Remo Fernandes is ‘Still Goan Crazy’
The Hindu
In his autobiography ‘Remo’, out tomorrow, the musician writes about his many loves including his first big romance – Goa
Twenty-seven years ago, ‘Ek Ho Gaye Hum Aur Tum’, from the soundtrack of Bombay, composed by AR Rahman, was one of the biggest hits of the time. By then, Rahman was known for his atypical choice of singers to break the playback mould, which seemed to include a select list. Of course, there was also an element of surprise for listeners when they looked up the song credits to see who had sung the latest hit. ‘Ek Ho Gaye Hum Aur Tum’, better known as ‘Hamma Hamma’, was sung by Remo Fernandes, a detail that the singer forgot to mention to the TV crew that met him in Goa to work on a documentary on his life and music back in the 90s. As he writes in his autobiography, Remo, published by HarperCollins, “Well... you walk into a studio, hear a song for the very first time in your life, record it, walk out and never hear it again for months, so obviously you totally forget it. Until suddenly, without warning, it is released.”
As Remo talks to us from his home in Siolim, he looks back on his short stint in Hindi cinema with the sort of quiet affection one feels for a favourite relative one meets occasionally — not too distant and yet not too close. “After the success of Jalwa, if I really wanted to stay in films; I would have at least attended its premiere and rubbed shoulders with all the producers and directors. I would have tried to get more and more assignments,” says the 69-year-old Padmashree awardee, who was approached by film producer Gul Anand to co-compose the music for the Hindi film Jalwa, which was released in 1987 and featured Naseeruddin Shah and Archana Puran Singh in lead roles.