I initially thought that the music of Yuva sucked pretty uniformly and I was completely sure of it. uff..khuda. The music is catching on and I dont know wot to do about it. The last time this happened was for Main Hoon Na, whose songs I abs adore now. Not with this album, again. I was pretty sure the songs sucked with the amount of orchestration put in. random lyrics, only dhish dhish.

well, with time, the lyrics haven't changed but the feeling of the music has and i've grown to like it (not really!) I'd imagined that the movie, coming from Mani Ratnam wud have the strong romantic feeling associated with it. Yet, the music seems to convey a strong on-the-run feeling. the 3 pairs running away from home? or well chased for a murder they havent committed? hoho. ARR's experiments lead me to define a notion of rhythmically appeasing class of music. hoho. much like wot we call hummable melodies, these songs have a tappable attraction to them. often they are interspersed with quite hummable melodies. of course u wont be able to hum them since they appear rite in middle of deafening percussion. enuf. i must rant less at a meta-level n talk more abt songs.

2 favs: baadal jo aaye, kabhi neem. a 3rd one khuda hafiz for its wonderful on-the-run percussion. alka yaagnik deserves terrific kudos for on-the-fly enthralling performance. the way she pauses after aaayee before she sings the whole line is beautiful. of course, adnan sami cudn't be less better but the flows in alka's voice remind you of Asha in accha ji main haari. (again the mode of comm is nothing new, all i feel good about is the re-creation in contemporary times). madhushree (who?) has sung the kabhi neem neem number, altho i think its sadhna sargam. the credits are wrong. really wrong! hoho. noone but her can create the rustic aura around the song. rem. jhooth ka pat chalkaini from saathiya? anyhow, if its madhushree, she has done a terrific job. really incredible.
and finally the bang bang hey khuda haafiz. mehboob, the doode! this is the last warning. either come up with good lyrics or pls, pls pls quit the filmi industry. why put that khuda haafiz stuff right at the beginning of the crappy number? it sounds seducing does it? damn. anyhow, the reverberating anjaaanaa...anjaaani... make for an incredible on-the-run screenplay. and here's one damn good dance number for me to do the energizer-bunny dance to (hoho, they say thats how i dance). of course, the desi DJs are stuck in the ancient world of punjabi mc n shaawa shaawa, one can never hope they'll get to appreciate or even introduce such songs. aeklaa dance koro re! hoho.

now sth completely unrelated: I was looking out today morn for the new desi beauties at the miss india thing. Now, I dont know if it is me or there is something actually wrong with the way they were looking when the camera clicked. Most of them have a look which one of my friends wud euphemistically call "unconventional". I think they look terrible downright. (slight exceptions: aarti, sahiba, chesz looks hot, mexican). why cant we have familiar next-door faces here? lovely, charming, some amount of symmetrical well-ordering of features. of course, tanushree dutta is from jamshedpur n only other biharis cud be more proud than i am, but i really think she doesnt have that familiar look to provide. I guess then all the khel is abt unconventional faces, sought out anxiously by model-hunters. another possibility is that my sense of beauty has really grown old, which might well be true given all these newcomer heroines look alike to me. but, why to worry? indulgence is the rule with art forms, rem? indulge more n suroor chadhta nazar aayega. hoho.

des bides mein, dhoondhe fire hoon wo to,
jab dekho tere sang hai.

shringaar ras mein duboye hue ye geet ke lafz from maqbool, ustad sultan khan. notwithstanding the initial disdain for the gagri mori, panghat n chede mohe shyam genre of classical songs n the unusual harping on the gagri for half n hour, I slowly grew a liking for it. after all, it seems one of the most natural n pure expressions of romanticism. wot better than the hansi-thitholi between the lover-beloved cud form a subject for easy romanticism. nevertheless, i still believe that this realization has been exploited to such an extent in north indian classical songs that its not even funny. cmon man, there is fool-patti, there is gagan n earth, there are nadiyaa n parvat : all having some kind of romantic aura associated with them. and undoubtedly, one of the major reasons we're able to still appreciate bollywood songs is that they talk abt better or at least other things. hoho. yet, once in a while it feels good to indulge in the naive notions of romance. esp if someone like ustad sultan khan chews those words for u. hoho.

and yes, here's the latest (quite detailed) blog-related survey. i guess it highlights wot most bloggers feel/think.

aakhir waqt nikal hi aaya,
bheeshan bojh ko kisi tarah hataaya.

milte rahaa aksar unse,
jaane kaise aisa deewaar aaya.

sangeet tha, ya fir bewajah kaaraawaas,
hume nahi, shayad tumko samajh aaya.

hridaya ki pyaasi marubhoomi ko,
aakhir karm ne hi gangajal pilaaya.
jaagrit huaa har lamhaa,
aur fir ye khayaal saamne aaya.

ronaa chaha jab man ne,
hothon par yun hi ik gulaab aaya.
raaste alag hue ye jaana,
bechain dil ko karaar aaya.

maan gaye tumko, ae 'shaks',
khokar toone waapas, apna saath paaya.

not bad I guess. esp if this is the place where us "shaks" ne janam paaya.

addendum:

I've slowly learnt how to carve out my expressions in poetic form with time. as opposed to the resorting to the usual rhyming patterns which come to me like pennies, i've gradually acknowledged the sense of satisfaction obtained by backing it up with a chain of thoughts. of course, a set of random rhyming paras dont make a poem at all. nor do entirely disjoint, unordered ideas provide the user with the reflection of my thoughts. its definitely an art to remain subtle n abstract, yet get the point across. (most of jagjit-singh-picked ghazals as opposed to usual orthodox bhaari ones). its easy to be too subtle or abstract, therefore only u understand. the nice thing I'm led to believe is that given one's able to emote poemically (hoho), the act of writing a poem puts a lesser toll on attention or concentration in contrast to writing even a short story. at least i wud believe so, hoho. I took to rhyming patterns earlier for fear of lack of "real" creativity inside. now, its wonderful to see how feelings take the poetic form without much conscious intervention. again, no wonder, cos that is the way with most art forms. indulgence provides u with all the necessary creativity.

ok guys. I hate to admit but here is the album slated to be the newest hit. SRK is back with his choclatey form once again in Main Hoon Na and the farhaKhan-anuMalik duo will make sure this one grosses the most this year. The sad part (in my opinion) is that the music is a complete rehash of KalHoNaHo genre. of course, that brought fwd only one dimension of SEL's wide repertoire and it feels just wrong that someone (anuMalik in this case) should simply carry it fwd without adding a grain of creativity.

having cribbed so much, let me talk abt the lovely songs that it has. hoho. most of the numbers are quite foot-tapping. abhijeet is back with his chalte-chalte n yesteryears' magic. anuMalik successfully taps him for the title song, whose melody i guess is stronger than both chCh n knkh. javed akhtar's geniosity shines again in these lyrics. simple words flowing with the melody. giving the public just wot it needs without sacrificing much. the music has kind of SEL+jatinLait flavor, kind of combo of knkh-chalteChalte, which sets it apart in some sense.

khoya hai paake, jisne pyaar, main hoon na.
bechain main hoon, bekaraar main hoon na.
koi to ho aisa, jisko apna keh sakoon.
koi to ho aisa, jiske dil mein reh sakoon.
koi to kehta, ek baar, main hoon na.

khoya hai paake, jisne pyaar, main hoon na.
bechain main hoon, bekaraar main hoon na.

the first song chale jaise hawaayen, sanan sanan is an awesome dance number. full of enthusiasm and KK, hoho. shreyal ghoshal sounds great as usual. sonu nigam does the title song well too, just that it reminds too much of knkh title song. tumse milke dil ka jo haal brings another dim to the melodies floating (resembles aur pyaar ho gaya, NFAK genre). these two are my favs from the album. tumhe jo maine jaana brings back the DDLJ feeling. din jo suhaane hain, to dil deewane hain is another superb foot-tapping, dance number. man, u cant help loving those lovely tunes altho they just sound the same.

hoho. ok this is not the end of this post. I think i need to write more abt chale jaise hawaayen. i guess the duplicate-mere mehboob percussion brings the foot-tap effect here. there's a closely-following synthetic accompaniment to the vocals, increases its lustre n adds to its melodious aura. KK really brings the song to its full glory. you can almost hear him talking thru the song. vasundhara das sounds obnoxious a couple of times, but thats ok. simple melodies are often have a powerful effect when rendered beautifully. and i guess this place needs the lyrics too, hoho:

chale jaise hawaayen sanan sanan,
ude jaise parinde gagan gagan.
jaayen titliyan jaise chaman chaman,
yunhi ghoomoo main bhi magan magan.

i'm watching maqbool rite now. given its strong muslim background, and illustrious filmmakers behind it, one wud expect an strong dose of ground-shaking (hoho) urdu. a superb watch. some of the moving lines:


humaare badan pe baarah til hain. dekhna chahoge?

gilori khaaya karo gulfaam, zubaan kaaboo mein rehti hai.

agar teri jegah koi aur hota na saale, to teri tehrwi nibat chuki hoti.

sach mein maar doongi. meri jaan bolo. ehsaan kar rahe ho? pyaar se bolo. jaan meri. meri jaan. (this one is hilarious)

tum saath chalo to lakhnau kya allah miyaan ke paas jaane ko bhi taiyaar hoon.

kitni mohabbat se banwaa raha hai yaar. jee karta hai apna goshta lagwa doon teri biryaani mein.

bach gaye dilip kumar. kaun dilip kumar? underworld mein na hote, to film star hote. waah kya actor hain abba ji!


aag ke liye paani ka dar bana rehna chahiye.

agar main shani ko kha jaata to kya hota? are miyaan, aadmi shani ko nahi, shani aadmi ko khaata hai. aur in dinon bahut bhookha hai ye.
kise khayega? ha ha..kise khilaana hai?

ding dong! miyaan ji ghar pe hain? kaaaaun? main dariyaaa..dubone aaya hoon.

ab zaroorat aapki hai. dariya mein kaarobaar karne aaye hain. pehle tair ke dikhaaiye.

khoon jam gaya hai deewaron par miyaan. kaise chootegaa?

pankaj kapoor is simply amazing. a numb half-eye-closed dispassionate don. his overbearing personality is terribly magnetic. and if someone needs a 101 on seduction, watch tabu. she actually goes to 700 level n higher too. hoho.

and this lovely song sung by reena bhardwaj.
rone do, jiya kare- the latest addition to my sad seductive genre of songs.

of course, jhin min jhini is the most wonderful song. the way it unrolls. from a few bubbly notes to a full-blown classical chorus.

the movie is a sparkling adaptation of macbeth. it prolly wud have taken lot of insight to see how that same old story wonderfully fits in underworld context. The killing of abbaji scene shines in its artistic glory. moments of cinematic perfection.

tum aur hum,
gaaye sargam,
sargam zindagi ki, har khushi ki, aur pyaar ki.
hum aur tum,
gaaye sargam,
sargam zindagi ki, har khushi ki aur pyaar ki.

was naturally driven this morn to this song from armaan.

hain lafzon mein ulllaas,
samooche geet mein uska vaas.
berang si subah,
khilkhilaayi, jagamagaayi, ban gayi kuch khaas.

esp. the jugalbandi of saxophone n violin is really out of the world.