Bollywood lyricist Varun Grover on writing Jabra Fan: ‘a song for an SRK fan, and not for SRK’

Shah Rukh Kahn in a scene from his new film Fan. Courtesy Eros International
Powered by automated translation

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's movie Fan, about a man who is obsessed with a movie star, releases in UAE cinemas on Thursday, April 14. But even before diehard King Khan fans flock to the cinemas to catch it this weekend, they have been binge listening to Jabra Fan, the movie's title track that has been dubbed the 'Fan Anthem'.

The official music video on YouTube has been viewed by 20 million people since it was released in February.

Varun Grover, who penned the words for the composition, says writing the song was a lot of fun.

“The director, Maneesh Sharma, asked me to write a song for an SRK fan, and not for SRK,” says Grover, who is also a member of the Indian comedy troupe Aisi Taisi Democracy.

“That made it easier. Connecting to an SRK fan was easy because I’ve been a longtime Shah Rukh Khan fan myself. So I can connect with his fans.”

Grover says this is his first big hit in Bollywood, which makes it even more special. The lyricist has previously written songs for offbeat Hindi films including, Masaan (2015), Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2015) and Gangs of Wasseypur (2012).

"Jabra Fan is one of the biggest songs I've written in terms of the number of languages it has been adapted into and the number of countries the film is going to be released in."

Grover has also written songs for director Anurag Kashyap's upcoming film Raman Raghav 2.0 and filmmaker Amit Masurkar's black comedy Newton, scheduled to release later this year.

aahmed@thenational.ae​