Children's Day Gulzar Playlist

A little playlist for Children's Day, all courtesy Gulzar-saab and friends:

1. "Masoom" (R.D.Burman)

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2. "Kitaab" (R.D.Burman)

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3. "Makdee" (Vishal Bhardwaj)

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4. "The Blue Umbrella" (Vishal Bhardwaj)

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5. "The Jungle Book" (Vishal Bhardwaj)

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The search for 'sur'

In Stephen Alter's "Fantasies of a Bollywood Love Thief", the musician-writer-director Vishal Bhardwaj speaks of the process of writing a story and compares it to finding the right "sur". It's an interesting comparison, for even the average musically-aware person will relate to the idea of "sur lagnaa" i.e. the consonance of notes and pitch, when things click and a sense of place, time, and cosmic order sets in. When it doesn't, the dissonance is laid out uncomfortably bare.

You could apply the metaphor to anything in life, not just all things creative but everything of importance. The search for "flow", for order, for a stable orbit: find the "sur" and the tunes of life seem to sound sweet.

"Half Ticket" - my article on some children's films in India

I have always felt that making films, writing stories, or composing songs for children is harder than many other creative endeavours. Think children's films and the Disney boilerplate animations is what comes to most people's mind, until Pixar tore that notion apart. Unfortunately, the genre of children's films in India has been criminally under-served so far. But a few have stood out.

I wrote an article two years ago on Children's Films in India, and thoroughly enjoyed revisiting some of these films. Today's a good day to point you to that:

1. Previous blog post with a scanned copy of the article (has images): at this link.

2. Plain text version:

"Half-Ticket" - Children's Films in India - Flylite magazine

View more documents from Ramanand J

Baradwaj on Bhardwaj

With "7 Khoon Maaf" around the corner, ace film critic Baradwaj Rangan explores Vishal Bhardwaj's fascination with and ability to render interesting female characters in a piece for Caravan Magazine aptly titled "Blood Sisters".

Warning: the essay contains spoilers about most of the films mentioned.

7 Khoon Maaf - Vishal Bhardwaj's latest

Read about it on George's blog or see the trailer at the VB blog.

Abhay Deol, Movie Compass

Abhay Deol's greatest talent in films, on the evidence of his seven releases so far, is by no means his acting. (He is what people call a 'sincere' actor - often a euphemism for 'tries hard, succeeds sometimes, and doesn't annoy', though he is getting noticeably better with each outing). Instead, his talent (and it's a rare one in our films) is that of making excellent choices. In turn, to reasonable film watchers, that means Abhay Deol is a very reliable recommendation engine, whose very presence in a movie signals that it is worth a watch.

Of course, crew-based recommendations is a matter of personal choice. For me, Christopher Nolan and Vishal Bhardwaj still remain the two other people whose mere association with a movie (as writers or directors) is sufficient to invest time and money in the result. What's interesting with Deol is that unlike Nolan or Vishal, he has very little control over the ultimate destiny of his films. Therefore, this uni-dimensional algorithm is likely to SEGFAULT ("crash", let's say, for you non-geeks) sooner than later. But seven interesting movies, with an eighth releasing tomorrow, is not a bad sequence to have.

So far:

1. Socha Na Tha: a romantic comedy that asked the question "what happens if a fellow falls in a love with a girl after he's gone to 'see her' and told everyone he doesn't like her". In his debut, Imtiaz Ali showed his penchant for finding unusual twists out of typical situations. Deol plays a rich kid with too many loves on his mind.

2. Ahistaa Ahistaa: Imtiaz Ali wrote this for friend and debutant Shivam Nair, the tale of a marriage witness-for-hire who takes care of a girl who's been stood up at the registrar's office. The unnecessary insertion of Himesh's songs (at an all time peak then) didn't help this little film.

3. Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd: a bunch of tales so light that they escaped into the sky on release. The Abhay Deol-Minissha Lambaa segment was easily the most surreal. Anurag Kashyap turned Deol into the first ever Parsi superhero (spoiler alert, select to read!). Who would have thought?

4. Ek Chalis Ki Last Local: another variation on the "man falls into the night" theme, this time with lots of purple lungis thrown in. Funny without being special

5. Manorama Six Feet Under: In this Rajasthani version of Chinatown, Deol is mediocre at most things: writing, leading a family, even at being corrupt. A brave choice for a Hindi cinema leading man and probably the best film he's been in.

6. Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!: a movie that had the colossal misfortune of being released the same week as India's most audacious terrorist attack. His most complex character, that of a loveless con artist, marked further progress.

7. Dev.D: in which he created the concept, played it with the haze, and even strapped on a camera. This film about a spoilt brat was ultimately spoilt because its writer-director found love. Drat.

Road, Movie is up next.

Chandan Arora's "Striker" - music

"Striker", a film directed by Chandan Arora and starring Siddharth (probably the first Hindi film to feature carrom as its central theme?), recently released its music album. Among the many music directors to write songs for the album is Vishal.

The song is called Yun Hua, is penned by Gulzar, and is sung by Vishal himself.

(see the Wikipedia article on 'Striker' for more.)

cross-posted on the Vishal blog

An interview in 'The Hindu' with Rekha Bhardwaj

Cross-posted on the Vishal blog

The amazingly talented Rekha Bhardwaj, who recently performed (riffed?) in the Rajasthan International Folk Festival, speaks of her singing, Vishal Bhardwaj's direction, singing "Namak", and how Vishal romanticises the fact that he took up music just to woo her in college. The full interview here.

An extract, in which she talks about singing "Namak" (from Omkara):

You know, I was not expected to sing the song. Vishal has this habit of singing his every composition to me. When ‘Namak’ was being composed he sang the first couple of lines to me. As always I insisted on some corrections and gave it a more folksy touch. As I sang to him, he said you are the right choice for the song. I agreed, but during the recording I realised what I had got into, because the antaras were too naughty for my comfort. Then Gulzar sahib came to my rescue, and I somehow sailed through.

Steam funk

Some weeks ago, I was sitting in the evening bus back home when it began to rain. The conditions were sufficiently heavy for condensation to appear on the window panes. As is inevitable when presented with a damp canvas, doodles began to materialise, literally out of thick air.

This reminded me of two movie sequences that used the drawing board of the window-pane (not considering shower doors or other glass panes merely providing 'steamy' vistas). One is in Kill Bill: Vol. 1, where a suddenly serious Hattori Hanzo, confronted by 'The Bride', writes the name of their arch-enemy. The condensation doesn't drip, perhaps suggesting a fog created by means other than water or just multiple takes. It's a little too perfectly etched, though.

The second, however, is more naturally crooked. This is the opening scene of a film. The first shot opens on a blurred background, bluish in colour. A dull noise accompanies the frame, which you realise is the sound of rain. The Bombay rain. A hand reaches out behind what turns out to be glass, and there is cackling.

The hand proceeds to draw a scraggly line to our left, and begins to fill out a rectangle. Followed by diagonals and two more. lines. It's a horoscope. Of Mumbai's. This a police van, and inside it are Sadik Chikna and the Inspectors Pandit & Purohit.

Thus brilliantly, in a haze of condensed air, in the jungle of Mumbai, does "Maqbool" unveil.

Flu Attack!

The world and its uncle, the uncle's extra-terrestrial abductor, the abductor's milkman have all seen Kaminey. Except for a little pocket in Pune and Bombay. But I'm used to waiting for Vishal Bhardwaj's music and movies to land up here. Especially the music, which I always have to hunt for days to find. So patience is something I have.

But Kaminey seems to have been extraordinarily well-distributed, which means the usual fist-shaking Bollyphiles in the USA have for once seen a Vishal film as early as any one else on the mainland.

Even a patient Vishal fan has his boundaries. Here's a paean to the wait:

with a million apologies to Gulzar-saab, Vishal, and to readers/listeners

Flu Attack!

ke kaminaa kaminaa aayaa re...
ke kaminaa kaminaa aayaa re... flu'tack

ke kaminaa kaminaa aayaa re... flu'tack
dhan te nan kartaa aayaa re... flu'tack

ke k-k-kaminaa aayaa re,
##gun##-van letaa aayaa re,
dhan dhan kartaa galiyo.n se,
ab tak yahaa.n na chaayaa re
flu'tack, flu'tack...

pikchar dikhe bareily mei.n,
par na saje hai pune mei.n (kaminaa aayaa re...)
dhai baje hai amroli mei.n,
par na saje kahin pune mei.n
kaan mei.n gulzaar ka gaanaa re

flu'tack, flu'tack,
flu'tack, dhan te nan on the ground
flu'tack, dhan te nan on the ground

ginti na karnaa din ke aane ka
awaraa ghume gaalii hoto.n ka
ye swine flu hamesha daraayegaa
na bhaagegaa, sab ko bhagaayegaa

##bore## hue hai.n khabro.n se
gilahari khaaye maTar, ke khaayaa, ke khaayaa,
ke khaayaa aur rulaayaa re,
flu'tack, flu'tack...

jitnaa bhi ruuTh-roye.n thoDaa hai
kiiDon ki mastii ka natiijaa hai
khaasi aur ##'tishoo## to aayegaa
zeharila hai ya sirf sardii aam-saa

darwaazon ko khulne do
dafaa karo ye aandhi
ye tuufan ke mausam ko
flu'tack, flu'tack...

ke k-k-kaminaa aayaa re,
##gun##-van letaa aayaa re,
dhan dhan kartaa galiyo.n se,
ab tak yahaa.n na chaayaa re

ye ishq nahi aasaa.n
aji flu ka khatraa hai
rumaal pehan jaanaa
yeh mask ka hauvvaa hai

ke pardaah uTh jaaye
kaminaa dikh jaaye
kaminaa dikh jaaye
ke pardaah uTh jaaye...

flu'tack!

Sparked off while talking to George, whose personal Kaminey gush is up here (I'm yet to read it)
With no insensitivity implied to people affected by swine flu in the city :-)

Grind your language

It's a strange confluence of coincidences that sees two directors with fascinating filmographies have a release each in August with very similar kinds of titles. If Quentin Tarantino sends a shiver down Spelling Bee champions with Inglourious Basterds, Vishal Bhardwaj's Kaminey will strike a double blow on behalf of the verbally challenged.

How to ask Vishal Bhardwaj a question

Why, you stand up abruptly and shout out in garbled English before he can get away!

Last week, I attended a seminar on Cinema and Literature jointly organised by the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune and the Film Writers Association. Here's the precursor post about that.

Which brings us back to the titular figure of this post. The last time I'd seen Vishal, he was much less celebrated as a film-maker and chose to remain silent. Here, he began with expressing his trepidation at speaking in front of legends such as Mani Kaul and Prof. U.R.Ananthamurthy, and didn't even want to look in the direction of his 'gardener' Gulzar. He then proceeded to shake off his nervousness with a couple of 'shers' and spoke of how Maqbool came about. He began by describing the days before Maachis in the land where 'mediocrity is worshipped', and how he tried gaining producers' attention by trying to pass of his original songs as copies of Pakistani songs (incredulous laughter sweeps the auditorium).

Heeding Gulzar's prophesy that Vishal would be a film-maker someday, he decided to try his hand at making films, partly with a view to employing himself as a music director (since his career seemed to be ending!). After Makdee (a story that was partly inspired from childhood memories of Enid Blyton), he wanted to make a film on the underworld ("because I like guns, crimes, and chases"), but felt most films ended in a gangwar, and lacked depth. Plus, what do you do that Ram Gopal Varma hadn't? Serendipitously, Anurag Kashyap had pointed him to Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" and Alaap Mazgaonkar (who plays 'Mughal-e-Azam' in Makdee) had given him a book of stories containing Macbeth. Until then, he subscribed to the common view that 'literature' was high-brow and had no pulp or entertainment to offer. But here was a drama that gripped him.

He then read the full Macbeth ("Shakespeare language ek taraf, English duusri taraf") cover to cover. He and Abbas Tyrewala began to write, not encumbered by convention of what was allowed and what wasn't ("we were blessed with ignorance"). Making the witches into cops or turning Lady Macbeth into Abbaji's mistress happened. Naseeruddin Shah loved the script and gave him the confidence this would work, volunteering to play one of the cops instead of Abbaji as originally intended.

There was also a reference to an earlier FWA seminar where Javed Akhtar said: "In Maqbool, Shakespeare failed you; in Omkara, you failed Shakespeare" (according to this account, JA and others had torn into Omkara). Vishal ended by quoting Prof. U.R.Ananthamurthy's speech on the 1st day where the Jnanpith awardee talked about the difference in adapting just the 'structure' as opposed to 'texture'. Vishal said he had been paying more attention to structure than texture (though this blogger finds texture and ambience to be Vishal's key strength) and now had the confidence to write his own originals.

After reciting a parting couplet, he sat down. Govind Nihalani, chairing the session, said Vishal was off to catch a flight, so may be we had time for just one question. No one stirred (most sessions had gone question-less, a pity), so he was about to wish Vishal goodbye, when I decided to shoot my hand up.

There were many things to ask (that after disregarding Yasho's suggestion to yell "Kaminey!" out loud) but I settled for one on Vishal's other main writing source. "Could you tell us a little about your work with Ruskin Bond, and we've heard you're working with him again". Nihalani was about to brush me off for being a tad too late, but Vishal was kind enough to answer. He spoke of how he liked the story for The Blue Umbrella, but couldn't see how it would make a film of more than 30 minutes. He then hit upon the idea of the red umbrella, met Ruskin Bond who seemed to like the idea, and made the film. And yes, he was working on a few ideas with Bond (he mentioned a couple of names, but sadly, I couldn't quite figure them out - did he say "A Season of Ghosts"?).

And that was that.

A Times of India interview on the sidelines

Update: 5 Apr 2009
Ajay Bhramatmaj has a transcript of Vishal's speech here (the previous link is in Devanaagarii, here's a Roman script version).

Cross posted on our Vishal blog

Show and Tell: notes from a seminar on "Cinema and Literature"

Last week, I (along with a couple of fellow itinerants) attended a seminar on Cinema and Literature jointly organised by the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune and the Film Writers Association (a trade union mainly of Bollywood writers). The idea was interesting: to explore the relationships between cinema and literature (sometimes symbiotic, sometimes parasitic). There was also the appealing prospect of watching (gawking?) and listening to people this blogger is quite a fan of.

The opening ceremony saw bodies spilling out of the little FTII auditorium (we had to uncomfortably stand/squat/sit for about 4 hours that day). The principal reason for the interest was perhaps the presence of both Gulzar and Javed Akhtar. True to perception, the former's speech contained the romance of wordplay as well as some pithy observations from film & lit history, while the latter made some strident points without mincing words. Akhtar spoke of the cinema-lit connection involving a love triangle: that of the audience, which affected what was adapted and how it was received. Refering to the ghastly 80s when mainstream Hindi films hit their nadir, he drew a connection between "sarkailo khaTiyaa" and "sarkailo masjid". Gulzar, on the other hand, asked whether it was necessary to be so aware of the audience all the time, and preferred films & literature to dance their duet. He asked an interesting question: how would cinema be if sound hadn't crept in? Would people still come looking to literature, now that words were not needed?

A common reference point throughout the two days was Saratchandra's Devdas, both in terms of number of adaptations, as well as its recency. Gulzar (or was it JA?) refered to it by pointing out that once upon a time Devdas would have been the lowest common denominator of its times! In the session on novel adaptations, Anurag Kashyap didn't bother trying to justify his choices too much - he described how he went about it. In general, there were two kinds of speakers: 'theorists' (usually writers, who spent a lot of time bemoaning adaptations and musing on its fickle nature) and 'practitioners' who seemed to be 'doing' things, trying them out, failing, learning, and moving on. It was the second category that produced the most engaging talks, and Kashyap was one of them.

A writer who spoke wonderfully, and had contrarian views to Kashyap, was Mamta Kalia. But in all, the sessions on novels, short stories and folklore were disappointing. A majority of panelists kept regressing to existential arguments (such as splitting hairs on words like 'inspiration' and 'adaptation', and didn't spend much time in discussing the nuts-and-bolts or challenges of these respective forms). Shama Zaidi tried to show some examples of how changes were made for Shatranj Ke Khiladi, but spoiled things by being too petulant and dismissive. Even the second day's session on mythology kept tracing issues of history and philosophy, but unlike the earlier sessions, it was considerably livened by a set of excellent speakers.

It helped that Kamalahassan was chairing the session. He didn't make a speech of his, but kept insisting the atheist in him was spoiling for a fight on the topic. Gollapudi Maruthi Rao, noted Telugu actor, spoke eloquently on the history of mythology in films (appropriately so; I think the Telugu film industry has made the best use of that material). Kamalahassan then made one his many clever sound-bite interjections: "According to me, mythology is spiritual cosmetic surgery for history; makes the truth more palatable". The man knows how to press all the right buttons on an audience!

Dr. Devdutt Patnaik was the next speaker, and he delivered a very interesting talk. Once a man of medicine, he's now a 'mythologist' and carries the rather exotic title of "Chief Belief Officer" at the Future Group. He spoke of mythology as the 'truth' of a culture, compared Western films about religion with Indian ones, and then plunged into an analysis of 'sanatan' vs social truths (which I found a little slippery to grapple with). At some points, it seemed he was about to invoke Hindu-glory-of-the-past (Kamal later quipped that he thought Patnaik was going to start distributing prasad on stage), but to his credit, he stayed on the side of sobreity throughout. I recommend a look at his presentation, which is available on his website here.

In response, Kamalahassan mentioned how he liked films that tried to be subversive about accepted wisdom, particularly mythology, and cited the example of (one of my favourite movies) The Life of Brian by Monty Python. He spoke of films like Hey! Ram into which elements of the Ramayana are interwoven. And did he blush ever so slightly when someone praised Dashavataram? The man is worth paying to go and listen to, I think.

The last session, the one on drama & plays, was the most well-rounded one: the speakers spoke both of theory and craft. Playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar spoke lucidly about his two experiences of writing his plays for film, as well as dealing with different constraints in the two media. Asghar Wajahat did the same later. Govind Nihalani, who directed Party from an Elkunchwar script, gave the view from the other side. Dr. Jabbar Patel spoke extensively of his collaborations with Vijay Tendulkar and Gulzar, and mentioned that in plays, it was the writer who ruled, while film was the director's medium.

Vishal Bhardwaj also spoke, but this is already such a long post that I've forked that encounter off into a separate post here.

In summary, it was a mixed set of talks. I liked something that Prof.U.R.Ananthamurthy said in his talk: that finally, all that really matters is how engaging the film (and I generalise it to all art) is for the individual viewer - whether you understand the content or crib about the fidelity of the film to the book is not all that important.

Times of India reports: Day 1, Day 2

Kaminey!

If you are a Vishal Bhardwaj fan but you haven't heard of Kaminey, you have got to read the Bardwatch here (or at George's).

RMIM Puraskaar 2008 - the results

The soundtrack of Rock On emerged as the top Hindi film album of 2008 after a painstaking process of selection for the RMIM Puraskaar 2008. Academy Award winner (yay!) A.R.Rahman won Best Composer, while Javed Akhtar won Best Lyricist. The awards are a labour of love by Vinay Jain, who was kind enough to invite me to participate in the process as part of the jury (not that I have great music appreciation skills, but I am an enthusiastic listener :-)). I and 11 others spent about a month listening to the 70-plus shortlisted songs (see note on nomination process here), rating them on their individual components of music, lyrics, and singing, as well as the song as a whole.

Though lengthy, this was a highly enjoyable task and resulted in many fascinating questions on what I look for in a film song, and what kind of subliminal biases and preferences were in operation.

Vinay took our individual scores and comments, and compiled a list of winners in various categories. The results can be viewed here (the Hindi version here). The complete list of songs also contains comments made by various jury members. You'll spot that we were a varied bunch - mixed feelings were articulated and that is true of all listeners like us.

My picks for some of the categories were different, so even though these results show what the collective scores say, there is room for dissent. But I definitely agree with the decision not to award the Satish Kalra Sammaan to any 2008 film album. It was a relatively weak year for Hindi film music, despite its few bright spots. (In comparison, 2009 is already off to a smashing start with Dev.D and Delhi 6, with Vishal and others waiting in the wings).

Before I move on to reveal my personal picks, I would like to remind readers of that one of the principal aims of the puraskaar is "to have a review of the year's music and document it for posterity." (read this post for the whole premise). So, if you would like to record your opinions and disagreements, do send feedback to Vinay [giitaayan at gmail dot com] or leave a comment. Would love to hear them. The complete set of scoresheets is not available (I myself haven't seen any of the others) and is left to the discretion of the jury individual members to make available. I'd be happy to send my scores and comments to anyone who wants to have a dekko at them. Vinay's announcement on RMIM covers a few such details.

My own pick for top album was Jodhaa Akbar, which was a very tough choice to make out of my four candidates: Jodhaa Akbar, Jaane Tu..., Rock On!!, and Aamir. My summarised comments on these :

Aamir: had superb lyrics and very good music, especially for a debutant film music composer. It also had depth, with its lyrics forming a partnership with the music that was greater the sum of their parts. I thought it fell short on breadth, that's all.

Rock On!!: interesting concept, nice texture, loved the female solos; the lyrics and the singing (though acceptable for the film's concept) were where it went down a notch. Especially as in comparison to the others. I didn't give it the benefit of a 'rock' album, choosing to apply more conventional hindi film music parameters.

Jaane Tu...: like the film, the album went in familiar territory but managed to come out fresh. Full of pastel colours. But inherently, it didn't have the same depth for me. Perhaps it wasn't meant to.

Jodhaa Akbar: perhaps not everyone's choice of top album. IMHO, there was a lot of inventiveness in this particular album, especially in taking a period piece and applying modern touches to it - which needed some guts. As a result, this album sounds different from other Rahman 'period' soundtracks. The lyrics were competent, the arrangements superb, the melodies dulcet, and embellished the movie well.

Obviously, this is just a point of view. The exercise also illuminated the fact that despite what we hear on FM stations, a lot of decent Hindi film music gets made in one year, and sometimes there are quite a few minor gems that never get the attention they deserve. If a selection like this enables one to broaden one's mind just a touch, it'll have achieved some of its aims.

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Previous results: 2006 and 2007
With thanks to friends who responded to a straw poll on Best Album

'Blood Brothers' - a little film by Vishal Bhardwaj

Blood Brothers is one of four films made for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as part of the AIDS Jaago project on the subject of AIDS awareness. Directed by that unheralded master, Vishal Bhardwaj, this short film of less than 20 minutes is a marvelous piece of drama. Featuring a top cast of Siddharth, Pavan Malhotra, Ayesha Takia, and the peerless Pankaj Kapur (with whom Vishal seems to have a special 'setting' - such is the charm of his cameo), the film has some excellent story-writing.

Without ever tresspassing on 'preach'-ery, the film works both as a piece of socially relevant material as well as pure story-telling. If all this wasn't enough, perhaps you may be interested in the facts that the film was shot by Guillermo Navarro (Pan's Labyrinth among others) and is based (partly) on a story idea by screenwriter Matthew Robbins.

The film can be viewed online. While you are at it, have a look at the others in this pack of four (Mira Nair, Farhan Akhtar and Santosh Sivan completing the quadruple).

Dev.D and Rule

People who know me will tell you I have probably never used the phrase "kick-ass" to describe anything. But there's a first time for everything. The music of Dev.D deserves that appellation. It's as if some rugby fly-half drop-kicked you right into the yonder sky. It's an enjoyable ride, by the way.

Amit Trivedi (music), Amitabh Bhattacharya (lyrics, along with Shellee and others), and Anurag Kashyap (director) manage to do three things: they exhibit a superlative range of genres, provide a solid texture (a mix of urban melancholy, mofussil brass, and quiet yearning), and most importantly, they demonstrate great faith in their choices. There are 18 tracks, and while some of them do falter, just taking the effort to put in 18 more-than-decent tracks (haven't seen that kind of depth and scale since Rahman's Bose) gives them many brownie points.

The list of my personal picks begins with the dulcet banaarasii Dhol yaaraa Dhol sung with great desire by Shilpa Rao and backed by Kshitij. Some of the turns gave me the kind of goosepimples that I usually get with some Rahman interludes. Raa.NjhaNaa is a small downbeat version of this song.

The album has many such doppelgangers - pairs of tracks taking gloomy/bouyant U-turns, hard rock/street music incarnations, or turning from joy to lament. The two Dev-Chanda Themes are especially interesting - the first is a slow bluesy hum (and a fine one at that) while the second is a very moody whistle with a touch of menace.

The album continues its excursions off the rails. There are a couple of Punjabi songs and a Rajasthani song mixed to club arrangements. Then there are a couple of songs that just don't seem to belong here. They're from some Indi-rock-pop album. It gets very difficult to mentally put this lot together - your mind has to make several leaps to reconcile them. What's uncanny about the soundtrack is how it keeps riding the waves of romantic exhilaration and cavernous dejection. Shruti Pathak's paayaliyaa is a great example of this.

Then come the songs voiced by Amit Trivedi - these tend to be garrulous (the harmonium-guitar fuelled duniyaa), scruffy rock (nayan, aa.nkh micholii), or dripping with melancholia (saalii khushi). He's off the sur in places, but that seems very calculated - or is it?

And at last, for the dhokhaa-daayak "emo[tio|sa]nal atyaachaar" songs. That phrase is so cheesy and so appropriate that it will turn into a worn-out cliché. Especially for the brass band version (an immaculate concept, if any), which on repeated hearings could so easily turn into hilarity by the time the movie hits the screens. That might actually work against the intended mood. Don't hear it too often if the song needs to retain its novelty freakness! The rock version is safer, with a great opening guitar riff and sung with throat-shattering gusto by Bony Chakravarthy.

Phew. Undoubtedly, there are a hajaar music influences at play in Dev.D's soundscape. I found myself thinking of fragments from several songs. In several places, the lyrics are both wonderful and with an original flavour. A loser's tale has seldom been more plunge-worthy. Whatever happens to his movies, Anurag Kashyap's track record in getting music that you can also touch and feel remains intact. In many ways, the follow-up to the collaborations with Vishal Bhardwaj is appropriate. Amit Trivedi's music is intertwined with Amitabh Bhattacharya's words in a wholesome concoction. Where did all these people come from, you wonder - these Labh Jajuas, Shilpa Raos, Shellees, Toshis and Aditis and Shrutis, Manis and Kshitijs, and most of all, these Amits? The efforts in composition, writing, performances boggle the mind.

An album so trippy, you find yourself on your backside often, staring into that strange sky. You bitch. Indeed.

A more detailed and appropriately awe-struck review here.

The (already forgotten) music of Haal-e-Dil

Perhaps the fates that govern the musical birthchart of Vishal Bhardwaj ordain that several of his works are intended to be criminally under-heard. A more earthly reason for hardly anyone noticing the music of "Haal-e-Dil" could be attributed to it being an under-promoted film featuring a bunch of not-so interesting newcomers in an average script. This album is also one of those multi-composer efforts, featuring Raghav Sachar, Pritam, and Anand Raj Anand in addition to Vishal.

(I'll restrict myself to Vishal's double-header in this post, but a brief review of the album can be seen at Karthik's MilliBlog.)

Rahat Fateh Ali Khan re-appears in a Vishal song after that superbly rendered cautionary ode to love in "Omkara". "Haal-e-dil" begins with what sounded to my untrained ears as the digderidoo (perhaps just some electronic consort), and fits into the category of songs usually classified as "soulful". Also featuring the backing vocals of Shreya Ghoshal, the song is melodious and measured, with a hint of a Sufi influence. Typically for Vishal, the arrangements are interesting with a couple of eclectic interludes (is that a mandolin we hear in the middle, or just a guitar?). With Rahat leading the way, the elements of the song come together wonderfully.

The other Vishal credit on this album is a reprise of the title song, by Rekha Bhardwaj. It's a more modern, rock-ish version, rendered in characteristic fashion by the talented missus who can zig-zag the registers nicely. It does come in second to the Rahat version, but these Munna Dhiman lyrics (also a variation of the other song) are perhaps a touch better here ("tere kohre me.n dhuup ban ke kho jaau.n"). And there's some nice guitar backing all through.

In all, a cameo by Vishal and gang which, though it won't set any cash registers or weekly top 10s ringing, is worth a devoting a quiet moment or two if you can catch it.

(Crossposted at the Vishal blog.)

The intersection of Vishal and Rahman

[If you are a fan of Vishal Bhardwaj and haven't already noticed, we have a little blog that aims to quietly chronicle some of the news and reviews involving works of that dimunitive but exciting filmmaker - updates can be seen on the side bar of this blog.]

A.R.Rahman and Vishal Bhardwaj are probably my two most favourite film music directors at the moment, but apart from the likes of Gulzar, I cannot think of their social worlds having overlapped in any significant way. (Musically, they share much in common: a certain originality, an unconventional spirit, an ability to traverse regions and moods, the courage to mix a bass guitar with a sitar.)

Which is why I was very interested to read that Rekha Bhardwaj, Vishal's wife, has sung for Rahman in his upcoming Dilli 6. In the film world, Rekha, to my mind, is a lot like Vishal: hugely underrated and hugely under-feted. I have been a fan of hers ever since I first heard her in Maqbool ('rone do, jiyaa kare'). Compare that voice and aspect with her songs in Omkara ('namak', 'laakaD jal ke') and No Smoking ('phuu.nk de'). Her capacities for modulation and voice are outstanding. Rahman's songsheets, which have seen an incredibly wide range of singers, add one more songbird to their notes.

A good Hindi music year

A good Hindi music year

2007 was a very good year for Hindi film music. A year in which A.R.Rahman did not release any major Hindi film soundtrack, these were some albums and songs that I'm sure I'll listen to some of these for long in the years ahead.

A list in no discernible order:
Khoya Khoya Chand, Taare Zameen Par, Water, The Blue Umbrella, Delhi Heights, Cheeni Kam, Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd., Nishabd, Johnny Gaddar, Manorama Six Feet Under, No Smoking, Life... In a Metro, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom.

(Haven't yet properly heard Saawariya or Jab We Met).