The first movie that Rachita Arora composed music for, was for Anurag Kashyap’s Mukkabaaz. But as luck would have it, other movies that she signed on later, released first. “While I was doing Mukkabaaz, a few directors heard the music and liked it. So Aanandji (Aanand L Rai) gave me the background score of Shubh Mangal Saavdhaan to compose. Then, I also composed two songs for Newton,” she says. While the latter was critically acclaimed, Newton’s music didn’t really catch on. But the Delhi girl remains unfazed. “Newton was the kind of film where songs were not that important. I know it was not massy music,” she adds.
She chooses instead, to focus on the positives, which at the moment is the response to Mukkabaaz. “I’m super happy with the reviews. People are loving it,” she says. While the film industry has a number of male music composers, there are very few female music composers. But Rachita doesn’t consider that either an advantage or disadvantage. “Creativity is not dependent on gender. If you’re good, you will be noticed, that’s all,” she states.
Rachita has recently composed two disco tracks for the upcoming Saif Ali Khan web series Sacred Games and has a couple of other films she is looking forward to. The musician loves listening to all kind of genres, but her all-time favourite music composer is RD Burman. “I’m trained in Hindustani classical music, so if you ask me who I grew up listening to, that would be Ustad Amir Khan sahab,” she concludes.
