Amitabh Bhattacharya: The Bengali who writes in Hindi!

Amitabh Bhattacharya continues to write the kind of stuff that everyone loves to lip sync to. No wonder we can’t get enough of him!
You’d never know Amitabh Bhattacharya is the man behind so many talked-about songs in Bollywood, going by his easy demeanour. But the Lucknow fellow, who recently won the National Award for his song in “I Am”, has been steadily delivering one hit after another.
The most recent is the Dreamum Wakeuppam Critical Conditionumsong from Aiyyaa that has everyone wondering at the creative lyrics. Is it any surprise then that we love to turn to him, time and again, and remind ourselves, as well as him, of his Lucknow roots?
Speaking to us from Goa, where he says he’s on a work-cum-pleasure holiday – “we need this kind of space for creativity to flourish,” he explains – Amitabh says he’s caught between cultures. “I’ve grown up in a space like Lucknow, so I can never truly be a Mumbaikar. But having lived in Mumbai for so many years now, I have adapted to life here,” he shares. ‘Lucknowite’ is an epithet that continues to be associated with his name.
“When I entered the industry people knew I belonged to Lucknow because of the way I spoke. Even today, so many years after I moved to Mumbai, being a Lucknowite continues to be part of my introduction, my resume, of who I am,” he adds, “Interestingly, there’s also always a certain element of intrigue pertaining ito my identity, because I’m a Bengali who writes and speaks fluent Hindi!”
Amitabh, who’s working on several plum Bollywood projects currently, says he went from anonymity to fame after Emotional Atyachar from Dev.D made waves on the Indian music scene. “It took me 10 years – I’d come to Mumbai in 1999 – for me to get that one film, one song that could catapult me into fame,” he says.
And since then, there’s been no looking back. Amitabh is on a high. “The last couple of years have been the most enterprising and eventful. I’ve worked with interesting people and projects,” he adds.