My favourite 15 RD songs (for today!)

Today was Pancham's ! I had half-written this post after reading my good friend's post on his favourite Pancham songs. What prompted finishing it today were two things - listening to a collection of songs from RD that one of my maternal uncles had recorded for me on one of my trips back to India. The way he recorded it had the Bengali song and the corresponding Hindi version next to each other. The other driving force was watching Pancham Unmixed that the same friend of mine had sent me as a gift, most likely, on the same trip to India.  Diptakirti, I owe you a big one for this.

I remember that there was a distinct phase lag in my humming Pancham's tunes in shower and the realization that they all were creations of one genius of a music director. Sometime in college, I bought one of the first Golden Collection 4 cassette series that HMV published. I was surprised how hard it is to find the cover image of that collection now, even with the help of the mighty Google but this may be it


 

In any case, this 4 cassette (yes, CD's were expensive those days) series introduced me to some of the gems of RD's compositions. It will be a fun exercise to repeat choosing 15 favourite songs some other day and see how many common ones pop up. The amazing thing about RD is that there are almost an infinite number of 15-tuples that can be chosen with complete mutual exclusivity.


kahin na jaa

 I first heard this song coming from the other side of the building in Hall 5 at IIT K and wondered where on earth had I been living that I had missed it till then. Although I have switched from my old two-in-one to listening to songs mostly on youtube these days, I still find it impossible to stop this song midway, ever.

katra katra

Mera Kuchh Saman was a close contender from Ijaazat but musically Katra Katra is completely engulfing including the musical interludes, in a way that is hard to even begin to describe.

rishte bante hain

It was hard, yet again, to pick a single song from Dil Padosi Hain but that was a constraint I made for myself - no more than one song per album or movie. 

dil dhoondta hai

I had a hard time deciding whether to chose the sad version or the happy one and ended up with the solo by Bhupinder. On second thoughts, isn't it completely amazing how the same song can be tuned so well, yet in two completely different moods ?

aanewala pal

The one song from Dipta's list that is here as well and will find its way to most RD favourite lists, I suspect. Kishore in completely sublime form - completely sublime !

roz roz aankhon tale

I often wonder how RD decided between Asha and Lata when it came to choose  his lead female vocalist. For this one, I often wonder what it would have been like if Kishore sang it. Nevertheless, the Amit-Asha combination worked wonders !

do lafzon ki hi dil ki kahani

Vintage Asha-RD cocktail. 

yeh sham mastani

This is, in some ways, a predictable choice but who is to say that it is not a worthwhile one ? I am equally in love with the Bengali version - "akaash kyano daake" by Kishore.

biti na bitai raina

A lot has been said about the Asha-RD combination and how it worked wonders. I think it is somewhat understated the many magical moments that RD created with the venerable elder sister, may be because she had created many other such magical moments with other music directors as well.  This song from Parichay has Bhupinder joining in the later parts, making for a stunning duet.

raina beeti jaaye

In the middle of this song, Sharmila Tagore stops in the movie and Rajesh Khanna urges, almost begs - "gaiye na, aap ruk kyon gaye ?" The pathos in that request does completely judgement to this song and what happens to the listener when it stops so abruptly !

naam gum jayega

I hope no one ever dares to make a remix of this. I will personally go pee on his/her head.

tu tu hai wahi

Once again, a personal favourite. This song seems to flow so easily, creating almost a web of notes around you that I always have to play it twice, at least.

rah pe rehte hain

Okay, I was trying to decide between this and Musafir Hoon Yaaron and this one won. I suspect the words have something to do with that choice. "jo guzar jaati hai bas, us pe guzar karte hain" - Gulzar, oh Gulzar, did I ever tell you I love you so ?

sawan ki jhole pade

Monsoon is such an integral part of life in the subcontinent and is central to so much music, including that of RD, that it was hard to choose only one "rain song". But this song, in my mind, completely evokes the mood of the first monsoon, that comes only after a long wait.

phir kisi shaakh ne

Silli Hawa was a close contender but then I asked myself that if someone held a gun to my head and asked me to choose only one before I died, which one I would choose and here is the answer !

Dil Dhoondta Hai

A very good friend reminded me of these lines -

Aao tumko utha loon kandhon par
Tum uchak kar shareer hothon se
Choom lena ye chand ka matha...

Aaj ki raat dekha na tumne
Kaise jhuk jhuk ke koniyon ke bal
Chand itna kareeb aaya hai...

Can you recognize which film these lines are from ?  I must say I was struck by how "shareer hothon" hits you in the middle of the poetry !! This is, but yet another example of the genius of Gulzar where he picks known words but weaves them together to create a completely unknown effect, at least to someone like me who is largely ignorant of the world of Hindi and Urdu poetry beyond Hindi film songs.

Me and my friend went back and forth as to whether it is "chand sa matha" or "chand ka matha". Both would make sense in isolation but in the context of the verse, "chand ka matha" made a little more sense. I had an audio cassette from the days of yore that had the songs of Aandhi with the dialogues interspersed and I know that I have it somewhere in our apartment. However, the fact that I couldn't find it or didn't even bother to try might tell you something about the high entropy content of our apartment, possibly not that uncommon in academic families living in Manhattan with a toddler ! In any case this was not easy to verify and none of the songs on youtube had the dialogue. So 1:10:50 into this, I could eventually verify that.

"koniyon ke bal" is another spot in the verse that hits your mind. Again, being literally ignorant in Hindi and Urdu, I first thought that it would be "koniyon ke pal". On reflection, that did not make much sense and listening to the lines again (thanks youtube !) and again confirmed that it was indeed "koniyon ke bal". What in the world does that mean ? Today, at a gathering of scientists, two good friends, Kamlesh and Simanshu clarified that "koniyon" meant elbow, i.e. "konui" in Bengali and "koniyon ke bal" likely implied struggling motion, akin to that of a handicapped person. What a beautiful analogy ! This is not the first time it has dawned on me that the poetry of Gulzar, like a vintage wine or an exotic perfume has multiple, yet richer layers of "under taste" that are revealed long after you have listened to the lines for the first time. But that being said, I couldn't help falling in love with this seventy-something year old man, one more time !

I got my friend's message in the morning and the lines stayed in my head till they turned into this by the end of the day, before I could be enlightened by Kamlesh and Simanshu. This is a bit too personalized to be considered a translation and it is a rather horrible one at that -

The kids have been to sleep,
Far and deep.

The night is young still,
For ours to keep.

None but the luscious moon in sight,
I'll hold you up, you hold me tight.

A kiss from your cherry lips, my love,
And one for the moon tonight.

I have always wondered whether a bit of ignorance can be bliss or a really bad thing when it comes to appreciating Hindi/Urdu poetry and I don't quite know yet.

My friend, who is on his way to becoming a hot property has written a few blog posts on Gulzar that are worth checking out if you have read thus far into this post. Although he has pampered me with my previous writings, I gather he did not like this translation at all because he was uncharacteristically silent.

SIDDHARTHA

Siddhartha's figure looked like a black silhouette in the window frame. "The difference between the views is abrupt", he thought. Although he had the other view from a few feet below, many times, he had never mustered the courage to step onto the window sill, till today. He thought it was curious that the vertigo didn't feel as bad as he had apprehended. Down below,  Manhattan seemed like a narrow gorge. It was a fairly windy night. He sensed the cold air brushing past his hair to meet the East River right next door, and it almost reached his spine. He shivered slightly although he didn't let go of his grip, yet. "How funny it is that Manhattan never sleeps", he thought. Even slightly past three, one could spot the occasional cab running by, almost jumping the red lights, that tried hard to choke their mad rush to reach their destinations. He wondered if he would be spotted from below if it were in broad daylight. "Nah, it is unlikely that anyone would look up", he softly uttered to himself. No one ever looks up in Manhattan - they are always moving forward or trying to convince themselves that they are. As he quickly stole a look behind him, his son and wife were still fast asleep, cuddling each other mildly as their bodies moved rhythmically with the rise and fall of their breath.

Siddhartha's mind drifted away to events in the recent and not so recent past. He met a few good friends the past weekend, after a long long time. A few others he longed to meet  but he knew that would be too late. The time wouldn't be right anymore. "Is there ever a right time, the perfect time ?", he thought.  His mind strayed yet farther in past to search for the answer. "Why not ?", he thought. He had, time and again, wondered if the academic pursuit was worthwhile but he had no doubts anymore. The wounds of long hours, fruitless months, toiling nights at the bench were all but "wounds of Love". But the fruits were, intense moments of joy, ones that he hardly imagined any other profession that he might have pursued, could ever present to him. He had finished his final experiments today and everything made perfect sense. He knew that he had all the data he needed to finish the manuscript that he had started working on. And merely a couple of months later, he was going to start his dream job. "Is this the end, my only friend ?", his voice sounded hoarse to himself, the tune barely recognizable in his own ears.

They had installed the child-lock on the living room window when his son was born. He had sometimes woken up from his sleep in deep shivers imagining his son falling through an open window from their apartment. Thankfully though, they left the bedroom window to itself. He had often wondered what the final moment would be like. Was it going to be over midway in the air ? Or was he going to land with a thud, with his skull bones breaking into pieces and jutting into the flesh ? Or was he going to land on his feet, merely breaking his knees and reduced to a laughing stock ? He could not dwell on it for too long - his mind was feverishly trying to weave a tapestry of the life that he had lived. He knew he had lived the best month of his life. He did not quite know if it would be all downhill from now, but he knew that if it did, he could not bear it. His limbs were starting to pain from standing still for so long - it was close to four now. He knew that it was getting close to the time when his son's sleep cycle would reach a nadir and he had to act fast. Siddhartha's hand started to sweat as he felt the window frame slipping away from his grip.

"Baaba, agua......", came a shrill, unmistakable cry. Siddhartha looked back. He had left the table lamp on. His son was up, awake on the bed, looking at him directly in the soft light with a somewhat agitated look. "Baaba, agua", he repeated, demanding action. "Agua" was the gift of a Hispanic teacher in his son's daycare. He could not remember if he had ever heard his son uttering the word "water". His wife moved slightly in her sleep, half irritated by the sudden jolt. A few moments of indecision and that would be the end of it all, he knew. Siddhartha closed his eyes and stepped forward. Two thousand five hundred years ago, another man by the same name stepped in the other direction. "What a fool", Siddhartha thought to himself !

Homeward bound on AI140 ... and a little drunk !

I started writing on my way from JFK to Mumbai on the night of the 12th December, 2007. I finished it on the night of 30th June, 2008 sitting in a cottage in a godforsaken part of New York State, in the middle of a state park where people go mostly for their vacations in summer. See if you can make out the disjoint! - Anirban


As I break the barrier across the thin invisible line on the masses of water that divide Asia and Europe forever, dawn breaks through and time becomes a discontinuous jutted function and so does everything else. The time on my laptop reads 3:03 am. On any other night, I would be sitting in the lab in front of the bilayer waiting for the channels to appear, not tonight however. A few minutes ago, I was happily listening to a late night raga collection – I become a little unsure what to do now. Not that I am not used to seeing the night break into dawn but never this fast! Earlier I had fallen into the spell of Vidushi N. Rajam's violin, for the first time in my life. Unbelievable, isn’t it? Thousands of miles away from the culture that gave birth to the music and the musician, I hear her for the first time – in spite of growing up amidst it for tens of years. Moulded in the cast of Hindustani Classical Music, violin, the quintessential western instrument, takes on such a lonesome form. It almost sounds like the longing moan of a forlorn soul sitting by the sea shore, yet so deliciously sweet. She plays a 14:30 minute rendition of Darbari but in it she packs an eternity. I look all around me – there is a stealthy silence all around except the necessary background noise that accompanies the mechanics of a midair transatlantic flight. The air hostess has switched off all the overhead lights and the aircraft is but dimly lit now. Almost everyone is asleep; strewn around here and there in the darkish interior of the aircraft are a few compulsive nocturnals like me staying awake and catching up with the latest bollywood release, or even tollywood release, for that matter. With only the occasional laptop or entertainment unit lighting up the few faces, the aircraft seems like a ghost town.

I hesitate somewhat before playing the Darbari for the sixth time. Because thousands of miles above the ground, with the billowing clouds passing below me, the first ray of dawn breaks through. Unsure, I switch to a morning raga collection. We are flying back home after a long two and a half year break and at the worst possible time in terms of ticket pricing - the second week of December. However my wife’s strict annual allotment of vacation days coupled with my own post-doctoral obligations in lab meant that this was the only option left to us. Consequently we had to settle for an Air India flight, at a price higher than either of us had ever paid for a trip back home. In spite of numerous warnings against flying with Air India and almost the mythical rumours about their ugly service, we decided to give their JFK-Mumbai flight a go. Till now, I have not regretted – the food has been fabulous, service quite good and the seating way more comfortable than other airlines I have flown by. But above all, I have discovered something today. Every time I have boarded a transatlantic flight, be it British Airways, Al Italia or KLM, I have always sensed discriminatory attitudes from the in-flight service personnel. Over the years my complaints have wearied even some of my more patient friends and they have warned me that I am becoming overly sensitive and to speak the language of the experimental scientist, am picking up signal where one cannot distinguish it from noise. Well, today my friends, I have done the control experiment, as the biologists say. Cause not for a single time, did I feel any racy attitude from any of the air-hostesses. Not that I was not looking out for it. As a matter of fact, I was ever more ready to catch an untoward comment or even a nasty glance at the request for the odd drink. To my relief, the ladies have been supremely gracious, well-behaved and kind - in an almost, at the risk of sounding clichéd, Indian way.

The sunlight slowly begins filling in the space around me and HPC's Basant Mukhari falls perfectly into place. I look at the screen of my entertainment unit. Outside, the temperature is -68°C. Inside the flight, it is a motley crew. Most look like expats returning home for the perennial imperceptibly short visit. But life hasn’t yet made the complete switchover yet to the other side. Just for the sake of example, my last dinner consisted of Gosht Hyderabadi accompanied by bread rolls, unsalted butter and a salad that had, amongst other things, black olives! My entertainment unit offers an interesting blend where Chinese films are ranked as part of the “western film collection" and there is a BBC world documentary on the Saptak festival. We all are, or at least most of us are eagerly awaiting the end of the journey when all of the discontinuities will come to an end –where butter will be salted and gosht will be served with paratha and where dawn will not break out in the middle of a Darbari. However, specks of doubt loom large - it has been a long time in exile. And at least as far as anything about home is concerned, time had stopped for us since we left for the last time. So as we wait in unison, the question hovers around – what lies at the end of the road?