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.