the remixed song. We shot it (remix version of ‘Woh Lamhe Woh Baatein’) with very little money as we didn’t have a budget. We pulled in a lot of favours for it. Alia Bhatt was very young (she was 12 at that time) and she was present in that room. She started enjoying the song. Bhatt saab told me, ‘If she’s liking it, it means that the song is good’!”

Mohit further stated, “I used to confidently tell people that ‘Every nightclub will play this song once every night’. But they ended up playing it a couple of times every night. That’s how the trend started. But the reason for it was to grab attention for the film starring newcomers.”

Mohit Suri has a great bond with Emraan Hashmi and both have worked together in as many as 7 films – Zeher, Kalyug (2005), Awarapan (2007), Raaz: The Mystery Continues (2009), Crook (2010), Murder 2 (2011) and Hamari Adhuri Kahani (2015). Their last outing was released more than ten years ago. Hence, can we expect them to make a comeback?

Mohit Suri said, “I would love to work with Emraan whenever he calls out to me and wants me to do some film with him. He’s not just my first hero but also my closest cousin. He’s the brother I grew up with. But I’ll approach him only when the role is good enough for him.”

More Pages: Zeher Box Office Collection

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