3 minutes of readingBombayFebruary 8, 2026 09:13 am IST
One of singer-composer Shankar Mahadevan’s most popular songs today is “Breathless”, the song that sounds like he sang it all in one go. It was written by veteran poet, lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar, who also came up with the concept but could not find any composer or music label to back it for a long time.
“Even the biggest classical singers and composers said we couldn’t make a song like this. When they said they couldn’t make this into a song, I asked them for the melodies and told them I would do the rest. Everyone just smiled at me and said it was an interesting idea, but no one dared to participate,” recalls Javed.
The veteran artist added that while he doesn’t want to name those people because it’s “embarrassing,” he did reveal that he tried to make the song a reality for seven years. “And when I say seven, I mean seven, not five, not six,” he told Variety India. Only after seven years he met and proposed the idea to Shankar Mahadevan, who immediately came on board.
“This was my luck. What if I hadn’t met Shankar? I would still be sitting with ‘Breathless’ unmade. I would have accepted that it was a bad idea because if everyone rejects something, there must be something wrong with it,” Javed confessed. “The details of this fight are very embarrassing. They ask me who will sing it. No one can sing it. How will the song become popular?” he added.
Even after Shankar Mahadevan sang “Breathless” and even shot a music video, the team continued to face obstacles from the music company in releasing the song. “The marketing department was not ready to release the song or the video. They had no faith in the song. There was a discussion about it,” Shankar recalls.
Once released, “Breathless” became one of the most popular Indian indie songs of all time. “One thing is what the marketing department believes: the first time nothing should be done. The second time, there will be no harm,” Javed Akhtar said. Hey blamed marketing departments for killing many songs like “Breathless” over the years.
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“What’s been happening for quite some time is that the marketing department gives a list of requirements, and these are a group of people who don’t understand music at all. If they did, they wouldn’t be in marketing; they’d be making music,” Javed added.