Gulzar, Vishal Bhardwaj reunite for 'Jungle Book' song

New Delhi, March 22 (IANS) Veteran lyricist Gulzar and filmmaker-composer Vishal Bhardwaj have reunited to bring a new version of the famous track "Jungle jungle pata chalaa hai" -- from the Hindi TV animated series "Jungle Book" of the 1990s -- for the Hindi dubbed version of Hollywood film "The Jungle Book".

Disney India has released a revision of the original track, which was composed by Gulzar and Bhardwaj 23 years ago.

It's an emotional project for Bhardwaj, whom Gulzar considers as his son.

"'Jungle jungle pata chalaa hai' was not only my first successful song but, more importantly, it was my first collaboration with Gulzar saab. We were under a huge time constraint when we first made the song and didn't even have a moment to process what we were doing," Bhardwaj said in a statement.

"We could never have imagined how popular it would be! After 23 years it's been an absolute delight to revisit the song. Gulzaar saab's lyrics are as stunning as ever. He is truly at his best when he writes for kids. One could say that Gulzar saab is, in fact, the oldest kid in the film industry," Bhardwaj said.

"He is not jaded by age and so his lyrics rejoice in the innocence of childhood and pure wonder for the world! What greater joy is there for a composer than to have such a masterful lyricist to work with," Bhardwaj added.

Disney India officials are hopeful that the revised song too will click with Indian audiences.

"'Jungle jungle...' is the childhood anthem of everyone in the 1990s generation. They have grown up on this song... And it's a song that every Indian knows, loves and remembers. So, we thought it would be great to revive it for our upcoming release 'The Jungle Book'," said Amrita Pandey, vice president-Studios, Disney India.

For the India release of the film, the studio has roped in Bollywood stars like Priyanka Chopra, Irrfan Khan, Nana Patekar, Shefali Shah and Om Puri, to lend their voices for the principal characters.

In the Hollywood version, actors Scarlett Johannson, Bill Murray, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong'o and Ben Kingsley have dubbed for the respective characters.

"The Jungle Book" is slated to release on April 8 in India.

Copyright  IANS

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