'So much focus on the glamour, and so much silence around our work'

Alokananda Dasgupta can romance characters in ways that perhaps even those who create them cannot The daughter of the late Buddhadeb Dasgupta refers to herself as a morbid person yet she infuses life into every conversation when discussing her work on score composition Her latest endeavour brought her back under the familiar wings of Vikramaditya Motewane after the duorsquos celebrated association for Sacred Games In this interview she discusses what drew her to JubileeEdited excerpts from the conversationYoursquove probably developed a comfortable equation with Vikramaditya considering your past projects Does he discuss the brief with you or does he leave you to itFor this project he said that while he was creating a period project I neednrsquot worry about that He wanted that to be reflected via the songs For the background score he said that while I should avoid using instruments that didnrsquot belong to the era I did not need to think about the period that the series was set in while creating the music design and melody He wanted me to only focus on the narrative and characters He knows me well and knows that vague things work for me He used words like ambition and pride and those words helped me build the charactersProsenjit Chatterjee Aparshakti Khurana in JubileeWhat was the initial idea that you had when this was offered to youIn Sacred Games there were elements that deal with death and life I am a morbid person so dark things work for me I didnrsquot know how I could bring out my darkness in Jubilee until I came across these words In music school wersquod speak about the life of tragic heroes Think about the characters in this project such characters have always existed and are timeless The character has everything he desires he makes one mistake thatrsquos fuelled by pride and that leads to his downfall This is seen in Macbeth itrsquos seen in my friends and also in characters in my familyI chased these two words drew a draft of each character and thought of how their trajectories are different even though they are both consumed by pride and ambition I realised that this is equally morbid Morbidity need not only be death There is a scene when one character leaves his house and everyone stares at him because he is a star Irsquove used an element which is like bipolar music Itrsquos a grand celebration and an ode to joy But then I used certain melodies and changed keys and motifs to make it darker That paradox is what I tried to create with instrumentationAs a composer who studies the characters you are set to work on how did these characters influence youInitially the team shot a small chunk I was shown some rushes and then they went on their major shoot When I had initially read the script it was all in theory I am someone who is inspired by moving images Reading and discussion donrsquot provoke within me what visuals can I knew it was a period drama and shed light on the politics between characters But when I saw the first clipping of Binod character in the dressing room where Jamshed was applying makeup before his act I was moved This was the first time when Binod was shown in poor light The image of him sitting the colour palette used it was all inspiring Music composition is not all romantic and not every frame will inspire you But this one was inspirational It was ominous it had elements of Satyajit Ray and was like a horror still without it being a regular horror That made me understand the multiple layers in this story I knew I had found something dark to sink my teeth into I connected it to Roman Polanskirsquos Macbeth when he sees Banquorsquos ghost When I was composing it my father was on his deathbed Everything was so dark All of these things combined with that one imageAlso ReadVikramaditya Motwane Bhavesh Joshi should have been a girl ExclusiveGiven how deeply invested you are in your projects do you believe this job takes a mental tollI know I am a film composer and not an independent one It drains me and is exhausting But I have understood that I need to accept my work because I will never stop being selfcritical I am not trying to wallow in selfpity but the work I do is not glamorous enough to bring me to the forefront People still think music means songs alone My popularity count is marginal Irsquom not seeking that but Irsquove made peace with the fact that this will be a solitary process But this is how I know to express myself If you take this away from me I will have repressed feelingsIs there anything about your work that you believe needs to come to the forefrontI have my complaints I understand that everything in the industry is about survival But there are so many people who stay up at night and look up the background score of a Nordic series I would love to talk about the process for people to know that not all of it is only about the songs I donrsquot do 10 shows or own a studio with 15 programmers but there are people who are still interested in my work People want to know how a score is composed There is so much focus on the glamour and so much silence when it comes to the work of a score composer