When Kesariya lyricist Amitabh Bhattacharya hilariously explained how Chikni Chameli was written: ‘Peg laga ke aai?’

Soon after Kesariya– the first song from Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt’s Brahmastra was released–music lovers couldn’t help but notice the misfitting ‘love storiyaan’ in the otherwise soothing lyrics. The song has been written by Amitabh Bhattacharya who is known for his numerous hits, like Chikni Chameli. In a video of the making of the hit song, Amitabh had shared how he had conceptualised the song. Also read: Twitter cringes over ‘love storiyaan’ line in Brahmastra’s Kesariya song; memes call it ‘elaichi in biryani’. See here

Talking about how he came about to write the lyrics of the song, Amitabh had said in the ‘making’ video, “Chikni Chameli took a little bit of time, lot of headbanging, back and forth. I was like, ‘what do I write?’ Chikni led to Chikni Chameli. Then I reached Chikni Chameli chhup ke akeli and got stuck. Suddenly Atul and Ajay (composers) came up and said, ‘how about peg laga ke aai/ pauaa chadha ke aai?’”

Chikni Chameli was picturised on Katrina Kaif as a special dance number for Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra and Sanjay Dutt-starrer Agneepath. It was written by Amitabh Bhattacharya, sung by Shreya Ghoshal with music by Ajay and Atul. Ganesh Acharya had choreographed the song.

A portion of the video was shared by Instagram page @notwhyrul with the caption, “paua storiyaan (peg stories)” as Kesariya was released on Sunday. One of his fans commented on the post, “I am sure Gulzar saab would now learn something about agile methodologies of song creation.” Another wrote, “This same guy has written lyrics of Udaan… Kya se kya hogaye dekhte dekhte (what has happened).”

In the video, Agneepath director Karan Malhotra also talked about how it was Lochan, the assistant sound designer of the song, who asked him if he had heard Ajay-Atul’s Marathi song Kombadi. Ajay-Atul also open up about how Karan Johar and Karan Malhotra approached them for the song and asked them to write as good lyrics for the Agneepath song as in Kobdi.

Amitabh Bhattacharya shot to fame with the Dev.D song, Emotional Atyachar. He also won a National Award for the song Agar Zindagi from the film, I Am. Some of the most popular songs written by him are songs are Channa Mereya, Bulleya, Kabira, Balam Pichkari, Badtameez Dil, Mast Magan, Zehnaseeb, Abhi Mujh Mein Kahin, Gerua, Zaalima, Namo Namo, First Class and Param Sundari and the s