ustad divas

finally laid my hands on this album. supposed to be a sequel to piya basanti. only that it pretty much lacks the soul of the previous album.

this is the title song piya basanti video.

this is the "leja leja" video from the new album. pretty much commercialized (n state-of-the-art :) ) tho with a cute undertone. the video, for most part, is pretty harsh to suit the song - they could have easily made a more sensitive presentation(again to make it more commericial, i guess). and the models don't look good at all. I wish it was more like the prev one (minus the overacting). seriously i dont understand why they needed to baby-dollize this could-be-wonderfully sensitive song n video.

the haiye re, more piya are better than leja leja in my opinion. sandesh shandilya surely lets me down - he could have really avoided the heavy arrangements and the usual feet-tapping stuff.

arr on guru

here is arr's latest one on guru.

- we don't get to hear somebody called qadir khan, too bad esp if arr says it was a brilliant recording.

- so gulzar taapoes again - this time from amir khusrau. yeh sharbati aashiqui = ae hairate aashiqui. it was ghalib+iqbal in dil-se, and of course the zihaal-e-muskin (gulami). interesting that guru is shot in turkey too (amir khusrau was half-turkish)

salaam-e-ishq

audio is out. SEL have done a good job. movie should be a craze. funny how many cool releases are still lined up this year. songs are highly situational. a lovely review here: the colors of songs put into words very nicely.

- as the review says, babuji lacks the sensuality.
- adnan sami is fabulous. i think he sang a song in taxi 9211 last. i realised his voice is nasal; but his renderings have way way more expression than other singers. and his compositions for "lucky" were terrific too. the "uhnnn" before "that's rite" gets on the nerves slightly tho.

- ya rabba almost gets there but really doesnt make it. don't know if SEL wanted shafaqat ali for this one and couldn't get him. somehow kailash kher (altho he has tried very hard) doesn't fit into this songs mood - one needs sonu nigam's expressions here. perhaps rahat fateh ali (jiya dhadak) should have been called for here.

- saiyaan re is the one i truly like (besides adnan sami one). yet another kajra re but very different. and as the review says, shilpa never seems intimidated by shankar m. sameer's lyrics rise to the occasion.

SEL retain their stress on melody (n pronounced dholak) - even at the cost of sounding repetitious. much unlike arr, they rarely play with unconventional note patterns- all compositions are smooth n melodious and generally have a slight deja vu. still i'd like to complain more about guru than S-e-I.

guru

guru audio is here. altho i dont have a link to point to. and its more bombay than dil se - if at all a comparison can be made. its again a new sound with accordion having prominence in more than one song - will catch on i guess - tho i clearly hate arr's way of drowning voices under arrangements. gulzar's poetry nevertheless gets excavated with time, hoho.

and we hope the nation croons to this marvellous theme qawwali (whose lyrics again get excavated in a different song)


dam-dar dam-dar chashm chashm-e-nam
dam-dar dam-dar chashm chashm-e-nam
sun mere hum-dum
humesha ishq mein hi jeena


this one is dedicated to nusrat fateh ali. would be nice to have a version in his voice too. anyway, so the qawwali background is introduced in "tere bina", but the lyrics come out in another song "ae hairat`h'e". this one by hariharan n alka yagnik is a crazy one to say the least (and perhaps will become a favorite in a few days). the song belongs to a qawwalish-ghazal genre. something like when you replace a soft tabla with a clean dholak. abrupt jhatkas do give a good feel to the song - and other songs too have such effects. frankly, the ghazal gets lost in the qawwali+percussion, but i guess that was the intention. too bad.

ae hairate aashiqui
jagaa mat
pairon se zameen, zameen lagaa mat.

the sthayi is remarkable - specially with hariharan playing with the notes -and more so with dam dar following it. the paras could be handled better - arr simply repeats notes where one could improvise much more. surprised to see alka yagnik do justice to her part.

other songs are more situational - maybe will gain presence with time. "tere bina" is a virah song, sung by arr n chinmayee(??). plays with different lyrics - and jhatkas feel out of place in normal sargams - altho it starts feeling alright:
dam dar dam-dar mast mast dar (2)
dar dam dar dam dam
o hum dum
bin tere kya jeena

chinmayee's voice suits the song superbly - it has a strong folksy strain. and gulzar's lyrics need to be excavated further here.

tere bina chand ka sona, khota re,
peeli peeli dhool udaawe, jhoota re
tere bina sona peetal
tere sang keekar peepal
aaja kate na ratiyaa


PS: gulzar uses the same kosa-bosa (recall omkara) in barso re.

ae khidkiyon

ae khidkiyon buraa na maanna,
ye TT ka khel hai.
apna hridaya vishaal ho na ho,
ye ghar to beshak ik jel hai.

quote

the idea of getting obsessed with an idea is extremely awful, and yet very interesting.

koi baat chale

gulzar-jagjit singh have their next album koi baat chale released looong after marasim. i'm not done with it yet, but a few comments are due:

there's a long lost song "hai lau zindagi" in the album. never was sure that gulzar wrote that one. and if one might recall, it was the title song for one of the first "breaking" news shows - hello zindagi by nalini singh. the tune is slightly modified i think, but not too many liberties taken.

gulzar's deep voice features in a few songs. his baritone is once again completely awesome to listen to - gets even better with age. and of course, there is the trademark gulzar prose strewn with his characteristic romanticism:
yaad hai ik din,
mere mez pe baithe baithe,
cigarette ki dibiya pe tumne,
chote se ik paudhe ka,
ek sketch banaya tha.
aakar dekho,
us paudhe par phool aaya hai.

they've made a song out of the "sehma sehma dara sa rehta hai" from marasim. some of the lyrics are same, some new. sounds lovely.

dor

really been long. lots of nice music came n went. nothing that really strikes. maybe the atif song from bas ek pal, n there surely is a pritam phenomenon which I hadn't seen before I visited seattle.

Nagesh Kukunoor never fails to give a hit - amazing filmmaker. Here's an interesting interview on Dor. The thing about not thinking about people's imaginary perception of the movie, when making it, is being oft repeated. deepa mehta on it here (why would that be?). kukunoor seems quite honestly shocked and scared by his movies' mass appeal. coming of age, i guess. and perhaps it is true for all performing arts.

also, water is a surprise hit here. pretty ironic that canada offers it as their oscar nominee.

kyun kehte ho?

naya naya, taaza taaza:

kyun kehte ho,
ke aasmaanon mein udna chod doon?
sab murde pade hain yahaan,
to kya jeena chor doon?

mui jag ja

definitely the wrong time to be back from india - a flood of exciting bollywood movies are awaited. kank, omkara, ahista2, pk sideeffects, corporate.

difficult to rank them acc to order of expectation but omkara for sure is the super hatke one. got the tracks yesterday (the tv promos never went beyond dhum dhum dhadam dhadhaiya re) and as expected, gulzar n vb have worked wonders again. the music is a treat, far too above the conventional standards, taareef se upur. and in particular, there is a song with wadkar-gulzar-vb effect (the astute reader will note that this is indeed as mindblowing as it cud get). its not a lori, yet is essentially one. i fear it might turn out to be a black lori (the movie adapts othello), hoho. so here's the song.


jag ja ri gudiya
misri ki pudiya
meethe lage do naina
nainon mein tere, hum hi base the
hum hi base hain, hain na.

o ri raani, gudiyaaaa,
jag jaa, arii jag ja, mari jag ja.

halka sa kosa,
subho ka bosa,
maan jaa ri, ab jaag ja.
naak pe tere, kaatega bicchoo
jaag ja, tu maan ja
jo chahe le lo, dashrath ka vaada
nainon se kholo ji raina

o ri raani, gudiyaaaa,
jag jaa, arii jag ja, mui jag ja.

kirnon ka sona,
os ke moti,
motiyon sa mogra.
tera bichauna, bhar bhar ke daroon,
gulmohar ka tokra.
aur jo bhi chaho,
maango ji maango,
bolo ji, meri maina.

o ri raani, gudiyaaaa,
jag jaa, arii jag ja, oye jag ja.

jag ja ri gudiya..


a complete masterpiece.

naseer interview

a fascinating interview here. He superbly hits all the right notes on learning, teaching and passion.

not without

no interesting music release for past few days(weeks). gangster got rave reviews and i guess was worth a watch. both the heroine n the gangster got away with their verbally hampered/mini roles - and so it was emran hashmi who carried out most of the acting. and he is quite good at it, surprisingly.

expectations high for incoming movies, altho the cities or the lands have to be changed to watch them. speaking of angrezi movies, roger dodger (2002) is remarkably cool.

bedford diaries

and I must confess, this is the best TV serial EVER made. of course, this might turn out to be an atishayokti but who cares. also note: sukanya verma n her screwed up reviews :
Here, in trying to do something different, J-L ends up dishing an uninspired score, which can be rated above average at best.
is it that difficult to make a decision? or maybe its a typo - "below average" perhaps she meant. anyhow, some of what i said earlier got confirmed.

fanaa

the fanaa audio released last friday i think (first n last i heard of the word fanaa was in that yuva song, lyrics: mehboob). jatin-lalit seem to have done a arr+vishal-shekhar plus some melodies. its vs(+arr) in the arrangements style and truly arr in the way that it slowly catches on - i guess i like all of the songs by now, hoho. but the melodies sound cliched, somewhat. and it goes further - the musical ambience is much like dil se. in fact in some ways, the story is reverse dil-se. so i guess the apparent coincidence is not completely unfounded.

although the main reason i set to write this down was that prasoon joshi, the lyricist and the adman, is going places. hum tum was decent, rang-de-basanti was cool but in fanaa, his lyrics are awesome, on the verge of being superb. (and therefore forcing a comparison with gulzar in dil se) he's abstract too but his lyrics are much more peppier than gulzar. and they rhyme so well too.

mere haath mein tera haath ho,
saari jannatein mere paas hon.
tu jo paas ho, fir kya ye jahaan,
tere pyaar mein ho jaaoon fanaa.

jitne paas hain khushboo saans ke
jitne paas hothon ke sargam (lovely mmm here)
jaise saath hain karwat yaad ke
jaise saath baahon ke sangam

jitne paas paas khaabon ke nazar
utne paas tu rehna humsafar

jitne paas paas, dhadhkan ke hain raaz
jitne paas boondon ke baadal
jaise saath saath chanda ke hai raat
jitne paas nainon ke kaajal

jitne paas paas saagar ke leher,
utne paas tu rehna humsafar

on writing it down, it seems more like the doode has gathered all his life's metaphors and put them in this one song. pata nahi fir mauka mile ya nahi? chaand sifarish - fanaa for you with subhaan allah and dekho na (re ma pa ni sa ni sa) are nice too.

sometimes i feel like i shud make a list of truly difficult-to-sing or thoroughly unconventionally-done numbers. much of salil choudhary collection - o sajnaa, naina barse, na jaane kyun squarely fall into that category. i was reminded of this due to this truly mesmerising song by mukesh - taaron mein sajke (LP)

priceless video

one of the most hilarious videos i've seen in a while. and just the right tone for priceless.

the sound of the nasals

I guess the himesh reshamiyaa nasal high-pitched sound phenomenon didn't happen out of the blue. In fact, the stage has been slowly set by host of pakistani sufi-pop performers:

nusrat fak -> strings (..,dhani) -> fuzon (saagar) -> jal (aadat) (only counting the main ones)

and bollywood has closely followed the movement:
kailash kher (wbhh,swades) -> rahat fak (paap, kalyug) -> himesh reshamiya

In fact, all of nfak, strings, fuzon and jal have performed in one more bollywood movies, e.g., strings: zinda, jal: kalyug, and perhaps more to follow.

can't get enuf of this song (movie: kalyug, band: jal, orig album: aadat):

naa jaane kab se
ummeeden kooch baaki hain
mujhe fir bhi teri yaad
kyuun aati hai
na jaane kab se

door jitna bhi tum mujhse, paas tere main
ho ab to aadat si hai mujhko aise jeene mein
zindagi se koi shikwaa bhi nahi hai
ho ab to zinda hoon main is neele aasmaan mein

?? jaisi hai teri badhti jaaye
aahat aisi hai ye teri mujhko sataaye
yaadi gehri hain itni dil doob jaaye
aur aankhon mein ye gam nam ban jaaye
he he.. oo..

ho ab to aadat si..
he e ..

sabhi raatein hain..sabhi baatein hain
bhula do unhe..mitaa do unhe..
aa aa aaa..

ho ab to aadat si..

kuch likhoon kya?

aap hi bataaiye kya likhoon.

i think i've watched rang de basanti at least 5 times. hoho.

gulzar again..

The man himself. all the right people. all the right words.

kumble gets 500

Kumble gets 500 - i'm no cricket die-hard, but the interview n "perseverance" caught my eye. interesting snippet :

"I believe that any ball can take a wicket. Yes, you'll try and set up a batsman and get him to play a few shots. It's just that you are always trying to play a mental game with the batsmen and as long as you are doing that consistently throughout the day and keep asking questions you are bound to be successful."

I couldn't help but interpret it in far more general context. hoho.

And I finally got to watch rang de basanti in NY - movie is pretty influential if one gets swayed by it. hoho.

rang de basanti

the biggest the ironies of lives that come to me - the eminently watchable movie rang de basanti is released all over but not in pittsburgh. dard itna hai ki bayaan bhi nahi kar sakte!

khair, the music by arr is awesome. awesome lyrics by prasoon joshi too. learnt that he also wrote for hum tum. khalbali, roobaroo, luka chuppi, tu bin bataaye. the complete album is a treasure. and specially, there is mohit chauhan with khoon chala.
wanted to post lyrics.

like the ziddi ziddi part of khalbali a lot.

abhi ishq ke intehaan...

Complete coincidence that while watching katha, (too bad we don't see much of sai paranjape these days) I came upon this old n famous sher by iqbal. It was a resonating background score in dil se, for which I commended arr and sukhwinder singh (I guess) much. It was left to haunting memories until (again with all coincidence) some doode reminded me of its existence. Since then, till yesterday, kewal mukhde ke saath jeena pada. and finally, it struck me yesterday (inspiration being the sher-on-blackboard in the katha movie) that it had to be something bigger.
shud have guessed cos gulzar also tepo'ed extensively from ghalib in dil se.


sitaaron se aage jahaan aur bhi hain,
abhi ishq ke intehaan aur bhi hain.

.. (other paras are in deeper urdu)

tu shaahin hai, parwaaz hai kaam teraa,
tere saamne aasmaan aur bhi hain.


isi roz-o-shab mein ulajh kar na reh jaa,
ke tere zameen-o-makaan aur bhi hain.

gae din ki tanhaa tha main anjuman mein,
yahaan ab mere raazadaan aur bhi hain.

the new year commings

with many bangs n whistles, 2006 has entered the doors.

should be fun.