sehgal blues

a fascinating composition from the upcoming delhi belly. composed by ram sampath and sung by chetan shashital (lyrics between them?). ram sampath is no less than a musical maestro - let's talk, in particular, was a superb album. chetan shashital I somewhat recall as an excellent mimicry artist - too little info on him on web. anyhow, the song has beautiful lyrics and succeeds hands down in recreating sehgal's intonation and gayaki.

duniya mein pyaar jab barse,
na jaanen dil ye kyun tarse.

begins off with tanpura, picks up to blues dominated by the distortion guitar.

is dil ko kaise samjhaoon,
pagal ko kaise main manaaoon.

naadaniyan jo tum karte,
ranjish mein hum bhi kyun marte.

is dard ki na hai dawayee,
majnu hai ya hai tu kasaayee.

jebon mein laakh guldaste,
kyu ek phool pe atke.

such an apt amalgamation of the sehgal and the blues genre. dil jalta hai from jogger's park is perhaps the only one which sets its foot into the combined genre. but this one is a leap ahead - amazing perfect sound!

update: found his interview. he is quite a curious kind and that shows. indeed, hope to hear more from him and more often.

shor in the city

Raj nidimoru and krishna d k have returned to entertain us with shor in the city. they struck a deal with ekta kapoor and irrespective of what the deal was, the fruits are turning out to be incredibly delicious. the duo directed (and probably debuted) with the awesome amru-indie Flavors, where the sparkling simplicity of narrative and depth of characters were the hallmark. they have now turned increasingly sophisticated - multiple plots, sprinkled with nuances, dark humor, smoothed out climax and a sublime message. the movie ranks among some of the most accomplished desi cult dramas. but even as it slips under your skin without you being aware, I probably start missing the explicit narrative, the comfort of being told and explained everything. Not fully sure, but mysterious narratives are quite bewafaa in some sense.
and yes, the soundtrack is quite lovely too. sachin-jigar, harpreet. saibo is pretty.

i need a break and soon there shall be one. a big one. a quick death and a new life. be patient.

deserve?

A very nice quote from here:

Buffett, in India, said people should give. Do you (Ajit Jain) personally follow that, in terms of charity, give away personal wealth?


A difficult and personal question and my views have changed somewhat over time. We have a son who’s been diagnosed with a serious illness and before he was diagnosed, I was in favour of the Buffett philosophy. I always felt I have got this fame, this wealth, I didn’t deserve, it doesn’t belong to me. But after my son’s illness, things did change. I didn’t deserve this and he didn’t deserve what he is getting.


So, in terms of my giving, without getting into too much of details of how things have changed, one, we focus on the Foundation that’s trying to find a cure for his illness. Second, I feel guilty, inasmuch as in his earlier life when he was healthy, I wouldn’t let him spend money and have a nice time. So, I have taken a U-turn and now I spend a lot of money and freely.
 
I absolutely love the twist:) Unsuprisingly, the doode has lived his dream and his only goal is to avoid doing something stupid.

tanu weds manu

Tanu weds Manu is an awesome movie - perhaps another dark horse winner. barring of course kangana ranaut - god! how can such a smart team be that dumb to not find an alternative for that role. Madhavan is superb, all characters so well-written, so colorful, fine dialogues, the climax a bit shaky. Can't help identifying with that character :) The quality doesn't come out to be a surprise if you look at the completely forgotten "strangers" (kk and jimmy shergill) made by the same director-writer duo - there was something very intriguing abt that movie.

kitne dafe is so beautifully romantic; i hated it for its non-linearness earlier but I guess can't help falling for it, and of course its with mohit chauhan; krsna, the music director? both rangrez and piya don't seem that cliched suddenly now :) rangrez is an incredibly powerful composition - both lyrics and tune wise.

and  the true discovery of the movie is swara bhaskar - what a powerful character and what a performance! I went through all her scenes at least thrice! :) She was in madholal too but then I didn't notice her then.

and finally, to repeat myself:
ek baar to yun hoga, thora sa sukoon hoga.
na rebuttals hongi aur na paper reject hoga.

:)

dhobi ghat

is an extremely boring film! :) That's completely not true but that's what we are gonna hear most.

The movie demands lot of attention, and a lot of filling in the holes from the audience. Doubt how many people would care to spend quality time with the movie. and even if they do, the movie does not draw you in as much as it could. I don't understand what makes you feel attached to the characters but perhaps that element was missing from this movie. the underlying feeling of isolation, melancholic undercurrent fails to take over - maybe it needs a re-watch.

anyhow, 7 khoon maaf is next in line. and dil to baccha hai ji too. the year is full of interesting movies.

edit: watched dhobi ghat again. haha. its such an amazing movie, so full of nuances. but why does it fail to move? whyyy? perhaps the connections, characters were not laid out very deeply. perhaps they were not made so likeable. all performances (except aamir khan's) were so subtle, well-done. munna and yasmin, so powerful performances. and still, yet, somebody tell me what went wrong! again, either what they felt wasn't explained or wasn't even thought out deep enough to resonate with us. that's the best i can come up with. this movie could have been so powerful.

and the music of 7 khoon maaf is out. the whole album is a adventure in non-linear compositions. VB gone crazy! right now, i'm simply disappointed with that suresh wadkar song - such an amazing poetry lost in such a plain tune. awful! :)

creativity and humility

had to tepo this from AB's blog.

Rewards are such a funny business. Not just here in Mumbai and its film industry, but I am certain in every institution that builds up to award individuals. The desire and the yearning of being ‘officially’ recognized as being better than the others is such a universal human behavior. Once fallen prey to it, it can actually destroy your mind in believing that that is in fact the truth. There could be no greater falsehood than that. I believe each creative input has its own immense merit and dignity, one that can never be replaced by another. An individual, an institution an organization may think otherwise and long may they live to do so. But the merits that come to each individual personally when he indulges in the craft of creation, cannot be understood or surpassed or compared with another. Creative comparisons or gradings are odious. Each act of creativity is a masterpiece in the eyes of the creator, and that is what needs to be respected. Winning an award does not and never will, make me a superior actor. No jury or judge shall ever have the capability or the capacity to pass judgement on and give merits to an artist in comparison to the others in the creative field. We and only we will know what our true worth and merit is. The blood sweat and tears that we shall shed in our drive for creative satisfaction shall be the reckoners, not any other. How can they ? Unless they are willing to shed their own !

He often writes quite to-the-point stuff. Sometimes idealistic, but often with incisive clarity.

nav varsh

faqat nigaah se hota hai, faisalaa dil ka.
na ho nigaah mein shokhi to, dilbari kya hai.

Found this captivating sher after a long time - I'd almost forgot abt my sherdom!. Off Abida Parveen in one of the Coke studio's songs. It says something I've wanted to say for a really long time :) and says it so tersely too!

I don't think I did even 12 posts last year! That's pathetic. :) I mean how much does it take to just write down random stuff once in a while. I should try to improve this year.

Meanwhile, I caught up on plenty of 2010 movies by the end of the year. and surprisingly, many of them turned out to be quite interesting.

alright, the good ones - phas gaya re obama, daayen ya baayen, band baja baraat.
and the rest - knock out (irfan!), dus tola (climax gone wrong?) and payback (!!)

Phas gaya is a masterpiece. Awesome script and so well done. Rajat Kapoor should be given a lifetime for his contribution to indian cinema, period. and the guy who's winning a few supporting actor medals this year is Sanjay Mishra, whose versatility as a character artist is unrivaled. remember pha-phaa in one-two-three?

Also watched mansarovar, 2004. surprising discovery. made very 80's style, and somewhat hamming english - perhaps its only drawbacks. I couldn't help replaying atul kulkarni's soliloquy in front of the malini? elephant. surprising how little (!) it takes to touch you. Anup Kurian, the director is coming back with his second movie - should be interesting.

Playing Patiala House. SEL. Pretty melodious but of course SEL can do much better. kyun main jagoon is perhaps the central number, but aadat hai woh somehow pleases me more - Vishal Dadlani's new lower octave rebirth :) If music directors form a nexus, god knows where the new singers will go. tumba tumba is pretty funny.

Oh, and in these forgetful times, I forgot to mention kahoon na piya tose from srk bola khoobsoorat hai tu. The movie itself is not bad and the soundtrack even better. and this particular song is a plain jackpot. the singer is same as the MD, Vasuda Sharma, her first movie. plenty to be said about the song - the fusion of bass, sitar, tabla and drums. the arrangements never subduing her vocals. so expressive notes and vocals. strikes the right balance between subdued nasalness and throw. and of course, the romanticism of the lyrics.

I've got addicted to posting song links on FB. wonder if I should merge these two.