Gulzar, Bhardwaj remake ‘Jungle Book’ song

Veteran lyricist Gulzar and filmmaker-composer Vishal Bhardwaj have recreated the track Jungle Jungle Pata Chalaa Hai — from the 1990s Indian animated series Jungle Book — for the Hindi version of Hollywood film The Jungle Book.

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

For Bhardwaj, it’s an emotional project.

“Jungle Jungle Pata Chalaa Hai was not only my first successful song but, more importantly, it was my first collaboration with Gulzar sahab. 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. Gulzar sahab’s lyrics are as stunning as ever. He is truly at his best when he writes for kids. One could say that Gulzar sahab is, in fact, the oldest kid in the film industry,” Bhardwaj added.

“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.”

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

“Jungle Jungle is the childhood anthem of everyone [from] 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 Hindi version of the film, the studio has signed on Bollywood stars such as Priyanka Chopra, Irrfan Khan, Nana Patekar, Shefali Shah and Om Puri to dub for the principal characters.

The Hollywood version features the voices of actors Scarlett Johannson, Bill Murray, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o and Ben Kingsley.

The Jungle Book will release in the UAE on April 14.