‘Voice’ Decision: Salman Khan-Arijit Singh patch-up after 9 years!

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Salman Khan, by now, is known to patch-up with most of the associates with whom he has had spats, like Shah Rukh Khan, Himesh Reshammiya (for a brief while) and more. The latest is his truce with singer Arijit Singh, who neither sang for him when he was a newbie, nor when he slowly rose to be Hindi cinema’s most well-known and popular singer with a great following of his own.

And now, a nine-year-old feud between them has ended with Arijit recording two songs for the superstar for Yash Raj Films’ Tiger 3. An incident at the Star Guild Awards in 2014 had created this rift as Arijit is said to be very impulsive and moody. The fiery Salman had decided not to work with him though he was the biggest name in the male playback arena from that time.

During the event, a casually-attired Arijit, who had dozed off during the ceremony, went to collect an award for his song, Tum hi ho, and the perceptive Salman had asked him in Hindi, “Were you asleep?” Arijit had replied, “Aap logon ne sula diya (You people bored me to sleep)”. Salman was one of the hosts of the evening.

In response, Salman Khan mockingly stated that it is not his fault that Arijit keeps singing such sleepy songs. Arijit gave a smile and walked away. As he was leaving, Salman softly commented that it was disrespectful to attend an award show in slippers. A few minutes later, the song’s composer Mithoon took the stage for his award and commented, “Tum hi ho ne logon ko sulaya nahi, jagaya hai (The song Tum hi ho did not bore people to sleep, instead, it awakened them)!”

This fuelled Salman’s anger, and he subsequently ignored Arijit Singh, removing his songs from the movies Kick (2014), his own production, Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) and Sultan (2016), with the last film’s Jag ghoomeya being dubbed by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan.

After attempting to apologize to Salman for two years, Arijit publicly made an apology on Facebook to Salman in 2016 upon learning that he had been removed from this song. He expressed remorse, acknowledging that his behavior was in poor taste.. He even raved about him saying, “Jag ghoomeya tere jaisa na koi” (the lyrics of the song that said there was no one in the world like you) and said that while his family and he were big fans of Salman, he had not meant to insult him. Arijit added that he was singing so many songs but would “like to retire” with at least one Salman song in his “library”.

Although the singer later deleted his Facebook post, Salman remained unmoved. Neither spoke about it for seven years until composer Pritam, stepping into a Salman movie for the first time after Tubelight (2017) with the upcoming Tiger 3, helped them patch up.

Their first song, Leke Prabhu ka naam is already out and reportedly another song has also been recorded for the film.

The happy part is that both parties are excited about their first work with each other. Posted Salman on Instagram, “Pehle gaane ki pehli jhalak (The first hint of the first song). #LekePrabhuKaNaam! Oh haan, yeh hai Arijit Singh ka pehla gaana mere liye (Oh yes, this is Arijit Singh’s first song for me). Song out on 23rd Oct.”

Arijit has finally got to sing for the actor after singing for every other superstar in the last decade. Before the recording, Arijit had been spotted by paparazzi leaving Salman’s home some weeks ago, fuelling the first hint of a rapprochement.

The only famous star-voice friction known previously was between Raj Kapoor and Lata Mangeshkar, though with Raj as a filmmaker. The trigger-point was the naughty song, Main kya karoon Ram mujhe buddha mil gaya from Sangam. Lata was upset with the way Raj Kapoor had filmed the song in what she thought was a cheap and vulgar manner and split not just from him but also composers Shankar-Jaikishan. Lata was thus absent from Raj’s Mera Naam Joker and Kal Aaj Aur Kal, after singing for every film since Barsaat.

As luck would have it, both films bombed, and Raj planned Bobby, a small film, to recoup his losses. He decided to patch up with Lata and thus looked beyond Shankar (Jaikishan had passed away, and had immediately patched up with Lata before that). The composers he signed, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, who could not look beyond Lata for any subject, got them to make up and she sang again for Raj Kapoor in Bobby, and she sang for every subsequent Raj Kapoor production until his death. She also patched up with Shankar in 1975 with Sanyasi.

Famous music industry tiffs with singers that also ended happily

1. Anand-Milind-Kavita Krishnamurthi
2. Anu Malik-Alisha Chinoy
3. Himesh Reshammiya-Sonu Nigam
4. Lata Mangeshkar-Mohammed Rafi
5. Laxmikant-Pyarelal-Lata Mangeshkar
6. Madhuri Dixit-Alka Yagnik
7. Manmohan Desai-Kishore Kumar
8. Mithun Chakraborty-Kishore Kumar
9. Nadeem-Shravan-Kumar Sanu
10. O.P. Nayyar-Mohammed Rafi
11. Pritam-Shreya Ghoshal