Lalit Pandit says Nadeem-Shravan lifted Pakistani songs to compose Aashiqui soundtrack: ‘They would go to Dubai, buy Pak cassettes’

One half of Jatin-Lalit composer duo Lalit Pandit has casually spilled beans on the chartbuster Aashiqui soundtrack, accusing its original composers Nadeem-Shravan of plagiarising Pakistani tracks for “many” songs in the iconic 1990 soundtrack. Mahesh Bhatt’s romantic drama Aashiqui established the career of composer duo Nadeem-Shravan, who gave one of the most memorable soundtracks of Hindi cinema for the movie, which featured songs like “Bas Ek Sanam Chaahiye”, “Nazar Ke Saamne”, “Main Duniya Bhula Doonga” and “Dheere Dheere” among other, all sung by Kumar Sanu and Anuradha Paudwal. In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, Lalit Pandit was asked about the phase of Nadeem-Shravan, especially the time when the soundtrack of Aashiqui dropped. To which, Lalit said, “Honestly, Nadeem-Shravan’s music was not of our style. Most of the song that they had done at that time were. So Nadeem would go to Dubai, from there he would buy a lot of Pakistani cassettes, get them here reproduce. The entire industry knows this. “Aashiqui songs are actually Pakistani tracks, with words (retained). Many of the songs! Music of a composer should reflect their style. If you listen to ours, you’d instantly know it is Jatin-Lalit music, because everything was done by us.” When asked if Jatin-Lalit never took “inspiration” from other world music, Lalit said he has taken “bits” from English songs and used it in Bollywood tracks, but Jatin was a “pure” composer. “Inspiration is a must, even we have been inspired. But that involves a different way of working. Jatin was a truly original composer, he would get inspired by other track, but he would never completely lift a song. In fact I was the one who would take some bits from English songs that I had heard. So I would mix bit and pieces, and only I would know what I had done. But Jatin was a pure composer,” Lalit added. Aashiqui starred Rahul Roy and Annu Agarwal, both of whom became overnight stars after the film. Two decades later, a sequel was made starring Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha Kapoor, which was also a hit. Recently, there were talks of Anurag Basu coming on board to helm Aashiqui 3, starring Triptii Dimri and Kartik Aaryan but the project has reportedly run into legal troubles.