There is a scene in the movie Mohenjo Daro, where Hrithik Roshan fights two 7-feet tall barbarians in an arena. When sound designers Parikshit

Lalvani and Kunal Mehta showed director Ashutosh Gowariker their work, he complimented them for their creativity, and then asked them to make these barbarians sound different. This would have been fine, except that these similar looking men don’t say a word and only grunt through the action sequence!

These were just some of the creative challenges that Lalvani and Mehta dealt with during the making of Mohenjo Daro. However, rather than get distressed, they picked up the gauntlet to see how they could match up to Gowariker’s expectations. This was despite getting involved in the project in January 2016 after the entire movie – barring one action sequence – had been shot, and its editing was in progress.

What’s more, to stay focused to this movie, they turned down two other movies they had on hand – returning the signing amount for one film and declining another confirmed project. “We wanted to work with Gowariker, since we had never worked with him before. He is a very creative director and his artistic vision is backed with lot of technical insight, which is evident in his movies like Swades, Lagaan, Jodha Akbar, etc,” explained Lalvani.

Another reason the duo opted for the project was that, as the name suggests, Mohenjo Daro pertains to an era that few know about. “It is not often that you come across an opportunity to work on films like these. While there is lot of information about people from this civilization wore, ate and how they lived; there is no reference material about the sound from the era. We had great scope to experiment as sound designers – something that we love doing,” Lalvani added.

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