Lyricist Manoj Muntashir tells an interesting story of how the song ‘Mayee’ in Sky Force materialized. “This situation came when I got a call from Dinesh Vijan. He passionately explained to me the situation, while listening to Tanishq Bagchi’s composition, you have heard these lines, Teri Zamin Se Hum Sar Utha Ke Chale Hans Ke Vida Kar Maa Lal Hain Tere, Yaad Karna Humein Dhol Tash Baja Maa O Maa…if our If Mitti calls us, we will leave this world and come. If you call us, we will come with the tricolor. So I think this is the voice of every soldier’s heart, and it just happened. I was in Dubai at that time, and this is a very common thing with me; let me tell you, a lot of ‘Teri Mitti’ was written by me in London, and a lot of ‘Mayee’ I have written the entire song in Dubai, so it also happens that when I am outside the country, I miss my country a lot, I have had the issue of homesickness since the beginning and this country is my home, so I had gone to Dubai for a show, and this situation was in front of me there, I had to write there, I was missing my country a lot, whatever I wrote, and one more thing about ‘Mayee’. This was also something that Dinu, Tanishq, and I had all decided that we will not try to be a copy of ‘Teri Mitti’ at all; we will not go into that area, we will not go into that zone, whatever comes naturally, whatever comes organically, it has come, so we had kept ‘Teri Mitti’ far away from our minds. When Akshay Kumar is in uniform, he is very inspiring. I pray that this song goes very far and the soldiers of this country adopt this song, it should reach those for whom it has been written, only then my work is successful.”
Manoj admits the song ‘Mayee’ lifts Sky Force to another level. “This song is very special for all of us. It is Tanishk Bagchi’s composition. I remember its genesis. For the past few years, I have been writing many songs for our army, for our uniformed soldiers, and I have always had a great respect for them. It happens in everyone’s heart. It’s not that you will find someone in this country who doesn’t respect his soldiers. I have the slight clout to write and also talk about them. That’s the only difference. So, whenever I have written songs in the past, they have been very successful, whether it was ‘Teri Mitti’ or ‘Desh Mere’, which became a legend anthem. I always felt that I didn’t get the chance to say as much as I wanted to. Every time I was able to write a desh bhakti song, I would request my director to give me one more stanza. I said this to Anurag Singh even at the time of ‘Teri Mitti’ that just give me one more stanza, I want to write something more, and we had recorded six stanzas of ‘Teri Mitti’, still a lot was left out, same thing happened at the time of ‘Desh Mere’ that I could not write as much as I wanted to, so I kept thinking that there are many other different angles from where we can talk about desh bhakti.”
