“Gaana Juice Wallah” Bar
I was meant to be watching ‘RGV Ki Aag’ tonight but I can’t be arsed so have scrapped that plan; I feel like writing something. So I am here writing, not thinking. Which is different, if you did not know that before. Writing is not same as thinking. Now you do. Hang on, to write you think, but to think do you write? Or you really write to think? Anyway, I am not hear to write any crap, to fulfill my membership requirements. I just wanna write. Note: I did not say I wanna write crap or masterpiece. I just wanna write. I cannot make films, so I will write. I have not seen any new films or old films, so no reviews. I am not going to write a top 10 list of something. So what I should write… if I had my way, I would just write ’so’ and publish the article. And then, I would think about writing. It’s just that, I often use that word, a lot You did not notice that?! I always start my sentence with ’so’… And I bet, I would get a lot of comments, for that. See, I am not articulate enough; I do not have big words in me vocabulary, so you will see me repeating a lot of things a lot of time, so do not mistakenly mistake me as some doofus character from Hindi Films who always stutters or can’t speak without repeating a word zillion times. However, I will be repeating my views over and over. So, yes, I will be writing about only Honhaar Goonda – that is apun- and now you can see, how it is all connected with Hindi Films, eh? This is not a personal diary, though. Nah, I will be writing a bit on music, yes, I am also a Honhaar Miyan Tansen. Rawaaaaaaaaawaaaaaaalllllllpiiiiiiiiiiiiiiindiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! It rained!
Dil Se, nah, not talking about the soundtrack/film, but singers singing from dil se. So obviously, that excludes Himesh Reshmaiya out of the equation. Aaks, no’ Aaks, but Ask your grandpa, grandma, ma, pa, motherinlaw, fatherinlaw, doodhwallah, kachrawallah, bai, local MP, local Goonda or even yourself and all of you would say, when a singer sings from Dil Se, the song is bound to end up us eternal. And also you often hear ‘em or yourself saying to others that, ‘pooraneh singers kya lajwaab the or aaj ke singers kya behudaa gaane gaate hain’ (old skool singers were great and today’s singer are shite) and also, ‘pooraneh gayak kya dil see gaathe the aur aaj ke singers sirf chilateh hain’ (old skool singers sang from heart but todays singers sings from god knows what but heart ). And then, some would reply ‘em with, why are they ‘pooraneh’(old), eh? I do not know. But I kinda agree with the both groups. I am not going to talk about the poetry/lyrics in the songs… it is out of my depth. There were some good singers back then and there are some good singers now.
A R Rahman, is my favorite singer (I bet you would have thought I would say, favorite music director! But nah…) He sings from Dil se, whatever he sings.. sings from Dil Se and that is just…….! For examples, there a lot of examples of him: 1) Yeh Jo Des Hain Tera’ – when this song came out, I was listening to this song every one hour, cos I could not live without it. I used to start my day with that song and end the day with that song. I do not know what is so good about the song but I do not think it will be better than A R Rahman’s voice. I still listen to this song everyday. The song would not have worked if some other singer had sang it. 2) In ‘Kabi Kabhi Neem’ – he did a bit of vocal singing – or – something like that. Anyway, that is so good that he ends up overshadowing the main singer of the song. You have to listen to that bit to understand what I am trying to say. And if you still do not get it then close your eye and listen to that bit. If you still don’t get it, then I will send some of my taporis after you. 3) ‘New York Nagaram’ – A tamil song – I do not understand the language – but I love the song cos of A R Rahman. I do not go out of my way to hear a non-hindi song, but I only heard this song because it was an A R Rahman song and Tushar heavily recommend me to hear the song as A R Rahman had sang the song brilliantly. 4) Maa Tuje Salaam – What can I say about this?! There are so many other examples of him..Luka Chuppi, Jaage Hain, Dil Se (here i am referring to the song), but I wanna talk about other singers as well..
Shaan’s ‘Socha Na Tha’, it has to be his best song. He could not have done any better than that. Kya gaya hain! One of the best sober song to come out in last decade or song. Or what about his ‘Aur Mohabattien’ from ‘Mein Prem Ki Deewani Hain’. That was not bad either. ‘Paigham’ from Lakeer.. that is good as well (Honhaar Goonda can be very romantic – in fact, I have tricked many chammiyas.)
Then there is KK – he has sung many soulful and sober songs, from Dil Se! I have to start with ‘Tadap Tadap’ – that is a tough song to sing, but kya, how he sung it, is just unbelievable! He ain’t going to better that! However, ‘Aashayien’ came quite close to breaking that mark, nevertheless that song is still brilliant! You would want me to talk about his ‘Yaaron’ or ‘Pyar Ke Pal’ from the album ‘Pal’, right? But I won’t cos, I do not think those songs are as good as ‘Yeh Tanhai’ from the same album. I think, he gave all to ‘Yeh Tanhai’ song compare to the other two song from the album. Yeh Tanhai is one of the best song from the album.
‘Dil Chata Hain’, would this song have worked if Shankar Mahedevan wasn’t behind the mike? I do not know, but I would bet that it would not have worked. He has sung this song so easily! Especially when…”..masti mein rahen..” and “…Kaisa aajab yeh safar hain…. usko jaan keedhar hain… jo waqt aayein…”. What about his ‘Man Mohini’ from Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam or ‘Dheere Dheera’ from Kyun Ho gaya! And when him, KK, Shaan and Vasundra did ‘It’s the Time To Disco’…. that was it’s the time to disco…
I was meant to post this piece on Friday night, but I had to go underground for a bit, you know, how life is for Goondas. Nah, to be honest, I want to write a lot about – Sonu Nigam, Udit Naryan, Kailash Kher, Sukhwinder, Hariharn and some female singers, but unfortunately, I am not able to put in words. I only have got a lot of examples, to show how they sang from their heart, but I cannot express what I want to into words.
“Desh Ki Mitti” sung by Sonu Nigam, is my favorite song of his. He has given all of his into this song. This song should touch yer heart. Okay, the lyrics and music helps that, but all the credit should go to Sonu Nigam for the way he sang it. “Sarforshi Ki Tamnaa” is another good one. And the recent example is, ‘Ajanbi Sehar’ from Jaan-e-maan, this has to be the best romantic song to come in last a couple of years. I do not wanna say last decade or so, cos we do churn out a lot of good romantic/soulful tracks every year.
Udit Narayan, now he will go down as one of the legend, without a shadow of doubt. “Papa Kehete Hain”, “Pehla Nasha”, “Nasha Hain Pyar Ka”, “Kya Kare Kya Na Kare”, “Ae Ajnabi” , “Tu Cheez Badhi Ha Mast”, “Mitwa”.. Do I need to say more?! Now he is sort of semi-retired, so you can include him in the poorana category.
Adnan Sami, a fat British Pakistani, who made it very big in India as a singer. Now why is that? That should have been impossible in other parts of world but it was not the case in India. Is he cos he did only commercial-typical songs or he featured in his music videos with some Hindi Film actresses/actors or there is something more to that? Of courses, there is more to it, he is a talented singer – he has the voice – he always sings from his heart. “Shaayad Yeh Hain Pyar”, “Badal”, “Dil Kya Kare”, and “Jab Bhi Cigrate” are few examples, that shows all of his skills. He touched people’s heart with his voice. That is why he is loved by many people. And now is will be seen in a film as the lead actor. I ain’t going to moan about that, because he has earned the rights to make some stoopid mistakes.
Can you imagine playback singing being a successful professional in some other country? I doubt it.
See, these sorts of things I did not notice in ‘Aaj Nachley’ soundtrack, i think, the soundtrack is rubbish. It should have been better. I do not think the singers were allowed to sing freely, so you can see some sort negative imbalance in all songs in the soundtrack. The duo Salman-Sulemian tried to do a bit of fusion and Yash Raj wanted a bit of lovey-dovey melody & (crap) Dhoom, and it left the singers confused. If you were going to ask any of the singers of ‘Aaj Nachley’ – they would say that they felt uncomfortable singing the songs. It is rubbish. This is my review of the soundtrack.
The point, I am trying to make is, that we get old, we include all this singers in poorana category list. Another point, I am trying to make is, that we have always appreciated quality singers/songs. I mean, we always respected talented singers/musician. We have good ears. Some would argue that we do not appreciated our classical music, but then why would we call them Ustad?! That kind of genre is liked by Indians in India. Maybe by not 1 billion of ‘em, but certainly a lot of people…. But why is not the same case when it comes to appreciating quality films? I think, it is sort of the same case, but it takes time… the films are three hours long, so it takes time to grow on the people. Some are instance hits but they don’t last long.
The current crop of people are always talking about Guru Dutt’s movies, Shantaram’s movies, Hrishida’s movies, and Gulzar’s movies. Their work must have been appreciated back then and those films/directors are still talked about. Those films/ are called classics or eternal. Cos they were very talented and made quality films. What about today’s director? Well, I have to start with RGV, he is/will be included in the poorana category. Some of his movies will go down as classics. Satya, for example. Satya is to Hindi Film Industry, as what Godfather is to Hollywood. Then there is Rajkumar Santoshi.. Sudhir Mishra, …. you know, people like ‘em. Cos they make good quality entertaining films.
What I am trying to say is… Do we, as in India, appreciate talents or quality entertaining films? I think, we sort of do, but it takes time… universe works in a strange way or India is slow to spot talent. However, everyone wants applauds now, which is highly unlikely; only rare/blessed people get that instantly.
Sab Aaj Karega
Kal Kya Karega
Duniya Tu Dekhega
Aur Kya Karega
Honhaar Goonda Sooyegaa
Duniya kuch Karega
I am also Honhaar Saint Goonda. Well, I try to be, but Saint and Goonda do not go together..
Anyway, I do not know what I am saying or questioning; I wish I could just say Indian audience is dumb and confused, but I cannot, can I? In fact, I just did. I used to say this a lot to wind people up but I truly meant/mean it when I say it. But I do not do that anymore cos I just don’t. It got a bit boring afterwards. The people got fed up with me. I used to classify anything that I did not like as crap; I still do. For example, Om Shanti Om, is a crap film. Have I seen it? No! Why should I? It is a crap film. It is directed by Farha Khan, who earlier gave a lame film called ‘Mein Hoon Na’. Now I did not understand that film. Okay, I should not have tried understanding that film. But the film was very confusing; it had a lot of spoof, melodramatic and at some point trying to be smart/serious. I just could not digest all that in one dish! So I ended up vomiting. What was that all about?! I do not mix rice, noodles, pizza, pasta, limca, usal pav together to make my lunch, do I? So, back to Om Shanti Om, it is a crap film. I won’t be watching the film. I do not need to give justifying reasons for calling something crap. A crap is a crap. What more do you want? This my preview and review of the film.
If I would have my way, then I would just say, ‘this is crap’, or ‘this is good’. But I just cannot. Although, I would exactly say that when I am not thinking. So we are back to thinking. But hang on, I was not meant to be thinking, I was meant to be writing. Anyway, I am thinking now.
If you are a talented director/actor/ etc, then you will make it surely even if your are going to make a few mistakes, but it won’t be now or tomorrow. In the end, you will get it. Patience is a virtue. Or you need more than talent to succeed? Perhaps luck? I am a great believer of.. you make your own luck and you will only do that by being a talented person. How do you know that you are talented? What if you are not talented but you think that you are smart as others have made you believe that, then what…? Well, you keeping making a fool of yourself until you think of, GaanaJucieWallah Bar. So I have realized..
Now thinking stops here but I cannot! I wanna write.. and kyaa, I have written a long piece… i should stop here cos I have put my thinking cap on and now I have not got anything to say.
PS: If you were unable to read what I wrote, as it all seemed murky (all over the place/grammatical errors, etc), then all I can say in my defense is that, I wrote from Dil Se. To be honest, that is just to hide that fact that I am not, I am not a (thinker) writer. And I hate to read what I write and i don’t wanna read the article to make the structure of article.. a bit decent. To be honest, I am only saying this, to get some cheap compliments.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Compliments galore sirjee… Kya dil se likha hai…
Patience is a Virtue! U have proved it… hehehe.
One of those saturday nite trips aint’ it!
A R Rahman is my fav singer too.
Dil Se/Uyire – Dil Se
Velai Pookal – Kannatil Muttamittal
Jage hai de tak – Guru
Yeh jo desh hai tera – Swades
aye mere data aye mere maula – Mangal Pandey
Anbe Aaruyire – Anbe Aaruyire
Chanda Suraj Lakhon Tare – Vande Mataram
Only You – Vande Mataram
Tauba Tauba – Vande Mataram
Lukka Chuppi – RBD
And where I hated him.
Dum dara dum dara – GURU
and his best composition which just faded in the background of Dil Se and never became popular……sung by Sukhwinder…just this couplet.
“Sitaron se aage jahan aur bhi hain
Abhi Ishq ke imtehan aur bhi hain
…mehrubaan…..”……..the haunting composition just ended with this…..hope it had flown into it’s entirety…..
Sitaron se aage jahan aur bhi hain
Abhi Ishq ke imtehan aur bhi hain
Tahi zindagi se nahin yeh fazayen
Yahan sankaron karwaan aur bhi hain
Qana’at na kar aalim e rang o boo par
Chaman aur bhi, aashian aur bhi hain
Agar kho gaya ek nasheman tau kya gham
Mukamat e aah o faghan aur bhi hain
Tu shaheen hai, parwaz hai kaam tera
Tere saamne aasman aur bhi hain
Isi roz o shab mein ulajh kar na reh jaa
Ke tere zaman o makan aur bhi hain
Gaye din ke tanha tha main anjuman mein
Yahan ab mere raazdan aaur bhi hain
That’s Mohammed Iqbal, isn’t it Vasan?
Another one from the great man-
Khuda tujhey kisee toofan sey aashnaa kar dey
Ki terey behr kee maujon mein iztiraab naheen!
D&C
It was Ilayaraaja’s ego which led to the birth of AR Rahman…Well, he definitely would have found some other way to fame but one incident made it easier.
Everyone knows that K.Balachander and Maniratnam gave maximum hits with Ilayaraaja. After some time, Ilayaraaja used to think that because of his songs, these directors were successful and the ego got to him. When KB and Maniratnam wanted to make Roja, they approached Ilayaraaja. Ilayaraaja made them for hours even to meet them and later told them to wait for one year as he did not have time.
This pissed off the two greats of Tamil Cinema. They did not want to delay the movie and in fact, I heard (Someone has to validate this) signed someone else (Not AR.Rahman) and that guy even composed a song (Which was stilled used in the movie but don’t know which one) but due to ill health, that music composer could not continue and later expired.
Then the call went to A.R.Rahman. KB told that there is this young guy and asked him to listen to his tunes.
Then this shy young man came and he made them listen to the tune Chinni Chinni Aasai…If you listen to just the tune, it would sound so funny…Thanna na naana, thanna nana naanai….thaaaana nana naaaneeee…lol
Well, KB and Maniratnam exchanged glances but pata nahi, decided to go with him….Well…after that, there was no looking back for ARR.
@HG
so?
;)
talking of singing direct ‘dil se’ and not writing in depth about Sukhwinder Singh… Blasphemy…
i personally think Sukhwinder Singh is the most ‘dil se’ singing singer…
sample Sukhwinder Singh songs (not necessarily the best/personal favourites but just off the top of my mind(or rather my winamp list))-
Berang Zindagi – Naach
Beedi – Omkara
Heer – Mitti – Sandeep Chowta’s(where is he? he gave some really good music) album – in case u dont remember – the music video having Katrina Kaif + Shyan Munshi – ranjhan dhun nu mein challi rabb millaya na ranjhaa heer (or sumthing to that effect)
Phoonk De – No Smoking
Rut aa gayee re – 1947 Earth
—-
in fact i feel that Sukhwinder probably has the least matching voice with any of the actors but still he gels well best(IMHO) with the actors(in terms of voice) coz of his energy… in fact i think of him as SRK (in terms of energies) of singing.
coming to A.R.Rahman… i dont like his vocal capabilities… i dont know… the reason is probably that i cant stand his voice/accentuated hindi… i dont know… never liked him as a singer…
you talk about ‘neem neem’… i felt his voice was the worst thing for the (bad) song… i dint like the song coz of the singers actually…
about Udit Narayan – i always think of him as a lazy but talented singer…
Hariharan – probably sings dil se but i dont like him…
Sonu Nigam – some songs… ya he does sing bilkul dil se at times… but then again… i dont like him…
i guess this is hugely influenced by their on-stage antiques…
@Vasan
even i loved that haunting thing by Sukhwinder Singh…
always tried to hear as to what he was saying…
me and bro used to decode/interpret it our own way…
dint know it was a complete poem…
in fact just a few days ago got that part 4m the net…
@DC
just googled…
it seems it was by Allama Iqbal…
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050525/main8.htm
(though the article is about Sunil Dutt… but still) search for the words iqbal and you would find that…
btw have no idea about either Mohammed or Allama Iqbal
fantastic post, liked the way you’ve picked the best songs for ARR et all.
I disagree with the last part(OSO) but then I guess it’s part of the website’s USP to be anti-masala. I also acknowledge that its your personal view and you have the right to express it, so no hard feelings.
But the fact still remains that wether there is talent or not, it’s naach-gaana movies that sell and rake in the moolah. Naach-gaana movies have made people addicts that when there are no naach-gaana movies, they venture to watch the smaller budget so-called-intelligent films. I like d MHN and Mr & Mrs Iyer as well, but for some strange reason most people take sides. Some people love to abuse the naach-gaana variety while they sings praises to the crossover films. I prefer to enjoy naach-gaana stuff and leave my brains at home and the very next day will go and watch a film like johnny gaddar and cheer for it as well.
I would love to see a naach-gana supporter join PFC and that would account for an all-round view, but if it’s against the ethos of the contributers then its okay.
PS: aaja nachle is bad!
rbehmoth, if i had given most of the examples, then what would you guys have commented on…!
the thing with Sukhwinder is that he does not do that many songs, not that many great songs, imo. I like him a lot! I prefer his Omkara to Beedi. Yeah, Berang Zindagi is a wicked track. I prefer his Thayaa Thayaa to Chayaa Chayaa. And I did not like him much in ‘Kash Laga’ or ‘Phoonk De’ – he should have been better – a lot better!
I did not notice that background piece either….
thanks rbehemoth. I think both Iqbals are the same.
Well, Iqbal is generally regarded as the best of Urdu poets, second only to Ghalib. You might have heard this couplet definitely- there in many hindi films,
Khudee ko kar buland itna
Ki har taqdeer si pehley
Khuda bandey se khud poochey
Bataa teri razaa kya hai
That’s Iqbal.
maxdavinci,
i did not say i wont like OSO cos of Naach Gaana. i ain’t got a problem about naach-gaana movies or typical masala movies, but it has to be good and proper. i won’t like it if it is crap. i do not think any of the pfc authors got a problem with masala movies. In fact, many of PFC authors have loved Main Hoo Na.. and are keenly awaiting OSO release.
i loved Lagaan, Swades, RDB… these films are good examples of quality commercial films.
I was lucky to see AR Rahman in concert a few months ago and what a thrill that was. I became friends with my local Indian Store owners and they gave me free $150 tickets!
Adnan Sami is almost half his size now and might make it as a film star. I also think he writes good songs.
Your article almost felt like I was having a conversation with you and I enjoyed it, but I’ll just pretend I didn’t read your OSO comment :d
I need a day off from work and life to dig this. HG, I ll be back .
Goonda Bhai, you somehow manage to sustain the reader with that I don’t give fuck if you agree with me or not attitude. Agree with some of your inclusions on the Dil Se list. Agree with you on Aaja Nachle. It couldn’t be summed up better.You write Dil Se when you write about Rahman’s vocals and the emotions they create. Desh ki mitti is a song that should be heard by all Sonu Nigam ‘fans’. And if you can put in a little more effort, do reach out for a song called ‘vellai pookal’(which Vasan rightfully mentions along with many other great songs)by Rahman. It will touch your dil.
TZP comes in at such a nice juncture, I read your post in morning while listening to it, making all the more sense.
btw, could you give me the etymology of the title of this post, provided you don’t wanna break the illusion!
HG,
Blimey, that was long! #:-s
>>I do not understand the language – but I love the song cos of A R Rahman.
Hurrah!!! :d/
I agree A R Rahman is a favourite “singer”. Not only sings “dil se”, but he will also reach your heart when he sings.
>>I used to say this a lot to wind people up but I truly meant/mean it when I say it. But I do not do that anymore cos I just don
Goonda!! I don’t necessarily agree with you on the ARR stuff, but what a flow!!!
Machchar // Not sure where you got the Roja gossip from, but I have a very reliable source telling me that it is not correct.
oh wb-bhai, you haveta agree, maan, its about the legend A R Rahman ;-) there cannot be another opinion! (only kidding!)
Tushar… you know there are Film Club/Bars around, where like minds get together… so…. tried to do a bit of sarcasm, but….