In the corridors of film industries, music recording studios, it is often said that when Sameer (or Shitla Pandey, his real name) pens lyrics, music wraps itself around it to create a unique and soulful musical harmony. It is also often said that Sameer's poetic skills take us back to the golden period of Hindi film music, the 50s and the 60s.
This 42 year old is a Master of Commerce from Benaras Hindu University, and is the son of late Anjaan (Shri Lalji Pandey), a truly great lyricist of the Hindi film industry. As is a penchant for every son, Sameer, much against the initial reluctance of his family, and fighting the principles of his successful father who refused to recommend him, took to Bollywood as any young struggler. After the usual newcomer pangs, his career began with his first film in 1983, "Bekhabar",for which he wrote the song "gori pareshan hai, kali pareshan hai". Since then his magic pen has created 1060 songs which include 760 in Hindi and 178 in Bhojpuri, besides making his late father extremely proud of him before his demise.
He holds the records of penning the maximum number of songs in the last ten years in the film industry, a fact which continues to amaze the pundits.
His shelves also proudly display his achievements in the form of awards he has been bestowed with. These include three Filmfare awards in the last eight years, an accomplishment no other lyricist has been able to achieve in this short time span.
He is also recognized as the person who has worked in great tandem with the maximum number of music directors - 24 of them, ranging from Ajay Swami, Arun Paudwal, Bappi Lahiri to Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Illyaraja, R. D. Burman, Viju Shah, Nadeem-Shravan, Anand-Milind, Jatin-Lalit to Anu Malik.
For a man with a penchant for playing with words to create a rhapsody with music, he, in his own words, has just begun. And his recent work are ample proof of this.
