Pritam And Anurag Basu’s Hilarious Joint Pitch To UTV For Life In A Metro 

Filmmaker Anurag Basu and composer Pritam share a working relationship that spans over two decades. In Basu's 2007 film Life… In A Metro, Pritam not only composed the album but was literally a part of the film. Perhaps that's why they decided to pitch the film to UTV together, with Basu narrating and Pritam strumming on his guitar. Producer Siddharth Roy Kapur, who was then a part of UTV, remembers it as one of the most enjoyable pitches he's ever heard. Basu, however, remembers it a little differently.

Anurag Basu: I'll tell you the truth now. Because I was not ready with the entire script, it was a drama I had put up in front of UTV, Siddharth (Roy Kapur) and Ronnie (Screwvala). I was only ready with half the script, so I thought I'd kill some time. I thought I would narrate and Pritam would play one song. He was also not ready with all the songs. So the first half went smoothly, but nothing in the second half. I was just spinning yarn. I was narrating and then I said "Pritam, then that song comes", and he asked me in Bengali 'kon gaan'? (which one). So then I told Pritam 'that one, that one' and then he made up some funny lyrics. It was hilarious because he just added whatever he loves to the song. I remember those lyrics he made up for the song 'Baatein kuch ankahi si'. He sang 'daal chini, tumhi ho maal dini, tumhi ho …. Monalisa'. Something like that he said. He made the whole song out of football names, food names, artists, painters. It was funny.