Rahman does a peppier remix of CWG theme song

Even Oscar winners don't always succeed on their first try. Faced with a lukewarm response to his original version of the Commonwealth Games theme song, A.R. Rahman has produced a peppier and sportier remix just over two weeks before D-day.
“It's been tightened up, so the duration is shorter. The instrumentation has been pepped up. The lyrics are willy-nilly the same,” said screenwriter and lyricist Prasoon Joshi, who is part of the team that conceptualised the opening and closing ceremonies of the Games.

Speaking to journalists after a meeting of the Group of Ministers on the Games, Mr. Joshi claimed it was not the widely reported criticism that forced a revamp of the song that had originally taken six months to compose.

“Rahman is a musician who believes in constantly improving his product. That's the way he works. He does it all the time with his music in films,” argued Mr. Joshi.

“The work which Rahman Sahib does always grows on you gradually. You will begin to see that with this also.”

Drummer Ranjit Barot also played a role in pepping up the song, adding livelier beats. He has also reworked the 11-minute track originally composed by Rahman for a classical dance performance. Several of the dancers were reportedly unhappy with the original track.

The video for the theme song, “Oh Yaaro, Yeh India Bula Liya,” will take another week to get ready, said Mr. Joshi. It features some of India's biggest sports stars, including Milkha Singh, P.T. Usha and Karnam Malleswari.

“The video also gives it the feel of a sports anthem,” said Sports Secretary Sindhu Shree Khullar. “It has a sharp beat now...less words, more music.” So is it like “Waka Waka,” the Shakira song which Rahman famously said he could better? “No, it's sportier, more like Chak De,” said Ms. Khullar.

The GoM also had a security briefing by the Delhi Police, said Ms. Khullar, adding that the long-delayed “lockdown” of venues would finally take place between September 20 and 22.

“In fact, we hope the Games Village lockdown will begin on September 19, and the other venues will be handed over one by one by the Organising Committee,” she said.

A lockdown involves a complete sanitisation of a venue by security agencies, following which the access is tightly controlled. The procedure should ideally have taken place last month, and the Home Ministry had earlier asked for a deadline of September 7.