Music composer Anandji Bhai (Kalyanji) told me something amazing! He said, ‘If there is one song that describes your father, and what your father really was all about, before and after success, he was still a stranger in this world. He always remained what he was when he arrived here in 1950s, a stranger to this world. His own song that describes his truth is the song he wrote for us in Jab Jab Phool Khile, ‘Yahan Main Ajnabi Hoon. No human being other than Bakshi can or could have written that mukhda and those verses. Because that is what he was when he came here and that is what he remained even after immense success, ‘an ajnabi in a strange world he felt he never belonged.
Anandji Bhai’s understanding and perspective of Bakshi ji, blew blew blew my mind. If that is what he felt seeing Bakshi ji at work over 32 films with him, that is what we all felt at home too from late 1980s. I found the title for his book, is what I felt today.
– Told to me – Rakesh Anand Bakshi