Revisiting Sandeep Chowta’s soundtrack for ‘Mast’- more than 20 years on
Sandeep Chowta is a name which, unfortunately, not many people outside of the subcontinent has heard of.
The composer, whose first music was for a 1996 film according to Wikipedia, made an indelible mark on the public consciousness with the background score for Ram Gopal Varma’s 1998 classic ‘Satya.’
Particularly fascinating was the theme music — ‘Mood of Satya’- which captured the grit and tragic romance of its titular hero’s life with near-gothic flourish.
So thrilling is that track that people still discuss it.
As someone who watched Satya when it came out in theaters, I still vividly recall a friend saying excitedly how he noticed the film’s background score for the first time.
The way he said it, I could tell that he rarely gave much mind to the background score of a film.
The recognition that Chowta received for his score for Satya was, no doubt, well deserved.
The next time he worked with Varma was for 1999’s ‘Mast.’ And this time, it wasn’t just the background music he created, but also the film’s songs.
And that was important given how the film was a musical.
Satya was about a young man getting entrenched in the big, bad world of Mumbai underworld and his eventual downfall.
Unlike many of the gangster flicks that came before that in Bollywood, ‘Satya’ portrayed its story more realistically- for one thing, gunshots just cracked instead of sounding like “Dishkyaaaaan!”
But as gritty as ‘Satya’ was, ‘Mast’ was whimsical. It was about a young dude smitten with a film actress. So smitten that he seeks employment at the restaurant next to her home so that he could deliver food to her.
Yes, it’s that kind of a film.
Though songs were always a big part of Bollywood films, musicals- in which songs actually push the narrative forward rather than temporarily take away your attention from the film’s story- were always much rarer, and not even heard of being made during the 90s.
I was eager to watch Mast as I was fascinated by the idea of music as a vehicle for storytelling.
The movie was a big commercial flop. However, I loved it. I guess people disliked the movie for its unapologetically whimsical quality- but that was precisely what I loved the most about it.
I would be lying if I were to say Chowta’s songs played no role in sparking my love for the film.
By turns brooding, bright, peppy, pop-ish, orchestral and electronic, the songs are like the stuffing that makes a treat out of a dish.
I recently revisited the album and was surprised to find how well it has aged. I was a teen in the 90s, so many or my formative music-listening happened during that decade.
But not many songs I grew up with hold up as well as the 9 tracks that Chowta created for this one.
The latter years of Chowta’s career so far hasn’t been as successful as his early years. But the ones that rang good back then still does.
