Chameli, Chauhan, Chowta n Shandilya

bhaage re man kahin,
aage re man,
chala jaane kidhar janoon na.

chale thandi hawa,
sang man bhi gaya,
dhoondhoon kahan usko,
koi batlaaye mujhko.

haay aisa samaa,
fir hoga kahaan,
jee loon main ise khulke,
sawaan mein zara ghulke,
are sun sun sun.

sandesh shandilya gives a hit again. and sunidhi chauhan is definitely the reason. this one from Chameli. sunidhi has a husky voice, which i think mostly suits item-numbers (keep them aside for a while) or very down-to-earth ones. rem meri zindagi mein aaye ho from armaan? and again this one from chameli. sweet husky rhythmic flows of her voice, fully embodying a woman's spirit, wilderness.

sandeep chowta n shandilya have a class of their own. while ARR is heavy on arrangement, and SEL use every opportunity to render high-pitched light-classical melodious numbers, these 2 ppl combine arrangement with out-of-box tunes. the outOfBox-ness is arguably the thing abt them. few have given us such tunes since lucky ali n silk route. lucky ali got repetitive in his own world. silk route lost on the way. hoho. and just to note, with all of them, heavy arrangement does help do the trick. ppl, we need more outofbox stuff!! yet, sometimes both chowta n shandilya geniuses(?) succumb to heavy orchestration, with dumb tune leftovers. Same happens with ARR.

Sandeep chowta - Mitti n Now That's.

Sandesh Shandilya - Agnivarsha, Road, Rules- pyaar ka... , Chameli

I never wrote abt the gori tore nain song from Rules.., did I? amazingly rendered by sonu nigam, so subtly combines flavors of indian classical n western music. shandilya makes it seem like those streams have really always been just the same. here we have my unification dream coming true, hoho, at least for music. Chowta has a longer set of hits behind him - bollywood hollywood (superb!), company, dum, kaun, mast, pyaar tune kya kiya, samay.

aaj deewaangi ki had paar ho gayi. mehfil-e-zindagi mein beintahaa ullaas ki koo-ba-koo ho gayi. lafz ruk nahi rahe meri zubaan par, yun maano ki koi sailaab sa rakkha ho in hothon par. gairat, dard aur yash se upur ho gaye hain afsaane. kisi soye chiraag ki pyaas bujhaayee ho kisi lau ne.

hoho.

yehi hota hai anjaam, din mein 3 ghante jagjit singh ki interview sunne ke baad aur shaam ko "tehzeeb" se rubaroo hone par. jaanab, is urdu bhaasha ka jo main kaayal hoon. hosh, rang , saare udaa deti hai ye meri. aawaargi ka saamaan hota hai, jab ye chuninda lafz bepanaah apne gunjan se khud mujhe magroor kar dete hain. hoho. damn, lafzon ki nadi nahi behti nazar aati. maybe i shud go back n watch "fiza". yahaan logon ko hindi samajh nahi aati, jab toofaan urdu ka aayega, sab muflisi ke shaagird bane nazar aayenge.

i zimply looove this language! and i feel miserable losing touch with it.

javed akhtar, as i've always said, has found the golden combo. without being dense on words, he writes light, peppy lyrics, sometimes surprising me with their vivid imagination. KHNH is still hi on my senses, so here's the song for the day:

chizen main rakhke bhool jaati hoon
bekhayaali mein gungunaati hoon
ab akele mein muskuraati hoon

badli hui si meri adaa hai,
kuch to hua hai, kuch ho gaya hai.

pighla 2 hai, dil mera jab se,
accha rehta hai, mood bhi tabse,
hanske milta hoon, aajkal sabse,

khush ho gaya hai, jo bhi mila hai.
kuch to hua hai, kuch ho gaya hai.

rang chamkile, saare lagte hian,
raah mein bikhre, taare lagte hain,
phool ab jyadaa pyaare lagte hain,

mehki hui si, jaise hawa hai,
kuch to hua hai, kuch..

dhyaan ab apna , jyada rakhta hoon,
sochta hoon main, kaisa lagta hoon,
aaina ho to, dekh letaa hoon,

kaisa ye chehra, aise khila hai,
kuch to hua hai, kuch ho gaya hia.

ye nasha jisme, dono rehte hain,
ye neher jisme, dono behte hain,
ho na ho isko, pyaar kehte hain.

pyaar mila to, dil kho gaya hai,
kuch to hua hai, kuch ho gaya hai.

she - aise nahi chalega.
me - kya hua mohtarma?
she - are is kadar koi apni blog ko tanha chorta hai kya?
me - bas ye fiza ka ranj hai. mausam badalte hi wo shaks fir jaag uthega.
she - bahaane bhi aapki tarah boring ho gaye hain.
me - baatein badi sayaani hoti hain aapki o meherbaan.
she - shayar ho jaisa, waise unke kadrdaan.

choriye is takraar ko. kuch nooraani khayaal zehen mein aayen, uski prateeksha kiziye.

times change. news of forthcoming economic boom in india. feels good. dec being fav times for bird returning home. this panchi stuck here. i guess for good.

expressions change. need to be accepted. kal ho na ho. a well-made movie in all.
waiting for tehzeeb to happen here. i'm still trying to figure out the re-defining trends of bollywood but with kal ho na ho, i believe its some pattern clearly showing out. after all, in many ways, wot they sell is wot we eat or actually vice versa. a nice review here. wait till everybody starts using "joharian" or "joharanesque" keywords to describe the current symptoms. anyhow, i realised how the class of DCH n joharian movies differ: (as one of the comments there says): joharian movies portray a severely self-conscious opulence, while DCH took it in a matter-of-fact way. KHNH was a more matter-of-fact joharian movie, which i guess was a reason why i liked it better. The indian crowd is a dreamer, thirsty for unbounded indulges of opulence, whether it be tan-tadang in ramayan or tear-floods in kKKG, or mohabbat in mohabbatein. I'm made to conclude that given the success formula of such movies remains the same. Yet, there are ppl who conceive more pragmatic versions of such indulgence, like DCH. With time, I believe the latter will outdo the others. or at least, i'd like to believe so. hoho.

chameli - looks like kareena kapoor is into whoring. interesting. check out sandesh shandilya's music.

diwali ki haardik shubhkaamnayen. prithvi pe sach ka bolbaala rahe. paap apni andheri kothri mein exist kare.

kitni pyaari lagti hai duniya aaj mujhe,
har manzar lagta hai jaaga hua.
ujli ujli kirnen jaagi jaagi raahen,
bheegi bheegi khushbhu ne failayin hain baahen.

kitne saare geet surile, jab ye mausam gaata hai,
gam ki galiyan chorke ye dil sapnon ke ghar jaata hai.

main jahaan dekhoon, jaaoon jahaan,
muskuraata hai saara samaa.
jagmagaati hai raahen meri,
jaane ye kaisi jaadugari.
saahebaaan....

naya geet koi fiza gaa rahi hai,
zameen sun rahi hai,
hawa gaa rahi hai.
saahebaan, o saahebaan.
pal pal chin chin, machle ye dil.

a fantastic one from Nine, shankar mahadevan, javed akhtar. a reverberating taan in between

and of course all that reading brings me to the same paradox. intellectualism destroys romanticism. and one cannot survive without either.

dard ki yaad mein bhi,
dard hai behtar ye tha.
apne zakhmon ka hisaab humne na,
rakkha hota.

tehzeeb rocks!!

tu ban jayegi madhuri,
mumbai jaane ki hai deri

yoohoo..antara mali is back!

haath choote to bhi rishte nahi chora karte,
waqt ki shaakh se lamhe nahi toda karte.
pinjar rose upto its expectations. a well-written tale rendered with finesse. quite a treat on the big screen although it was only the three of us having the whole theatre to ourselves. hoho. well thats wot happens when u go on a mon night here. i hoped to catch a glimpse of chandraprakash dwivedi somewhere -- didnt happen. interesting set of cast -- all modern women stalwarts while the guys were kind of bollywoodish. laudable casting. and no words suffice for urmila -- she's too good with her histrionics as usual and her acting superb. i dont know if she worked hard on this one or there was a slow betterment already which i failed to notice. ( she has been doing too many of those horror-cry-cry roles of late). the characters appear out of the book yet have a life of their own -- eg. manoj bajpai has a constant role of guilt which was quite monotonous. except urmila n priyanshu, few characters showed more than one shades. good for the story. overall a damn good exp., a must-watch on the big screen - altho when ur kind of down(hoho) or feel like watching an art movie.

tere sang, tere sang,
ek simple si coffee bhi kick deti hai.
fantabulistic song from zameen.

jiya laage na,
update bina,
update binaa,
moraaaaa..
jiya laage na.

fir koi geet goonjega surmayi aakaash mein,
fir koi nagma chidega, meri aawaz mein.
intezar ki ghadiya khatm hui,
ab har dil bekaraar hoga, mere saath mein.

ab koi darwaza na khulega.
ab na koi comment ka reply hoga.
ab har lafz tanha hogi idhar.
ab deewaan-e-khaas se har insaan begaana hoga.

tum idhar aaoge, to jaana hoga.
teri gali mein dil deewana hoga.
dil ki mast tabiyat dekhkar,
har waaeez parwaana hoga.

gar in baaton pe ho raha ho tumhe ehtaraam,
jiyo tum, karne do humen raam raam.
kuch na soch paane ki humne thaani hai,
chalo aaj ke blog ki yehi kahaani hai.

vakratunda mahakaaye, suryakoti samaprabha,
nirvighnam kurumedeva, sarv kaaryashuu sarvadaa

sitting on the new leather executive chair that i dealed off from office depot yesterday.
i feel proud n contented.
the base is soft, and the back strong.
holds me tight, in its arms.
lemme hum a few words of this song.
an ode to the chair,
whilst all else lies bare.
dishevelled, disarray.
only the chair. my deep black chair.
nothing to see beyond the crest,
n even put my legs where arms shud rest.
so tough, yet warm. no any alarm.
o gosh! my chair.
hoho.
bolo kise dekha hai kabhi,
aise chair pe baithe hue?

she - hi, may i talk to nishant?
me - yes speaking.
**she - hi nishant. i'm aarti. i'm calling from the world-exchange consumer center.
nishant, we have an excellent offer for you. you can call india now at 23c per min.
me - (mum)
she - (waits, then proceeds) nishant, so could you tell me wot is ur long distance provider?
me - thank u for ur offer. i'm not interested. (hangs up).

This is wot happened today.
Pretty dull n boring conversation as u may have observed. me too feel so.
Yaar, koi khanakti awaz wali mohtarma aapke karnon mein itni snehmayi vaartaalaap karen, aur aap yun hi? chup chaap. not interested? no spice. no advice? naaah.

So, one of these days, the conversation from the ** marked point went as follows:
**aarti - hi nishant. this is aarti malhotra. i'm calling from world exchange.....
me - i c.
aarti - yes nishant. so we have this incredible offer for our customers like you. How often do you call india?
me - well. i'm sorry i dont call often. i'm not interested in ur offer.
aarti - But, listen nishant. you can call india now at an extremely low price of 23c. day or night. the rate is same.
me - i don't call india at all. thanks a lot for ur offer.
aarti - (slightly flustered) o nishant, u dont call india at all? (momentary pause) alright. but u must be making calls inside US.
rite nishant?
me - (not again! badlaaaa maange hai ye khoon..badlaa!) i c. umm yes. umm.. kya naam aapne apna.. kya naam bataaya?
aarti - jee. aarti.
me - umm..aartii...
aarti - jee..aarti malhotra.
me - (extremely soft n polite) haan aarti jee. aadaab. main bahut shukriya-guzaar hoon aapke is offer ka. lekin main india nahi call karta.
aarti - (interrupting in a sweet voice) o ho. aap bilkul nahi karte? aap apne ghar pe to karte honge.
me - (pyar se) mohtarma, huzur, bataaya na. nahi karta. india se mujhe koi lagaav nahi.
aarti- to america mein to karte honge. friends, relatives out of town.
uske liye kaun sa long distance provider use karte hain?
me - nahi, main unhe bhi nahi karta. kewal local calls kartaa hoon. aap kahaan se bol rahi hain?
aarti - kewal local calls?
me - jee.
aarti - i c. i'm sorry. thank u sir for ur time. have a good day.
me - thank u aarti jee. aapse baat karke bahut accha laga. (both hang up)

The thoughts were dense and discussions plenty.
Sitting face2face with the person who has almost acquired the status of a mentor,
sharing his wisdom of the years n unpretentious humility.

Verbosity is a heinous crime in my books.
but yet often do I succumb to the temptation, the sin.
Today was an exception. No pangs of conscience.
Was picking up each of those romantic dreams, like a harlot.
and even enjoyed screwing all of them. mega-scale. mega-lomaniac.

with squeezing eye balls. with tastes of effusive eloquent pomposity.
all barrages shunned to banishment.
surprising how i cud do such an instant join, n later such a fast retreat.
It tasted sweet after a long time. Wonder since when was the palate bitter.
from wolfram to berlinski. from io-automata to failures.
from circuits to software. from intelligence to romanticism.
from human to god. from mathematics to art.
from indian spice to french coffee.
spanning across the width of divine.
Glaring smiles. Blowing laughs. Intense stares. Burning quiescence.
living inside the fucking strands of intelligence. Stoic existence.
Moments of bursts. Instants of explosion.
it appeared so damn bright outside.

kitna maasoom rangeen hai ye sama,
husn aur ishq ki,
aaj mehraaz hai.
kal ki kiskoo khabar jaaanejaan
rok lo aaj ki raat koo.

bahaaron ko chaman yaad aa gaya hai,
mujhe wo gulbadan yaad aa gaya hai

aaj saari dilrubaaon ko yaad karta hoon.
apni tanhayee se muhn mod, unki fariyaad karta hoon.

wo, jiski khilkhilaahat jhoomti pawan ko bechain karti ho,
ya wo, jiski divya gambheerta apne kanth mein saagar samaaye ho.

wo, jiske lafzon ki behekti chanchalta, hridaya ko be-kaboo karti,
ya wo, jiski mook muskaraahat saanson mein bechaini bharti.

wo, jinke nayan apne paash mein praanon ko baandh len,
ya wo chakshu-samudra, jisme samaahit hokar chitt hidole le.

wo, jin thirakte hothon ki lagayi aag bujhaaye na bujhe,
ya wo, jin labon ko choo, vyaakul maru-yaatri ki pyaas mite.

wo, jiske pehloo mein shrishti khoyi ho,
ya wo, jise kar-bandhan mein jakad brahmaand aahlaadit ho.

wo, jiske saundarya ka mayur vaanchit ho,
ya wo, jiske aane se mausam ko khumaar aata ho.

deewaaron ki hai shaksiyat yahaan,
aur khidkiyan bolti hain.
jazbaaton ke rau mein behkar,
yahaan roohen bolti, dil kholti hain.

jalti hui mashaal, nigaahon mein yahaan,
kaho bhasm kar doon ye jahaan?

kyun baandhaa khud ko bandhan mein,
jo rok na saka is krandan se.

bewafa nikle wo to yaad aaya,
jaane kyun unse pehchaan kee.
seene ke daag abhi chupe nahi the,
kyun lagaayi aag veeraan si?

vismit hoon, hairaan bhi,
fir maine dil ko khwahishon ki hawaa dee.

an Ode to disappearing blogs

rula ke gaya sapna mera,
ah! aakhir kyun hua ye hasr mera.

Actually as Patrix bhai noted, the quake has indeed left a huge deathtoll. Wo baatein, wo yaadein, kahan kho gayin anjaane bhoot mein. Kuch mitron ke samvad, kuch dushmanon ki saazishen aur kuch beparwahon ki thitholiyan. Kaun le gaya wo sab? Kahan le gaya hoga?
Alas, wo bhi maanav-maatra ki tarah kshan-bhangur tha. Aao, aaj raatri, us gumnaam comment board ko shraddanjali dene ke liye, uski aatma ki shaanti ke liye, kaale poshaak-dhaari behtareen lafzon mein ek doosre ke zonkboards ko rangen. aameen!!

mukesh

And I heard this one again on radio!! yippeee!! u never knew falling out of love cud be so funky.(quote from RJockey)
Dil jalta hai to jalne de,
aansuu na bahaa, fariyaad na kar
dil jalataa hai to jalane de

tu pardaa nasheen ka aashiq hai
yuun naam-e-vafaa barabaad na kar
dil jalataa hai to jalane de
..they cud never write such stuff these days.

Man..they're not releasing the jogger's park audio. I hate waiting for songs I like. Lekin jai ho google devta..kuch enlightenment hua. This song is sung in a typical KL Sehgal style, and that was wot i said. I was wrong.!! This was one of the first Mukesh hits, and here you get all the rest info. Mukesh's strong ( a weak word in this case) nasal voice made me detest him highly in the beginning. We had an instrumental vinyl record, "Songs by Mukesh", done by some Suresh(ho ho) on saxophone. Now, saxophone is again such a nasal instrument..hoho..so compassionate that u feel instantaneously engulfed in its ambience(rem the jugalbandi in armaan?n yes violin ko bhi shraddhanjali arpit karni hogi). accha, back to mukesh. But then I heard Koi jab tumhara hridaya tod de, and Chandan sa
badan and Kai baar yun hi dekha hai and well..Chalri sajni , (and I knew he had lot of promise..ho ho), I loved him, n I really love him. In fact, kahin door jab din dhal jaaye was the first one I performed here. ho ho..n they kept saying that song is so soulllllfullll..and more ho ho. (What really helped create the effect was that I got cold 2 days before the performance and instead of being worried, I got happier..ho ho..it sounded somewhat breaking at high pitches, but altogether went fine). Singing wise, I'm more fond of Hariharan numbers..cudnt sing dheemi dheemi..so soufullll...ho ho..
The funny thing is that Mukesh died in Detroit.

Language, Matrix and Humanity

I've absolutely ran out of ideas now..hoh o..so guess shud take a break. So that's all for morning blog. O ek min, ek min.

Languages, do u know abt them? So, before you can talk abt languages like English, Hindi or Sanskrit, u've to go thru a long hierarchy. First there are Regular languages, then Context-Free, then Context-Sensitive, well then jump to Recursively Enumerable languages. Still no english or hindi. Sanskrit might come somewhere between Context-free n Context-Sensitive, altho I think there is much less context sensitivity in Sanskrit. Its grammar cud be made Context-Free, but wud be HUGE.
XML, is no-more than regular ( i guess so) and if u know it has been found so much suitable for meta-specifications, a one-up language. Yet, its not the language u can talk in. I believe Sanskrit wud suit there better, given its well-defined rules. Its a ton-times more expressive and I guess computers cud talk restricted-sanskrit if we humans tried hard ..hoh o. You know we've got these computers to understand only some restricted context-free languages..not even context-sensitive. compu ka core dump jhakkas!!
So the question still exists (in creating artificial intelligence) that how do we manage to make compu speak english or hindi, our languages, which are way way up high in the hierarchy. They're so much of randomness, ambiguity and non-determinism ( guess that's wot helped those poets n shayars earn a living ho ho). So how do you conquer ur own language? A common sense answer wud be to stop trying to climb up the hierarchy. Kripaya, doosre raaste ka istemaal karen. Ever talked with Alice? She's smart, she's witty and she can fool u for a really long time that she's really a human n not a computer (the Turing test). So, these people were quite smart abt it. They stopped climbing up the hierarchy, observed that humans are extremely repetitious in their speaking patterns, their range of interests only vary from golf to movies to cuisine, and they made up this engine with back-end (huge) database, which can fool you that ur no better than it is (wot a crappy way to say that..hoho!). After all, its all in the Matrix and urself is simulated..ho ho, or cognition takes place thru perception only and if u can be made to perceive something quite unusual without violating any of ur previous nerve firings, you have been conquered!! To me, language seems much more powerful medium of communication (viewed as perception from the other doode's side) than any of the senses and shud I say ALICE will win over a substantial chunk of us sooner or later..ho ho..(except the creators perhaps :)

Thanks jo boli!!

to babu ko bekaabu kar gayi re. Hey, they're playing this on radio rite now. I'm reminded of the movie scene in Road. Terrific filmaaya gaya hai usko. So Dramatic. I love such overacted misrepresentations, esp if they r parody(ical) in nature.

Now now, I bet this is the first time its aired. KL Sehgal's Dil jalta hai to jalne de.. remixed version (Sudesh Bhosle, Jogger's Park, Mukta Arts). Rendered superbly by sudesh bhosle and full marks to the remixing engine. Doode, u'll break ur head trying to understand wot those lyrics mean. Amazing shayari. I feel so good for those nice old songs lost down memory lanes. They're coming BACK!! and with a BANG!! Wow!! Unlike the whole bunch, I don't mind old ones being remixed...cos is desh ko un sureele geeton ki zaroorat hai!! Remixes ko Gaali do, lekin listen to those melodies. Sangeet-aahaar paushtik ho to jeevan aur samaaj, dono flourish karenge..ho ho
Just to remind you:
- Tera mera pyaar sanam (Bombay Vikings) - ho ho..i didn't believe wot he did to this song when I came to know that it is actually an old SAD(caps to be noted) Mukesh number. How he made such a lovely romantic number out of it, remains a mystery to me. The original goes like Apni fitrat hi kuch aisi thi, ke dil tooooot gaya. I guess he's one of the best remixers around.
- aaja piyaa..tujhe pyaar doon. Now now..didn't u drool over this song? (ho ho maybe u didnt but I did). She managed to create the Lata effect. Meri soni was good too.
- Kaliyon ka chaman - I guess this one is a better version. U need lots of seductive oommphs n aahs with it..don't u? Tune o rangile kaisa jadoo kiya from UMI-10 too.
- umpteen remixes of dil kya kare make u feel as if it was composed yesterday...ho ho.
I'm forgetting some of them..more to come.

* Thoughts and ideas won't let you out of ur knowledge shell. Only actions wud. I was thinking in context of ..i forgot..ho ho
* I seem to have another insight ..while goin thru so many of these diverse blogs..i feel an impulse to classify (the deductive..u know) them into a hierarchy of writing habits/abilities. Given so many instances of human mind's literal creativity, stastically, they cud be representative of all that exists inside minds of the given sample. I realise with deep anguish that the sample is mostly the compu-bound intellectsa/literary freaks. So what..the experiences are so many..and the domain so wide..they cud well represent 1. the thoughts/desires/wishes/pains of an avg human being. 2. varying Literary abilities of the population in accordance with the organization of the mysteries entwined in their mind. Man wot a wonderful statistical evidence this is!!

Man..i've to give up this chain of thoughts for a while..I'm really cooking up BS.

jadoo hai nasha hai,
madhoshiyan..
tujhko bhulaake ab jaaoon kahaan.
I'm listening to this jhakkas song..from jism..half-hearted attempt at hollywoodism..bhoot n bhootni aur unka jadoo n nasha. but dukh agar hai mujhe to us MM Kreem ke liye hai. Such a genious and he always ends up with flops..i mean flop movies which dont run on box office..dont have a decent storyline or screenplay..Is raat ki subah nahin, Zakhm(which did relatively well), Sur, n now Jism. I guess he's another guy trying to be different..but yaar kuch un jaise deewaanon ka khayal bhi karo..chup tum raho..chup hum rahen..humari saanson mein basa hai..in his seductive jadoo-bhari awaaz. lucky ali did some justice to his songs in Sur..and well MMK also didnt do well(i think) there. Too many high-pitched jingles. doode..he's a melody genious..i want him at top, i guess more than he wants to be, ho ho.
awarapan banjarapan..ek khala hai jeene mein..
such a superb one. and ain't those lyrics hilaane wale? shayad US se mujh jaisa koi import kiya hoga .
Addendum:
o yes, I completely forgot Criminal (thanks blitz). Tum mile dil khile, aur jeene ko.. Man, I used to be a Kumar Sanu fan only cos uski awaaz mein wo bulandiyaan thi. Criminal was one of those flops again. MMK ..go work with ManiRatnam or RGV!!

नमसकार।आदाब। आपका स्वागत है इस ग़रीबखाने में ekdam jhakkas hindi font..sahi hia na

I wish(believe) that the process of growing up could be documented..everybody seems to go thru the same phases..same feelings..although it takes effort to realize that and everybody differs from another one..blah blah. u r born insecure..learn the ways of the world thru parents..school..inherit the insecurities and wisdom of them..look for friends..dont accept urself as u r..seek perfection in urself and others..end up nowhere cos expectations are not realistic..refine ur outlook..end up calling urself more broad-minded n mature after har 2 kadam..be more even-headed..describe urself using more n more words..(knowing in all wisdom that u tried n missed the moment b4..and b4..and b4)..and all this u call progress..gaining maturity..
oops i lost my train of thots..next time...

shri ganesh

I decided I might as well take to this. and that too in a different fashion. Shabdon ki surmayi duniya se laaya hoon main ek khazana aapke liye..aap chicken hon ya egg hai ye nazrana aapke liye.