When stalwarts of Bollywood music industry come together for a cause, fans are bound to take notice. The same applies for Papon when he released Namami Brahmaputra, a music video paying tribute to the river Brahmaputra in Assam. Within just a few days of its release, the song was trending on YouTube.
For Angarag Mahanta, who is popularly known by his stagename Papon, it was nothing but giving his homeland the tribute it deserves. “When the Assam government first approached me to work with them on this, we were supposed to make only a theme song for the river festival Namami Brahmaputra.” But then it wasn’t limited to just a video. Soon, the song had several big names from Bollywood taking a part in the video. “When we were still in the discussion phase for it, I realised that including a few big names from the industry would help us spread the video better and get us a larger reach,” recalls Papon. “We then decided to make two versions — one in Hindi and the other in Assamese.”
The 4.32 minutes-long Hindi rendition is written by lyricist Swanand Kirkire and features Amitabh Bachchan along with some Arijit Singh, Sonu Nigam, Shreya Ghoshal, Kailash Kher and Shankar Mahadevan.
Papon recalls approaching the stars with some amount of apprehension. “Even though I strongly believed in the project, I approached everyone with a sceptical mind. But everyone came aboard without any hassle.” When asked about the casting coup with Amitabh Bachchan, he says, “Even I couldn’t believe it when he agreed to get on board. Not just that, the actor and other celebrities shared the music video on their social media accounts, which helped make it a success.”
Giving us an insight in the behind the scenes, the singer confesses that the process of filming the video was intense and went on for over ten days. Papon, who is famous for soulful renditions like Moh Moh Ke Dhage, Tu Jo Mila and Bulleya, never sang professionally till he was in college. He says, “I had an interest in music since I was a child, but never really got an opportunity to work on it till I moved to Delhi for college,” he recalls. He credits his love for music to his parents and holds a soft corner for ghazals and folk music. Papon’s currently working on an Assamese album, which is set to release in a month’s time, along with a ghazal-based project.
