love is an illusion?

I found this writeup on analysis of love - don't know why the guy chooses/needs to reason in/out of a doode called Schopenhauer. Still, interesting set of arguments. What I found more exposing was a comment to that post, which I inline here.

Romantic love is two people projecting onto each other, and mirroring that projection, for so long as it takes a child to be born and raised.
Think about it: the “honeymoon period” subsides when the bonding chemicals do, which is typically up to two years, long enough to get pregnant, maintain the pregnancy, and birth the child. (All periods when a woman’s mobility is reduced and she requires more food for functioning = therefore needs a protective, hunting, man.)
Unfortunately, the way we’ve set up nuclear families in our society, the expectation is that two people will live physically and emotionally closely for 50+ years; long after the bonding chemicals have subsided. To me, this is absurd – and pointless.
Romantic love is a high, anything after the “honeymoon period” ends is a mutually advantageous contract for raising children in *our* society (it’s preposterous that child-raising falls on the shoulders of one person in Western “civilisation”), an obligation, and more often than not a habit against loneliness that is rewarded by governments and peers.
There’s nothing wrong with that — but I wish people wouldn’t pretend that it’s otherwise.

I went ahead looking for more theories and definitions. Here is a contrasting claim from yahoo answers.

Love is not an illusion. It is the Greatest Gift that Nature has given this Universe. Love is the Inherent quality which is keeping this Universe afloat.

Love represents a range of human emotions and experiences related to the senses of affection and sexual attraction. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction. This diversity of meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.

As an abstract concept love usually refers to a strong, ineffable feeling towards another person. Even this limited conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different feelings, from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to the nonsexual. Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.

"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it...It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more." 

shankar bona fusion

It can't get better than this.

Happy New Year!

with a long awaited format update. May the new year be as interesting as the last year and all previous years!

the music of ishqiya

The album is no doubt a masterpiece.  A perfect new year gift. Two songs on pain, one innocent, and the  last one wild-silly. Rekha bhardwaj excels at expression pain - raat ye bhi guzar jayegi (chachi 420), rone ko jiya kare (maqbool), and she is no less here.  

VB's patterns are to essentially take it slow, stress and elongate words, fill them with different laykaari all the time, but never sound dissonant. The album in general is strong on vocals, of course no arrangements can stop  Rekha or Rahat's voice from piercing through. Still, feels like we are getting back to basics again. Quite a bit of the blast-from-the-past thrown in.

rekha bhardwaj - rustic, frugal, meditative.

ab mujhe koi  (Rekha) - very rustic ghazal. beginning sounds like tujhe ae zindagi hum door se. unable to fully place it in memory. mostly supported by piano and strumming, arrangements pick up in the para. watch out for the classical guitar interlude. Love the para 3rd-4th lines. 

ab mujhe koi intezar kahan,
wo jo behte the aabshaar kahaan. 

aankh ke ek gaaon mein, raat ko khaab aate the.
choone se behte the, bole to kehte the.
udte khaabon ka aetbaar kahan. 2

jin dinon aap the, aankh mein dhoop thi.
jin dinon aap rehte the, aankh mein dhoop rehti thi
ab to jaalen hi jaal hain, ye bhi jaane hi wale hain (?)
wo jo tha, dard ka karaar kahan. 2
(VB's unique style of stressing via hamming notes "jo tha", "kahan". The expression in wo jo tha dard ka karaar is terrific.)

badi dheere jali (Rekha) - more wild imagery, very ostentatious arrangement. very unique composition, perhaps only people like zakir hussain could compose such numbers. variety of percussion, tanpura, veena. beautiful how the initial classical mood blends into a ghazalish (?) mood. its set in a common raag, wish i could tell which one. 

badi dheere jali raina, dhuaan dhuaan naina. 2
raaton se haule haule, khori hai kinaari.
ankhiyon ne taaga taaga, bhor utaari.
khari ankhiyon se, dhuaan jaaye na.

badi dheere jali raina (love the groovy return-of-beat here)

The imagery is goose-pimplish. Gulzar did some taaga-dori pull of chaand in Satya too, and who knows where else also. The para starts with the percussion getting bold, but suddenly shusshed. 

palkon mein sapnon ki agni uthaaye, humne do ankhiyon ke aalne jalaaye. 2
dard ne kabhi, loriyaan sunaayi to, (boring here)
dard ne kabhi, neend se jagaaya re.
bairi ankhiyon se, na jaaye, dhuaan jaaye na.
(love the way base kicks in at dhuaan)
badi dheere jaldi raina...

dil to baccha (Rahat) - accordion+strumming introduction, waltz beat. colored laykaari with staccato flat ends. expression of rahat out of the world - switching between softness, innocence, breeziness, irritation,  staccato - all done seemlessly. The raaa ra..(rara rara rara) structure is present at multiple places. accordion can do things which violin can't - very good choice. Again, very complex arrangement - arabic interlude added for free. Periodic drift of innocent, playful accordion into suspense modes. The lyrics are a treat, though I'm too tired right now to put them here. 

remix done well except that rahat's softness is somewhat out of place with the rough arrangements - yet quite coherent/consistent in itself. made me somewhat uneasy after a while but i guess listening to the remix after the original was my mistake. the change of beat is very well done. 

ibn-e-batuta (Sukhwinder, Mika) - lovely shehnai backing, reminds me of dev-d. its sukhwinder let loose - unbelievably let loose to twist the song to his full potential. and of course no furrrrr can be enuf for the audience. remix is traditional and boring - could have been done much better. the song is full of gems like:

dono taraf se bajti hai ye, zindagi kya dholak hai, 
horn bajaake aa bagiyan mein
thora aage, gatirodhak hai.

dil to baccha hai ji

The promotion of Ishqiya is gaining momentum, the gaali-galauj and the censors adding to its publicity. It has three of most superb, outstanding actors and favs of mine. Outside "tumhara ishq ishq aur mera ishq sex", here is a refreshingly innocent song just out from the movie.

Its a VB-gulzar gem rendered with his characteristic innocence and mithaas by rahat fateh ali khan. (just see how he enunciates dil-too-baccha-hai-ji). The sound is that of an oldie-classic set to a waltz beat (think dil ki nazar se, nazron ke dil se), with the crispiness of a modern recording.

aisi uljhi nazar unse hat-ti nahi,
daant se reshmi dor kat-ti nahi,
umr kab ki baras ke safeyd ho gayi,
kaari badri jawaani ki chhat-ti nahi

vallah ye dhadkan, badhne lage hai,
chehre ki rangat, udnee lagi hai,
dar lagta hai tanha sone mein ji.

dil to baccha hai ji.
thora kaccha hai ji.

Very passionate artists in the making of the song. Or maybe they resonate with me more than others do :) The para could have been composed better tho.

saari jawaani katraa ke kaati,
peeri mein takraa gaye hain,

dil dhadakta hai to, aise lagta hai wo,
aa raha hai yehin, dekhta hi na ho,

prem ki maare kataar re.

Plenty of usual gulzarisms - I bet he doesn't have to try hard, just bring in a new thought and let it flow with the usual metaphors. There's an interesting moment at 7:44, where VB cues raahat, which he conveniently (and with some guilt, a moment later) ignores and continues with his style. The song is a masterpiece. Awaiting the audio release (there is at least one sukhwinder song too).

Actually there is more. Here is this song in a promo, and another one ibnbatuta. Look at vidya balan man! mujhe is shareef-zaadi se ishq ho gaya hai. :)

rdb

a nice video remembering rahul dev burman. 

paa, again

Paa is a roller coaster ride. Extreme wit, full of irony and poignancy. Its perhaps one of the best native scripts after khosla ka ghosla, altho in a different genre. The bum jokes, the crazy giggle, the unfailing wit and sarcasm, boiling with irreverence, and of course the title song. The film does have its digressions - well the story teller needs his space. R Balki (I don't know what he was doing before) upps his cheeni kum humor interleaving between his childish and mature modes - the writer's source of craziness is a complete mystery for me. his sense of humor is unfailing - wonder how many more (deeply humane) slapsticks he's hiding under his belt. and seriously, i fell for vidya balan all over again.

and if this and this don't send you crazy, nothing else can. naseer and arshad put together, casting couldn't get better. add vidya balan with all her oomph and cold, you fall short of words. the latter RGBG is another crazy ensemble. The trailers give me butterflies :) I am hooked.

paa

Paa's music has been out for a while. The title song rendered by AB is only next to Maa by shankar mahadevan, though in an entirely different genre. Beautiful lyrics by swanand kirkire. Illayraaja has been recycling tunes from his non-Hindi movies for sometime. Paa too is one of them - here is the original sung by Illayraaja himself from a recent Tamil movie. Illayaraja doesn't sound as cool as SDBurman tho :) The older version has multiple string instruments in the interlude, while the newer version relies on a more complicated percussion. But the real credit for this song goes to AB for his mindblowing rendition.

and it couldn't get more difficult to distinguish between real and contrived than this speech by Om Puri.

tum mile

Just finished watching Tum Mile, review here. Far more mature version of love aaj kal in terms of depiction of the relationship. Has its flaws, but very well done. Vishesh films has quite successfully created its own genre, ever since they discovered Emraan Hashmi. I wish his face and voice expressed a bit more. Soha Ali Khan looks old in the movie, I was surprised she is 31. Its almost a crime to look so beautiful, more so if you are redoing it in the second generation.

Mohit Chauhan's new album Fitoor doesn't fail to recreate his sound. No praises enough for the nasheela voice immersed in the characteristic staccato style of singing. Already performed babbaji (the fact that i completely fail to understand that song makes me like it even more :), looking fwd to challeya. I wonder what language (peshtu?) that interlude blabber (in challeya) is in - never mind, the song can be done without it too. 

rediscovered songs

now that's not a good excuse to write a post but then..

so there was this shelved (?) movie called DUS (98), which was probably one of the first shankar-eh-loy's movies. two songs chaandni roop ki, and piya piya lived with me forever. chaandni roop ki is so amazingly meditative; its incredible how such compositions could be brought to life.

there's a relatively unknown ARR movie vishwavidhata (97). hariharan's zulfein ghataon si is so breathtakingly beautiful - both poetry and rendition.

I realised that the two songs above are similar in theme. Sandeep chowta's mitti (?) had this beautiful groovy song khoobsoorat hai tu - the song sung by sukhwinder (+mahalaxmi?) is very hypnotical in composition, and the fusion between classical vocals and the groovy base is exploited to its best. I was surprised to find its video here and after watching the video I'm pretty much at loss of words: I guess people have their own clever ways of visual hypnosis. :)

I liked YMI, don't know if I wrote earlier. what's ur rashee is supposedly boring - still haven't got hands on it.

road, the movie

It's abhay deol's next. it has tannistha chatterjee. and the promos look splendid. a better one here. i don't know when its going to be released but it would def be a great watch. Its a desi "country" story done very slickly - among the few in 'we need to tell our stories' genre.

Interesting that dev benegal is directing it. I watched split wide open in 2000 in calcutta on a random occasion perhaps by mistake. It remains to date, one of the wildest movies (dark comedy, in particular) I've seen. I used to think that dev benegal was some sort of cinematographer - turns out he has directed only three movies in his lifetime of 30 yrs. I've always wanted to watch english august but could never lay hands on it.

Read somewhere that Phir Kabhi is lovely. Waiting to watch it.

ishq mein tere

Ishq mein tere kee karta main
haay, Ishq mein tere kee karta main
Khaali peeli mar gayaa

Ikraar-e-junoon mumkin na tha,
Ikraar-e-junoon mumkin na tha to
Tujhko hi tanhaa kar gaya

Bekhayaal tujhe jo karna tha
Bekhayaal tujhe jo karna tha, fir
Teri ulfat mein kyu tar gaya

amazing composition, isn't it? all copyrights reserved :)

to write abt

diaspora call center based movies - they're being creative but cant avoid cliches. the other end of the line, karma calling (just watched), and a couple more of them.

imitiaz ali definitely a portrait of a dedicated film maker. tho love aajkal was even more commercialized than jab we met. i wish he gets dissociated enough to make a movie like socha na tha again. i wish i could distance myself from the papers as soon as the first draft is ready :)
from PFC: Imitiaz Ali continues to show certain talent with dialogues, ‘creating moments’ and extracting natural performances from his cast members. love aajkal, inspite of its short comings, is still a delight to watch.

and of course, the origin of kaminey (the title, the phrase and the sentiment) lies with none other than gulzar himself. here is VB's confession.

i'm surprised that I didn't mention shekhar suman's tedhi baat earlier. the doode plays new characters every other day so effortlessly that its unbelievable. the script writers do ham but watching shekhar suman get into each and every character so wonderfully is a treat. won't mind gurpal ji showing an emotion or two. 

awaiting : kaminey (this friday!!), sikandar, antaheen, what's your rashee, ...

chaandan mein

Wonder what that title means or well it really means what it seems to mean. Kailash kher is back with his new album chhandan mein after kailasa. To say its beautiful would be understatement. He's severely toned down on his high-pitched vocals or maybe smoothened them with harmonies. His shrill cries in the past have always been a pain to listen to (more so, listen to others sing those songs) and in my opinion have severely undermined his music's potential/acceptance. The guy (and the group I guess) has done his homework with electronic accompaniment. It  feels as good as Hariharan's Kaash, although Kaash was more ghazalish and this one is more folksy+bhajanish - their respective fortes. I really get kicks when they manage to create well-placed fusion.

There is this na bataati tu peecha, dha dhin nin na song, which I really want to figure out but can't make head/tail out of it. tere naina is almost like a lori.  All the songs are consistenly nice with their lyrics.

And of course, there a couple of songs in feminine form, which are fantastic. Few can take over the feminine form so effortlessly as kailash kher and render those songs with utmost comfort.  chaandan mein, teri yaad mein, piya ghar aavenge, ishq ho gaya, albela saajan - more than half of the songs fall in that category with lovely lyrics by the doode himself. 

and yes, there's an unreleased madan mohan tracks album tere bagair released by the madan mohan family. digitially remastered - they even display the lost line from a track on the covers. such a wonderful family (: i'm glad some of songs retain the madan mohan touch unlike most in veer-zaara.

kaminey

the soundtrack for kaminey is out. VB-gulzar never disappoint, so this one's another one of its kind. the most beautiful number to me is definitely the title song where VB romances with the word kaminey. Gulzar gets more imaginative as he ages (or maybe i was born too late :). sometimes I felt the out-of-the-world poetry was let down by the music, esp. the song pehli baar mohabbat (mohit chauhan). besides, I really hope mohit chauhan doesn't get stereotyped with these kind of songs.

anyhow, the album is a masterpiece, with multiple soon-to-be desi anthems. and of course, the movie shud be mind blowing desi cult never seen before :)

gulzarisms:

dil nichode, raat ki matki tode, 
koi 'good luck' nikaale -> aaj 'gullak' to fode

-------

and fatak is probably the first time sukhwinder and kailash kher get on mic together. very impressive abstract poetry/song colorfully decorated with the voices of two great singers (and mandolin? base).

jitna bhi jhooth bole 'thoda' hai,
keedon ki basti ka 'makauda' hai.
ye raaton ka bicchu hai kaatega
ye zehreela hai, zeher chaatega.
darwaazon mein kunde do,
dafa karo ye gunde, ye shaitaan ka saaya re.

----------------

I would need to write a separate post to fully praise and dissect the title song kaminey. i can hardly express the emotion that this song thrives on. the lyrics convey the stoic pain and pathos tastefully - i don't know if i've heard this particular metaphor (cf. sthayi) before. the composition however, goes far far beyond the lyrics. VB caresses the song with his own genius, very out-of-the-box (though we saw the style in the title of U, me aur hum).

kya karen, zindagi, 
isko hum jo mile.
iski jaan, khaa gaye,
raat din ke gile.

meri aarzoo, kameeni.
mere khaab bhi, kameeney.
ik dil se dosti thi,
ye huzur bhi kameeney.

kabhi zindagi se maanga,
pinjare mein chand la do.
kabhi laalten leke,
kaha aasmaan pe taango.

jiska bhi chehra cheela,
andar se aur niklaa.
maasoom sa kabootar,
naacha to mor nikla.

kabhi hum kameene nikle,
kabhi doosre kameene.

meri dosti, kameeni.
mere yaar bhi, kameeney.
ek dil se dosti thi, 
ye huzur bhi kameenay.

the song climaxes into a violin ensemble, marinated by VB's crooning :) Its just remarkable how he so aptly embedded the last four lines into the western classical ambience - such a made for each other feeling.

well, i really can't recall if i've heard the metaphor before. somehow it leaves me craving for more - they should have hit us harder, no?

kal nau baje

again awfully out of touch.

I'm hooked on to this utterly silly number from upcoming movie short-kut called kal nau baje

music: SEL
lyrics: javed akhtar.

reminds me and a bunch of other ppl of ghar se nikalte hi -- glad that sonu nigam n alka yagnik manage to create the magic of this utterly silly song. and again hats off to SEL for recreating a melody of this kind.

New York isn't that bad as claimed by many reviews. Anubhav wasn't carried off well by the director - it needed to be in better hands. Mumbai and New York are pretty much the same - from vada pao to hot dogs. 

Summer is here. I'm waiting for the 600 movies in the next 6 months. Particularly, love aaj kal and kameenay.

double oscars with maa

ARR finally gets his due, and, more interestingly, reveals his PJ repertoire. It starts with
mere paas maa hai
and ends with
i always had a choice between love and hate. i always chose love and here i am.

I've observed that his PJ delivering abilities have significantly improved as he got up to received more n more awards. At golden globe, he was jumping with "this is unbelievable" much like poolkutty yesterday. At the oscars, he beamed so very kingly after each of his PJs before an audience that could hardly relate to most of them. Sort of majestic oh-yeah-I-know-you-are-goin-to-rotfl. I believe that most of the audience, including the desi-tv-viewers were forced to re-evaluate their sense of humor during those moments. (more than a) Few were also taken aback by ARR's supreme audacity put forth to us with a sly smile and a childlike voice. A priceless moment in time!

India is confused why slumdog gets so many oscars. Some call it poverty-porn, some say its about hope. I don't have an explanation. But I simply adore the collective confusion.

PS: I've never felt this excited and nervous since my marriage.

And yes, Gulzar inadvertently wins an oscar. The world behaves in strange ways. Here's his interview full of ifs n buts.

13B

I'm hooked on to aasmaan odh kar from 13B. SEL should be renamed . Amazing how they do melody effortlessly.

ode to mohit chauhan

I've been extremely fond of mohit chauhan perhaps since boodein. However, I don't remember being an ardent fan before I heard guncha and tried to imitate the tough song. The song masakali brings him to the limelight, and I hope he is here to stay. The guy's voice is out-of-the-world nasheela, his style extremely original, his notes are perfect, and his saadgi commendable.

main meri patni aur woh was a remarkable movie, a complete delight. I really could never figure out who composed the music for the movie. and I still would like to know if mohit chauhan himself composed guncha. Mohit also sang ye zamana hum se hai in that movie, a nice number which was forgotten.

In fact, he has lent his voice to a series of superb numbers, which got lost each and every time. The album boodein was followed by a sapnay album - sapnay hain sooni aankhen, which had a couple of other lovely numbers, including a breathtaking folk number (chupi ja na chandrama..). The whole album was lost to the audience. Not sure, but sabse peeche hum khade, probably belongs to the same album. guncha did remain in the memories, however, and is still appreciated.

I hate to read that he got a semi-break through rang de basanti, and this post was written to set history straight :). Then, jab we met, kismat connection, welcome to sajjanpur, fashion, ...., and dilli 6 happened.

I pleasantly discovered today that he had been part of mission ustad last year - you get to see him singing all through those episodes - awesome! Its really heartwarming to see the singer getting his due recognition now.

dilli 6

I was eagerly waiting for this ARR track. The track is plain awesome. just pure magnificience. All amazing kinds of sounds. Pure brilliance. Its the rang de basanti team again - prasoon joshi and ARR. The lyrics are lovely, esp. note masakalli.

Masakalli has mohit chauhan creating the allahadpan of kishore kumar with all the verve. Choosing rekha bhardwaj to lead the bhojpuri genda phool was a superb decision - how beautifully can she combine her tangy voice with softness of emotions. ARR's second bihari number (after jhooth ka pat chalkaini, from saathiya), replete with grooves this time - it almost sounds funny or perhaps it is meant to be.

The most beautiful song is perhaps dil gira dafatan (altho masakalli wud be terrific to sing) - amazing ensemble of emotions, sung by someone called ash king.

dil, gira kahin par hai dafatan
jaane magar ye nayan
teri khamosh zulfon ki gehraayian hain jahan
dil mera uljha hua hai wohin, kho gaya
tu magar hai bekhabar, hai bekhabar

..
samandar lehron ki, lehron ki
chaadar odh ke so raha hai
par main jagoon, ek khumari, ek nasha sa,
ho raha hai.
tu magar hai bekhabar, hai bekhabar,
dil...

The samandar lehron ki tune is simply breathtaking with its painful emotion.
The rehna tu sung by ARR has a crazy sense of expression last seen in tu bole glass aadha khali (jaane tu ya jaane na) - its the same genre, rendered even more effectively this time.

I couldn't help but write down masakalli lyrics - an unrivalled tribute to allahadpan.

aye masakalli, ud matak kali

zara pankh jhatak, gayi dhool atak,
aur lachak machak ke, door bhatak
ud dagar dagar, kasbe kooche,
nukkad basti, masti mein ye ye ye
ithri se ud, adaa se mud
karle poori dil ki tamanna
hawa se jud, ada se ud
phur phurr phurr, tu hai heera panna re.

ghar tera salonee, baadal ki colonee,
dikhla de thenga unko jo udna na jaanen,

udiyo na dariyo, kar manmaani ...
badhiyo na mudiyo, kar naadaani
gar taan le, muskaan le, (??)
bas sansananan hawaa,
bas thaan le, tu jaan le,
keh sanananananan hawaa

ae masakalli ..


tu kya gam tera rishta
gagan ki baansuri se hai
pawan ki guftgoo se hai
sooraj ki roshni se hai
udiyo na dariyo, kar manmani,
badhiyo na mudiyo, kar naadani
....

masak-kali...

rahman wins golden globe

worldwide accolade was long due. the track was avg by rahman standards, but the prize was definitely due - both for ARR and the country. the video is here. hope he gets the oscar too.

slumdog was a true bollywood masala film. the article here sums it up:
Partly in Hindi, the movie is an uplifting tale, but manages to balance fantasy with a stark look at the life of the urban poor in India. It is this balancing act that seems to have touched a chord in audiences abroad.

I'm still confused WHY it touched a chord. Here's another interpretation:
The scam gives the film a moral: The difference between those who are poor and those who are rich is only a scam and underdogs can beat the odds if they adopt the practices of those who control their destiny.
By a clever use of subtext, Slumdog Millionaire becomes a work of art.

tera emosanal atyaachar

The trailer for Dev D has been out for a while. The emosanal atyaachar song was a serious warning how eclectic/crazy this movie was going to be. After all, its the next anurag kashyap movie and has abhay deol - so only the unexpected can be expected. The modern day Devdas is going to be a mega-treat to watch.

Now, the audio is out. The song list is unbelievably long - and when you consider the variety, you are nothing short of plain dumbstruck. Who's this Amit Trivedi doode. Amazing sort of folk, western, classical genres, all put together in a single album. The album is a major celebration of the man himself, whom I know nothing of, at least at this moment.

tauba tera jalwaa
tauba teraa pyaar
teraa eemosanal atyaachaar.

Of course, there couldn't be a better matching song to the context than emosanal atyachar. Here's the director's cut on it. The other favorite is paayaliya - I guess I like it more cos the seamless fusion with classical. and, btw the singer shruti pathak is of the mar jaawa (fashion) fame. The song has all kinds of crazy instrumental, vocal, percussion and accapella effects fused together that one can ever think of - totally mind-boggling composition. and no words enuf for the My God! effect. Nayan tarse is another fabulous number - I still don't know what its reminding me of. Someone write a wikipedia page on Amit Trivedi! Plzzz.

Alright, so its his second movie after Aamir. Now I've to go back to Aamir's soundtrack.

kishore kumar, RNBDJ, SM

I chanced upon this hilarious interview of Kishore Kumar. Probably taken during late 70's - maybe he got more mad with age - or maybe he only spoke in atishayoktis. The article is such a comic masterpiece. Intrigues you so much about the character.

On a side note, Passion for Cinema is a wonderful site for people like me.

And on the main note, I'd like to (finally) put it down on paper that Rab ne bana di jodi and Slumdog Millionaire are, in true sense, movies built around the same exact theme - romantic idealism. The quintessential theme is the one which bollywood is identified by, and scoffed at by our beloved desi-movie-watching pseudo-intelligensia. SM is made a thousand times more wonderfully than RNBDJ, which is perhaps why it is receiving so much applause. But, when you start looking for the key idea, the germ, the inspiration (if any) that the writer may have had - its plain old romantic idealism. And sadly, none of the movies does justice to the thought - in fact, I would say that RNDBJ is a far more sincere portrayal of the idea that SM - SM merely manipulates the critic to convince him/her of an illusion of the inspiration, almost like an insult to the thought. However, SM's story had the real potential (due to its true-to-life characters) to put forth romantic idealism so that it would jhakjhor the audience; the depiction failed to milk the potential. RNBDJ instead was complete fairy tale - a sweetened dose of romanticism; I don't know, maybe it is the bollywood thing - depth of emotions is often diluted for the common masses. The interesting thing that I found was how Aditya chopra managed to recreate the scene from DDLJ - the girl begs the guy to elope with her, and the guy refuses, as a true romantic hero. It was turnedaround though in RNDBJ (the villain and the hero were indistinguishable), but how so beautifully.

oye lucky

watched oye lucky lucky oye yesterday.
- dibankar banerjee has done it again. the second movie generally shows if the director is truly capable. difficult to find even a small hitch in his work.
- abhay deol is the cult genre star of the bollywood.
- its kind of sad that to keep up with the out-of-the-world script of khosla ka ghosla, one has to make a black comedy of the oye lucky fame.
- manorama six feet under, mithya, and now oye lucky. fabulous black comedies. (i recall some old ones too - waisa hi hota hai part 2, .. )
- neetu chandra is such an amazing actress.

Incredible amount of details - sometimes pretty overwhelming. the characters, the execution, the gripping slick story telling, and of course, the script - a masterpiece. perhaps it won't be such a huge hit since its a black comedy - i hope it is.

raaste hain juda juda

rahat fateh ali khan gets to do nusrat in zindagi ye song in the forthcoming Dil Kabaddi. This one should rise quick on charts, I hope. The music director is somewhat unknown (sachin gupta) but the other tracks are fine too. The movie should be fantastic given the fine ensemble of actors. I wanted rahul bose and irrfan to come together in a movie since long. it was so much fun to watch arshad warsi with irrfan in Sunday.

zindagi ye safar mein hai

kat raha hai raasta

humsafar to hai magar

manzilen hain juda juda.

I'm not impressed with the soundtrack of rab ne bana di jodi. Salim-Suleiman have plenty of melody in them and a fine arrangement sense too - I don't know what happens to them with Yash Raj. O re Piya was the only impressive one in Aaja Nachle. and rith rnbdj, the best they get is haule haule with sukhwinder - some fine lyrics, some nice modulations. Old fashioned dholak or even tabla gets to me - but well looking back at DDLJ, the songs were pretty old-fashioned there too. Perhaps they could have put in some more melody. something. But, the real creative song is phir milenge chalte chalte. fabulous lyrics and note combination.

yuvraaj

ARR is at it again - yuvraaj has fantastic melodies. subhash ghai comes back with another magnum opus with old wine in new glass feel. tu hi to meri dost hai and tu muskura are both superb numbers woven in melody. funny how both songs play in the interlude of the other. tu hi to meri has a hair-raising note combination at the end when ARR starts singing. tu muskura is somewhat more ethereal. but i grew attached to zindagi first, probably because its strongly emotional and so well sung by srinivas - we see gulzar play again with do naina sakhiyaan. i think it was srinivas in kaisi hai rut (DCH).  manmohini morey is ARR's take on lat uljhi suljha ja bandish - ultra modern accompaniment with full classical base. i didn't really like the tune/melody in the beginning, but then ARR makes sure that  it will definitely grow on you. somehow all the songs (except zindagi) fall a little short of the mark, perhaps due to the overbearing arrangement or perhaps they were intended to touch only superficially.

shankar mahadevan

shankar-ehsaan-loy (SEL) have been a recurring theme in my blogs since the very beginning. ever since dil-chahta-hai, they've been growing on the bollywood scene - and perhaps would be the most consistent performers after a r rahman, getting the melody and the mood right each time. 

have been watching srgmp 09, where shankar is a judge. quite an appealing personality. again a unique combination of humility, megalomania, and street-smartness. its amazing to watch such people perform. effortless singer. breathtakingly soulful voice. gifted with melody and sensitivity. god, for lack of a better term. i wonder how he feels up there. 

i sang "maa" recently (shankar, taare zameen par) with the usual besurapan and anavashyak kalaakari. still, it was lovely the way it turned out.

two fascinating movies

i watched two lovely movies this weekend. hulla, and, saas bahu n sensex. hulla is horribly cool except the end. saas bahu n sensex is a part-cliche-part-awesome movie about nothing by shona urvashi (her last movie was chupke se, another lovely movie about nothing with superb soundtrack). farooq sheikh in parsi form is incredible - its so inspiring to see an actor like him live such a well-crafted role. all good supporting actors, and you definitely can't ignore farooq's assistant (sorry I dont know his name) -"we're back in business", "i think i miss her".

both these movies fall into the hrish-mukh, basu-chat genre. feels so good. btw i'm a fan of both gul panag n minisha lamba. minisha looked lovely in srgmp.

kuch geet

ek hi khaab

the song feels as good as love. amazing how rdb-gulzar combo cud be so inspired.

welcome to sajjanpur - shantanu moitra, swanand kirkire (parineeta, khoya khoya chand ) combo- bheeni bheeni, ek meetha marz de ke. have to figure out wot the second song means. hehe. shyam benegal directs again - should be interesting.

colonial cousins - dekhoon main jahan. the hariharan classical appetite that i've inherited. such a difficult-to-sing song couldn't sound simpler.

main zinda hoon

Tons of reasons why I should have written earlier but didn't :)

just finished watching A Wednesday. Awesome would be an understatement. amazingly slick, powerful dialogues, just-in-time well-etched characters, couldn't have been better. the soliloquy by naseeruddeen shah at the end is a masterpiece. Reminds me of teen deewarein, where he single-handedly pulled it off - i guess this is even better; he stays put at a single location throughout the movie and effortlessly delivers a gem of a performance. first-time movie of neeraj pandey; first-time directors seldom fail to surprise. UTV continues to be sensible - good for us.

aamir was good too. via darjeeling kept you on the edge, but maybe there was too much of suspense.

C kompany is hilarious - ekta kapoor has learnt the parody genre from farha khan and she does it better by spoofing her empire - few people could do that so well. Rock on needed better actors and dialogues - but preeti desai was superb. farhan akhtar is a mega star but needs training.

rajnigandha, manzil

they're not releasing new movies and i've been resisting watching oldies or even dloading them. maybe i wont be able to come back to new ones if i start watching them :)

but boriyat makes u give in and therefore. i watched two basu chatterjee movies - rajnigandha and manzil (didnt realise until now that both were basuC movies:) i thought i always knew the story of rajnigandha cos I'd seen it on DD when i was say, 15. i was pleasantly surprised - i didn't have the faintest idea of the track. and it is one of those horribly mature movies where the tension is built and kept all the way to the end (the end was too clumsy tho). and the director never makes the characters too mysterious - you always kind of know what they are thinking - sometimes making their minds too obvious tho. i'm so tempted to watch all of them in this list in a chronological order :)

manzil is an all out AB affair with akHangal playing the coy villain so comfortably. surprisingly, mousamiC used to ham much less back then :) but the doode is AB - his performance is awesome, his charm is arresting - his facial expressions talk to you literally. i wud say its one of his best pre-angry man roles, only if i knew all the rest of his pre roles :)

of course i've been familiar with the soundtrack of rajnigandha for long. rajnigandha fool tumhare, kayee baar yunhi dekha hai, na jaane kyun - all unrivaled salil ch compositions.
manzil has rimjhim gire saawan - no words enuf for that RDburman composition, its almost like a soothing, spriitual romantic prayer :) there's another supersweet song, which I heard for the first time (all kudos go to me), tum ho mere dil ki dhadkan. again by kishore kumar, it has awesome mithaas.

underrated actors

rediff had this user-poll on under-rated actors. so i thought i shud record it since its a constant theme in my head. below is a cut-paste from one of the readers.

I don't necessarily agree with the ranks (e.g. vinay pathak n ranvir sheorey are far more talented) but the entries are very appropriate. I maintain that bollywood is going through its second golden period, and we better sit up and take notice. :)

Top 5 under-rated actors:
1. Shiney Ahuja 2. Abhay Deol 3. Vinay Pathak 4. Ranvir Sheorey 5. Boman Irani

Top 5 under-rated actresses:
1. Gul Panag 2. Chitrangada Singh 3. Ayesha Takia 4. Koyel Puri 5. Rituparna Sengupta

Top 5 under-rated directors:
1. Vishal Bharadwaj
2. Navdeep Singh (of "Manorama")
3. Dibakar Banerjee (of "Khosla ka Ghosla")
4. Anurag Basu
5. Sriram Raghavan
6. Shashanka Ghosh (of "Waisa bhi hota hai")
7. Jahnu Barua
8. Imtiaz Ali (socha na tha, jab we met)
9. Rituporno Ghosh (of "Raincoat")
10. Tigmangshu Dhulia (of "Haasil")

Top 5 under-rated contributors in other forms:
1. Jaideep Sahni (writer)
2. Arvind Kannabiran (cinematography)
3. UTV (production house)
4. Shantanu Moitra (music)
5. Amitabh Shukla (editor)

Note that I have left out usual suspects such as KayKay Menon, Konkona Sensharma & Rahul Bose, The reason is that they are not that under-rated anymore. Also, the directors list consist of 10 entries instead of the regular 5, as I believe there are more talented directors out there with no face recognition whatever, than actors. Feel free to add to the list.



Some more guys: Irfan, Jimmy Shergill, Pawan Malhotra, Zakir Hussain.
smriti mishra - u cant help notice her in one dollar curry. and saw dil dosti again recently. biryaani khayenge hujur?
raima sen
manish tiwary (dil dosti etc)

i'm sure i missed many more.

anuranan

anuranan means resonance. (very corny :)

watched this awesome movie. rahul bose, rajat kapur, raima sen, rituparna sengupta. both rahul bose n rituparna overact and ham (i used to think that it was aparna sen who used to make rahul bose ham). its a pity why the director fails to control them. perhaps becos its his first film.

anyhow, the script is good. and just when you think its another "before sunrise", the story takes a dramatic turn so much that it hurts. somewhere, inspite of its clumsiness, the movies strikes a chord. and for sure, a few scenes here and there did manage to escape to surrealism (rather than being corny or cliched).

its amazing how rajat kapur has a "cold shoulder" role lying around almost everywhere for him. god knows wot wud have happened to these movies without him. and no words enuf for raima sen . she is totally awesome in her restrained performance. i had kind of noticed her in manorama 6 feet under, few days back, playing a mix of push-button seductive and otherwise helpless role. she is hugely talented - and i'm so surprised i haven't been rooting for her since earlier.

so that makes manorama 6 feet under a true classic. two great actresses - gul panag and raima sen and the fabolous doode abhay deol (u can never ignore vinay pathak).

mithyaa

mithyaa is a horribly cool cult movie. reminds me of jaane bhi do yaaron - but of course that is an exaggeration. same team - rav sh, vin pat, rajat kapur. rav sh should get a lifetime award for this performance. :) the genre prolly is darker than dark comedy.

u
me
aur
hum.
vishal bhardwaj again composes masterpiece drowning melodies. let's see how ajay devgan does.

jodha akbar : ash gow went old-fashioned. forget history, forget wars, it was all about chemistry. and chemistry was done and shown well. hrithik had a towering presence ( iguess which made the movie believable) - yet he seemed to lose gravity once in a while. and finally the taming of a rajputain didn't look that difficult.

also, i was looking for rafi songs to sing. came upon this wonderful rafi-madanM number ek haseen shaam ko (dulhan ek raat ki). it b/w and nutan looks beautiful. lip-synching to such numbers wud be so difficult. same with this one (shashi kapur lip-synchs awesomely) and this one (where did KK learn to lip synch). and leave alone lip-synching to pure classical numbers like this one. and lastly, it would be a crime to disregard this performance.

tanhayee

again long time. tons to write but difficult to recall.

strangers is a fantastic movie. kay kay has such a presence.
khoya khoya chand was a psycho-thriller :) welcome was too hilarious.

oh yes, bombay to bangkok. pretty sure this won't fly like all kukunoor previous productions. tons of reasons. but the secondary track of the gangster (vijay maura) n the shrink (manmeet singh) had a horribly cool chemistry. both are superb actors - wish they had replaced the main theme :)

jodha-akbar track is out. arr doesn't fail with his unusual note combos. more later.
being part of the community, i must link here. I hope someone puts the video on youtube.
i've grown a liking for coupling. its definitely what inspired how i met your mother.
just being close to NY makes me feel like so much is happening. :)

finally, i need to focus more on my singing career :)

nagme hi nagme hain
jaagte soti fizaon mein
husn hai saari adaon mein
ishq hai jaise hawaon mein.

- jodha-akbar, arr, sonu, madhushree?

taare zameen par

its so sad that this blog was so abandoned............at least till this moment.

aamir khan turns director with taare zameen par - and I do my first day second show routine. very touchy, classy, honest and all that. awesome music - I hope it becomes a greater hit than the movie itself - SEL are just awesome at rolling out melodies after one another - no unusual notes; plain melodies full of warmth and expression. the movie could drag less and be less simplistic/preachy in some parts. the award goes to them for drawing the audience back into the movie everytime the audience got distracted. lots of deja vu, lost love - difficult to hold back tears at some moments.

kya tujhko pata hai na maa .
couldn't be a better song of its kind.

i should post more. enjoying the job and the place. khoya khoya chand was an interesting movie with a haunting title song. haven't seen manorama (6 feet under) yet. oh yes, om shanti om had a lovely track. already managed to perform aankhon mein teri :)

vinay pathak

He did sparkling performances in both khosla ka ghosla and bheja fry. bheja fry was basically his show. and I just saw this trailor of johnny gaddar with him in a completely new avatar. so, had to do some (re)search on him (perhaps again). Looking fwd to both manorama and khoya khoya chand.

No doubt that it is his sparse exposure that is working for him. but then again, if every new role appears like a new avatar, I'd say a star is born. I seriously hope he gets more roles like bheja fry.

Also, I continue to wonder how these acting geniuses are made. The list (male): Naseeruddin Shah, Farooq Sheikh, Om Puri, Anupam Kher, Irrfan, Kay Kay, Vinay Pathak..

ARR again

I attended ARR's concert in fairfax, VA. Needless to say, absolutely fantastic. A lot went into the screen(stage)-play of it, much more than I had expected. Completely non-stop show - less than a minute gap between two pieces and that too continuously for 3 hours. some cribbed about show starting half n hour late. Hariharan never fails to create the magic. and life is a waste if you haven't seen sukhwinder perform chaiyaa chaiyya (the elongated version with thaiyya thaiyya, etc) on stage. he has a voice to die for.

caught some sync mistakes - i kept wondering for how much of it were we taken a ride for. (arr stops playing piano to mute his cell phone while the piano sound keeps playing). khair, sukhwinder singh and hariharan were pure and perfect. no praises enuf for sivamani. other guys need to play up to the crowd more, and more importantly, learn to be in sur. i didnt find pray for me brother particularly fascinating except for the haunting muffled short interlude. the amazing part was the cell phones lighting up the stadium - never seen something like that, totally heavenly. there were people falling for neeti mohan, few knew who she was.

the wide range of compositions all back to back made you wonder if the genius look like arr. no drooling is enough. here's the latest interview. the stress on innocence n purity is impressive. also impressive is the effort he puts in getting to those elusive tunes. i found a recent one on youtube here (there are 11 or 12 parts to it) where he is grilled suitably (sometimes gets too cliche, sometimes interesting) by prabhu chawla and arr takes it in a child-like flow. seems that he is being more candid these days as his confidence improves.

bollywood coming

Three fantastic movies released in a row - bheja fry, metro, cheeni kum. all extremely watchable. they beat the familiar bollywood genre by miles. should we say bollywood reality cinema?

metro is dark and i guess therefore less liked. cheeni kum is definitely not nishabd (not that the latter was any lesser). i guess bheja fry was lapped up the most because of the humor. nevertheless, cheeni kum oozes sarcasm and its a delight to see them carry it off without being even slightly obnoxious.

all of them are highly mature presentations and done without strain, almost effortlessly - as if we have been doing that all the time. in retrospect, it is almost unbelievable that these were bollywood presentations.

PS:
JBJ is due this week. lets see. i didnt like bol na halke halke earlier mainly because it wasnt clear whether to be soft or not to be soft. anyhow, the melody is just too sweet to not fall for. rahat fateh ali does the magic again.

jhoom barabar jhoom

The music is out. Not as cool as the movie trailors pretend to be. Let's see. 3 copies of JBJ with different set of singers. Can't figure out some lyrics still. But, the song of the day (and coming months) is ticket to bollywood. Hardcore desi-reggae-bhangra. and it sounds so much in place. and the lyrics deserve mention:

zameen se do inch upur
hawa pe chalti hai tu
kahin pairon ka nishaan jo pade to jhukoon

no no masiye? no no itna simple nahi,
chal dafa ho kahin.
ho thenge? se tera ticket to hollywood.

tu raani hai france ki,
main baansuri baans ki,
humari society mein ye chalta nahi.

no no..

I still don't know what exactly the mukhra is. and the song is so damn foot-tapping. difficult to keep count how many genres it seamlessly combines.

imagination

needed TBA: I met vishal bhardwaj in person. Exhilaration is the word. aaj tak style summary: gareebi ne banayaa genious?

This article deserves to be sooo cited. In particular this quote:

Every now and then I come up with a hypothesis that sounds correct and has the added benefit of being totally impossible to verify. That’s almost as good as knowledge.

math curriculum

an extremely interesting video (arguments are sometimes flashy) on current math curriculum practices in US here. Very detailed (with some bias) on pointing out the problems with math education. There is a followup video1 and video2 that talks abt how we must actually be taught to appreciate math (and not regard it as a bunch of formulas). The followup videos contain far more detailed and unbiased analysis. more impromptu and some parts quite hilarious.

I got the link via this blog - very aptly she points out that its the balance between rote and creative learning that one needs to inculcate. this has been an issue for me for all my life until i started doing research full time - i've had a bias towards creative learning and have struggled with inefficiency. lot of creative work involves re-discovering and therefore you tend to get fatigued much before u reach the peak. stuff that is rote-learned helps u accelerate by avoiding details.

even tho i can indulge myself in slow creative research at this stage, i guess it wud be smarter to keep identifying the rote stuff enroute.

PS: there is another hilarious video from the same math prof here

tere liye palkon ki jhalar

tere se liye palkon ki jhalar bunoon,
kaliyon sa gajre mein baandhe firoon,
dhoop lage jahaan tujhe, chaya banoon,
aa jaa saajna.


movie: harjayee (1981)
music: r d burman
lyrics: ?
singer: lata

The song is an RDB masterpiece. One of the ultimate combos of music, poetry and expression.

rozana

I hope Nishabd garners some controversy. My muse at this moment is the song rozana, sung by AB, music vishal bhardwaj, dont know the guy who wrote it, altho the lyrics are good. a perfect desi pink floyd. and its amazing how good AB is at it. no wonder VB composed it.


rozana jiyen..
rozana maren..
teri yaadon mein hum

ungli teri, thaame hue
har lamha chalta hoon main.

tujhko liye, ghar lautun aur
ghar se nikalta hoon main.

ek pal ko bhi, jata nahi
tere bin kahin.

yun raat din, bas tujhme hi, bas tujhme hi
lipta rehta hoon main.

rozaana...


the expressions at lipta rehta hoon main is amazing. and of course when it picks up pink-floyd style with rozana. the song is polymorphic altho i guess we are familiar with the context. the poetry has a minimalist feel to it which is cool. and together with the musical climaxes it becomes simply awesome. simply can't stop raving abt this song.
almost unbelievable how it conveys deep pain n a soft passion together at the same time. or perhaps it is due to AB's voice - but its simply lovely.

a very happy new year?

a fascinating well-written article here. and gets more interesting here.

new albums are out in bulk. just married is notable. atif aslam's doorie is nice too. and there are more. heaps of movies are also waiting in the release list.

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.

christmas

the evening gets foggier. thanksgiving was unbelievably cold. christmas unbelievably foggy. do the calendar-makers conspire with God?

meanwhile, I watched an amazing danish movie (with english subtitles) - italian for the beginners. learnt that it belongs to the "dogme" genre of barebones film-making. must watch! def lifted my spirits. probably `before sunrise' n `before sunset' also belonged to that genre.

fotki.com has unbounded storage space. amazing! still haven't managed to see bluffmaster.

aur bas, kuch khwab bunne lageen wo tasveeren!

aaj maine dil se

aaj maine dil se,
baadalon se milke,
sapnon ki baarish se kaliyaan sajaake,
mehki umangon se khushboo churaake
halki si boond mein
lehron ke goonj mein
he he..gum ho jaana re

doob jaana re
mujhko doob jaana re
tere paas aana re
mujhko doob jaana re

chalte chalte, maine yun hi
jaane mere dil se aisa kya keh diya
kyun ye mausam, bhi hai lagta, ab suhaana re
dhadhkane bhi saath mere, gungunaati re..
khaamosh aahon ke simte eeraane(?)
masoom palkon pe sapne sajaake
halki si boond mein
lehron ke goonj mein ..

baadalon se, dil ka rishta, hai purana re
hai safar anjaan lekin, aazmaana re,

maine na socha, na samjha, na chaha
rukte kadam fir bhi aise kyun chahen
halki si boond mein...

lyrics: rocky khanna (??)
singers : sonu nigam, shreya ghoshal
music: rajendra shiv (??)
movie: main meri patni aur woh (2005)

ghulam ali - akhtar shirani - golden collection

Woh kabhi mil jaaye to kya kijiye
Raat din surat ko dekha kijiye.

Chandni raaton mein ek ek phool ko
Bekhudi kehti hai sajda kijiye.

Jo tamanna-bar na aaye umr bhar
Umr bhar uski tamanna kijiye.

Ishq ki rangeeniyon mein doob kar
Chandni raaton mein roya kijiye.

Hum hi uske ishq ke qaabil na the
Kyon kisi zaalim kaa shikwa kijiye.

confused abt sexuality

I love articles like this one. it comes out quite clear that we are still as confused abt the nature of sexuality as we've always been. the thing has been avoided, multiple theories propounded, some advocating complete abstinence vs some advocating complete sluttiness. a horrible uncertainty shadowing our existence n we're completely helpless before it. its almost the dual of the notion of god. still, experimental theories continue to be made - i guess there's still hope that some theory wud explain all of it somehow.

aur ik raat

aur ik raat suhaani si,
gayi wo jo thi, kahaani meethi si.

khaab tha shaayad, khaab hi hoga.

almost a month since the last post. horrribaleese. khair, tons of things have changed, par wo geet/ghazal goonjta raha.

guncha koi, mere naam kar diya,
saaki ne, fir se mera, jaam bhar diya.

tum jaisa koi nahi, is jahaan mein.
subha ko teri zulf ne, shaam kar diya.

mehfil mein baar baar, idhar, dekha kiye.
aankhon ke jazeeron ko mere, naam kar diya.

..
wo jo humse keh na sake, dil ne keh diya.

mohit chauhan, main meri patni aur woh. dying to watch the movie.

water

a r rahman does pure classical, with full force in Water. complete with subtleties of thumri, bhajan. nothing but vocal ornamentation. amply supported by sukhwinder singh (other singers do a terrific job too). overall, the perfection of composition+rendering is shockingly awesome. so comfortably attired in tradition that it hardly looks like arr; and well its certainly him - then I really need to know how he did and more precisely, what did he do.

its so classical 401. together with shringar lyrics, there are few things that can beat such stuff.

boriyat ki safayee

manushya bore tabhi hota hai jab koi vastu use kick nahi deti - arthaat wo saare kick dene vaale padaarthon se svayam khud ko bedakhal karta hai.

isi shubh khayaal pe miliye naye sangeet se - U Bomsi N Me. jhakkas naam, jhakkas music, ye movie hi jhakkas hai! the new kala ghoda, older one was lets talk.

taggin science

A wonderful post abt the cognitive explanation of tagging. really lucid n well-written. a note: categorization is one-step ahead of tagging and needs costly decision-making, therefore it is an overload on the user. the concepts of digial/virtual life are not universally tagged/categorized as things in the real-world, eg. terrier and spaniel dogs, are. i think that's the reason its an overload on ur brains. perhaps becos all this is new n the elements/concepts of the virtual world are still in their infancy.

all you need to know

The things that everyone needs to know are essentially how to get along in society- the three Rs, the basic structure of society, and how to coexist with others without fighting. Add in the ability to learn new things as you discover that you need to know them, and you've come to the end of what everyone needs to know.

i had to write about

salaam namaste - awesome movie, story, style, attitude, acting ..everything. the next x-gen flash, after DCH. a contrasting note.

wots so captivating about a set of well-crafted interacting characters in a story?

and an old-sher-new-andaaz: to solve a problem, you have to let it in first. tell me huzur, would you let me in?

and there is stuff about google n microsoft suing each other abt ppl hung in between. the google blog does lend a humanly character to the s(r)oaring company.

and of course, believe it or not, salaam namaste has managed to create history (if only in my eyes). here's the mmmm. here's another review. and another one. some highlights.


thanks google blogsearch.

too bad, the french kisses didn't get hyped at all. nice foot-in-the-door tactic for censors. i love watching bollywood break hurdles, be it for good or bad. and yes, the striking resemblance to nine months was all so forgotten. aha, so maybe it is the sleepless+nine months idea.
I guess that's why it seemed like seeking your soulmate was all about an agreement on having babies.

extreme thinking - or- science via self-help

An interesting link on self-help for those with scientific n abstract pursuits. The author is a physics professor who summarizes/abstracts his tough learning experiences in doing research as a 3-point memo. really nice points raised abt research except that he sounds much like those "change ur life" books/articles. believable overall.


--

nice articles on large number of phds, moving from acads to industry, and misc.

list of movies

list of movies that i've watched this summer IN THEATRE! follows. thanks to regal cinema, north brunswick and the wonderful bollywood summer season, i've had a blast.

bunty n babli, parineeta, sarkar, dus, maine pyaar kyun kiya, the rising, my wife's murder, no entry

red eye, mr n mrs smith, war of the worlds,

on monitor:
7.5 phere, D.

I'll update if i rem more. surely more than one movie per week for 12 weeks. BnB was almost a classic, parineeta wow for vidya balan, my wife's murder was amazing + wow anil kapoor, no entry was hilarious, and pankaj kapur was awesome in dus. Too bad the season is still not over but the holiday is.

yalgaar

geeton ka fir se yalgaar hua hai. suresh wadkar is running high on 2 superb melodies from bhagmati and ramji. sonu nigam obviously is on with dhuan dhuan from ramji. vishal bhardwaj and his uncanny musical sense.

wadkar's unmatchable effervescence and the magical wadkar-bhardwaj combo re-created from maachis:
dil mein bhi jale jugnoo,
aankhon se tapke khushboo,
sapna hai, ya jadoo,
janoo main na jaane tu.

chalti hai hawaa choo choo,
ye pooche hai kaisa tu,
mere sang chalta hai,
koi rab sa hoo-ba-hoo..

chaaon kosi kosi lage
dhoop paali posi lage
chaand baate vaate kare
raat soti soti jage

do do ..do do do..

-----------------------
raahen dhuaan dhuan
kaanpe ruaan ruaan
ye mere saath kya kar rahi zindagi..
ye he...

(note the elec guitar support)
meelon talak hai soonapan, hai soonapan,
har saans mein hoti hai koi jalan,
soonepan se...jal na jaayen...
hum.....
(the final note hum.. - and later gum.. - awesomely crafted. set at the parakaastha of longing, simulates a held breath.

------------------

and of course salaam namaste is the next big romantic musical hit. dil goes mm, title number and of course the mandatory number tu jahaan. i'm glad mahalaxmi iyer is being roped in at proper times. and sure, suresh wadkar seems to be making a comeback - altho it is only vishal bhardwaj who wants/is making him sing.

morning chai

usne kahaa zindagi hogi,
beshak, bepanaah khushi hogi.
aur main moorakh,
uski baaton mein aa gaya,
ya khuda teri,
is duniya mein aa gaya.

kuch naya

chaliye aaj..kuch naya..kuch hatke..kuch romaanchak sa.

raat ke andhiyaare mein,
ya fir zulfon ke saayon mein,
arth ki roushni dikhaayi di,
koi puraani pyaas sunaayi di.

shoonya tha aakaash,
khaali the haath,
raah thi chalti,
us manzil ki trishna ko.

komal haasya karuna aadi
the ateet ke kaagar
maano bhikshuk sa
dole dvaar baar jaakar

tan svatantra, man partantra,
shraap si bandhi
chitt ki gaanth

svarg-may jeevan
makhmali upwan
kyun bane tum bebaat ashvaas?

saaye se prithak
zameen se alag
shayad wohi puraani pyaas.
lautoon kaise, fir apne paas.

hai na ekdam jhakkas?

celebrity AB

AB on being a celebrity here. nice that he puts it from both his and media's pov.

jagjit singh

Another interview. I simply love going thru them again n again. things he says about fine poetry, good training and keeping urdu alive.

uninit topic

time flies and there is so much to write. Dus is a cooool movie, full of unabashed attitude, which sticks out more than a few times. the aura dulls ur senses to the extent none of us cud predict the so-predictable ends. nevertheless, pankaj kapoor was amazing to say the least. the rest were all busy with themselves. anubhav sinha's fascination with canada pays off again - lovely locales, etc.

looking fwd to MPKK. should be a dhamaaka. edinburgh was amazing. esp the nights. another instance where words are few and so much to say.

life is busy, to say the least.

paheli + mm kreem

finished long-awaited paheli. first day, third show. desi harry potter. brimming with colors. rani is as usual great. srk in double role after long time. rani didn't seem to be into the character earlier on, but then she managed superbly. as for srk,
to me, he's the real surprise of the movie. either it was his mooch, or well his character, that i really couldn't see much of his repetitive characteristic stuff.
refreshingly subdued (he takes liberty with his characteristic brazen look once in a while) and surprisingly coy in one of the roles. a new kind of coy expression again becos of mooch or becos he got into the character.

splendid colors. it wud be a sin not to color the portrait in lush-yellow backdrop of rajashthani deserts. amol palekar + artists make no mistake with that. still, a general sense of slickness was lacking. or rather, it was meant to be taken in a laid-back style. the suspense at end should have been dealt better. the last act was quite disjointed from the earlier ones - should have dwelt on his magical powers better/diff way. overall still, a lovely movie.

and more from the genious here. his upmaas are interesting.

sher of the day

Andaaz-e-zamaane par hum bhi yun rote hain,
phool bhi dete hain,
izhaar bhi karte hain,
fir bhi wo kambakht dil-sakht, ye tawazzu karte hain,
kya sachmuch hum unse mohabbat karte hain?

Dus

Dus's music rocks. Quick peppy sound, flowing music. Jaaniya ve, esp. of course becos of hariharan's touch. saamne aati ho tum, deedaar de, well almost all of them.

bunty n babli is almost a classic. knapsacked entertainment, slightly slow in last part. full of parodies and impeccable acting.

weekend: a fantastic trip to DC. kuch puraane lamhe, kuch naye log.

jasraj

Almost a week since the wonderful concert. amazing teen-saptak khel. obviously he never misses an opportunity to show his vocal brilliance, plus throw some wt around. managed to sneak in for a pic. bhagwan bhala kare cameraman ka. the jooti thing is undoubtedly wot all these classical musicians pay special attention to. its simply classy, out of the world.

and now I'm off to NJ for the next 3 months. desi food, yum yumm. desi galiyaan wah wah. aur desi kudiyaan..haay haay.

teach12

a wonderful blog/discussion on (as i see) issues with post-modern (audio, online etc) lectures. came across this site as a result for the first time. Never knew teaching had taken up such proportions - the previous link is full of praises for the economics lectures on teach12.

There are other misc interesting online resources i've come across:
thislife. masala in ordinary american life.
abc.net.au. all kinds of informative/masala video documentaries. check out science/catalyst/mind.
bbc's reith lectures.

mm kreem+more paheli

paheli is catching on and i must chastise myself for not liking hariharan in "khaali hai tere bina". he' simply terrifc and terribly soulful. i guess i don't like the na-na-na ne-ne-ni-na-ni-na-naa approach to the first line. hoho. mm kreem saahab,it sounds too characteristic of you (eg., is raat ki subah) - could have been different. still, the album reinstates him as a genius, way above his fellow music directors. he has performed consistently much above expectations- staying
out of limelight all the time - which i guess is a smart decision or just the way he likes it. The biggest reason I'm taken in i guess, is because of the strong vocals that this album has. I realise that there are plenty of similar geniuses in their own right: arr (only his melodies pls), ismail darbar(more classical than folksy or down-to-earth), sandeep chowta(pep, classical funk, light melodies), sandesh shandilya (more strongon melodies but no desi mitti flavor, modern)..maybe some more. Each of them is sadly, hung on to the arrangement: almost like their music would fall through if unsupported. Paheli (plus his history: zakhm, jism) makes Kreem stand out as the best in my eyes. Because, he has exactly made up for what we've been missing for such a long time:strong vocals, vocals which stand out, sound clear even after all percussion+background music have subsided. Basically, as one would hear someone live, only the style is filmi. I believe that this is one of the most prominent reasons why oldies are dear to us: pure, unadulterated vocals. also, the reason why today's music fails to sound like yesteryears' (i.e. supposing they were goldies). and of course, we've to thank the accomplished singers, sonu nigam, hariharan, shreya ghoshal and there are a few others too. more analogies: more than one song reminds me of "utsav" - which perhaps was a step higher still.

mm kreem's album list: is raat ki subah nahin, zakhm, jism, sur, paheli. (did i leave out any?)
he had a couple of lovely jingles(political tho) during narsimha rao's reign.

But, beside this musical outburst, there's something more. Came across this on Lalitya Munshaw (laalitya manshaa). interesting name. I guess another of those classy folks who have managed to stay out of limelight. She has been trained by great gurus - interesting what she says abt lesson from kalyanji. Well, more importantly, she looks absolutely gorgeous. We have her album here esp looks lovely in this one. The pics traverse thru her life from next-door-girl to simi-garewal cutie ..hot model pics..n finally to sharp bahu looks. She's still Ms. though,would be interesting to know the details, hoho. Man! she's awesomely stunning! (note her shikari brown eyes in model pics). Lesson to be learnt: don't ignore the girl-next-door!

wud love to get those 2 songs of hers'. longing and balamwa.
also an interesting site on promoting classical music (of course munshaw is there!).

paheli

here we have the doode going ga-ga over music of paheli. No doubt wot he says abt MM Kreem is true (some older post of mine must have analysis dedicated to him). But the review is well over bound. Seems like s k jha truly wants to reinvent the magic of the melodies thru his words: leave the music director himself, the review is good enuf to make a fan seem flattered. very colorfully written. note how the "quality" is said to "irrigate". hoho.

Paheli is not your run-of-the-mill soundtrack. It's got a great deal of that quality known as melodic wisdom. The quality seeps through the luminous poetry and irrigates the very essence of the drama that unfolds through the songs.

o yes, so the music is lovely, very melodious, tho yet to catch on- it was released online 2 days back. strong (sometimes a bit too) rajasthani flavor, unbeatable gulzar's poetry. very strong on vocals - sonu or shreya. somewhat shocks you into deja vu of delightful oldies. as i noted in prev post, sonu nigam now does rafi with ease, no questions abt that. welcome back shreya and its good that we again start to hear sukhwinder more n more. hariharan sounds good but cud have been a bit more soulful.

finally, the movie shud be a delight to watch- the adaptation seems to done faithfully, be it sounds or sights.

classical funk

classical funk is in the air and there's too much of it to keep count. i guess it needs further categorisation. and tons of movies

kuch meetha ho jaaye, both the movie and music rocks. movie becos of arshad warsi. the same troupe from waisa bhi hota hai is repeated. less of a black comedy, more of a message. putting together so many divorcees+tobedivorced stories at an indian airport within couple of hours. maybe jaspal bhatti's first non-cameo in movies. yet, it could be better. everything - script, screenplay, twists were in place. many were splendid, terribly terrific but a few sucked, really sucked. i wish they had put in a bit more. watch to see wot it cud be. on to the music - fabulous aane do ghazal-thumri n funk.shoma ghosh (whoever she is) performs masterly - makes it sound one of the farida khanum or iqbal bano kind.

more stuff:
bunty n babli gulzar+SEL combo for the first time? gulzar sounds way too toned down altho you can hardly stop him from beign himself. chup chupke is the most lovely one.

dekhna mere sar se,
aasmaan ja raha hai.
dekhna aasmaan ke sire
khul gaye hain zameen se.

chup chup ke chup chup ke
chori se chori..
chup chup ke.

parineeta vidhu vinod chopra has benegal's simplicity n bhansali's opulence. shoudl be a treat to watch. music yet to catch on. very classical aura.
lucky is very adnam sami. mithun da is characteristically re-invented. the ash look alike is omg so look alike but really she's a real kid. very cute casting. the chori chori song (again!) is superb.

sonu nigam sounds better by the day. amazing depth in his voice. his voice's beginning to show rafi's maturity. and sukhwindar singh seems to be making a comeback- b n b, . seemed like he had disappeared. his taaseer is far better than kailash kher et al.