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When Ilayaraja, Amitabh Bachchan teamed up again

2 Jan 2015

"They were like two excited school children," says R Balki who has the rare distinction of bringing together the two stalwarts, actor Amitabh Bachchan and the music composer Ilayaraja together, twice over.

The Big B sang for Ilayaraja in Balki's Paa . Now again the iconic star has sung song entitled ' Piddly ' for the legendary composer in the filmmaker's forthcoming film Shamitabh . Says Balki, "I consider myself very lucky. I think there are only two human institutions in the Indian entertainment world. One is Amitji and the other is Raja Sir.And I've worked with both in all my three feature films so far." Balki says Big B and the composing maestro were a riot together. "They are exactly the same age, 73. And they werelike two excited children in the recording room running riot in a toyshop. Their level of enthusiasm and passion to excel made me feel very old." Apparently both Ilayaraja and Amitabh Bachchan share a mutual fan club.

Says Balki, "They both admire one another's works tremendously. Amitji who has sung songs for many composers (Rajesh Roshan, Shiv-Hari, Aadesh Shrivastava, R D Burman, Kalyanji-Anandji) says singing for Raja Sir was a dream come true. Amitji remembers each and every song that Raja Sir has composed in Hindi cinema." At the moment Balki is in Chennai recording the background music for Shamitabh with Ilayaraja. "What he does to cinema is not just add music. He lends an added dimension to the plot."