Osian Learning Sessions
I hate waking up on time, neither do I endorse punctuality, be it flights, school, lunches or marriages, I always reach taking my own good time. After a very long time, I especially woke up early in the morning, got ready, running down with my breakfast, and reaching the venue way before time, way before time. Something I don’t remember doing even with the best of my memory, it was at Siri Fort again for the Osian Learning Experience this time.
We sat at the open air theatre, and as I seated myself, I soon found a face that I saw just a day before, a face that I almost got attached to, Gulzar Saab yet again. Gulzar Saab was here to give his two hour long Masterclass in Film Lyrics almost as an educational experience, and this was as good as it could get. Trust me.
Music was never directly incorporated into our films, they were merely played at random requests, and the song could be anything, anything the audience wanted. If the film is playing, they would just ask the group of musicians to play anything, maybe a Ghazal or maybe a Bhajan or even a love song, or a death song, or any song that musician knew! The songs were not arranged in accordance to the situation. It was totally random.
There used to be so much of noise in the theatre, with people selling ‘lemon soda’ and ‘khatta meetha’ while the movie was going on, and it was a huge affair. Fakirs and beggars used to compose little snippets of songs at religious places and they used to sell them instantly to anyone, by just reciting the tune. Nothing else was required! He claimed that he misses the noise and innocence related with cinema during that time, and how our cinema has corrupted over time, and mind you, his heartiest plea to all youngsters to not remix songs, backed with a valid reason.
‘ Meri Aapki Generation se yeh dil se request hai, ki puraane gaanon ko remix na karein. Woh waqt alag tha, unn gaanon ke peeche matlab alag tha, woh gaane uss waqt ke saath taluq rakthe hain, unhe kharaab na kijiye. Aapne dance karna hai, toh aise bahut aur gaane hai dance karne ko’
Somebody thought of the idea as to have a song on the mother’s death situation, and thus songs arrived in almost all melancholic situations, being a country who celebrates pain and pity.
Gulzar Saab explained how magical and difficult it was for them, when they actually put their first song on their tape, and how amazed and thrilled they were at this invention, and how our generation takes it for granted.
He also named poets and lyricists who emerged into the Indian scene, starting from stalwarts like Kidar Sharma to Arzoo Lakhnawi. He also explained how a song is only immortalised, when all three pillars are strong enough, the voice, the composition and the lyrics. He also explained that filmmakers also had a role in extracting music from their composers.
What we also found out was that Lata Mangeshkar made her debut as a co singer with Meenakshi in a film called Badi Maa, where she also debuted in a special appearance. Gulzar Saab said that very few people know about this fact.
He went on to talk about Sahir Ludhianvi’s self indulgence and arrogance, though he earned it with time, he was a bit cynical with his thought process, and how when he started off, he was a very different writer to what he eventually was.
His first song was ‘Dil Jalta Hai, Jalne Do’, and how he ended up mocking other poets with his contrastial comebacks. For example
‘ Dekh tere insaan ki haalath kya ho gayi bhagwaan,
Kitna badal gaya insaan’
His reply
‘Dekh tere bhagwaan ki halath kya ho gayi insaan,
Kitna badal gaya bhagwaan’
Other than that, Gulzar Saab told us that after the legendary R.D Burman, Vishal Bharadwaj is the composer who he has collaborated with the most, and treats him like his own part, his own son, and undoubtedly feels the most comfortable with Bharadwaj.
He is still miffed with R.D Burman though, getting emotionally wrenched on the topic, complains that
‘ Woh Bahut Jaldi Chale Gaye, Unse Yeh Gila Mujhe Abhi Tak Hai’
‘Papa Papa, Aao Mere Paas,
Main Hoon Aaj Bahut Udaas
Laal Notebook Mein Hain Hidaayatein
Aur Neeli Notebook Mein Hain Shikayatein’
An album called Tom and Jerry, which is tough to find in the market, features beautiful songs on children by this magical duo, and as Vishal claims, this is one of the very few songs written for a father, and how he still misses his father when he listens to this, even though the Maa songs are in abundance!
As someone had requested to know more about the antique poster and memorabilia section of this festival, I would like to update people on that too, hope it’s not late though.
This year 11 OCFF presents a strong focus on the cinema of India to highlight an exciting moment
in Bombay film history where new kinds of films seem to be changing the direction of filmmaking. Thus it seems to be a good time to take stock of the creative strands that have informed the intellectually
challenging dimensions of Bombay cinema.
Osian’s CARD is the world’s largest archive for memorabilia pertaining to Indian cinema. In order to celebrate the milestone moments as well as the general streams of magical creativity that have gone into carrying Bombay cinema to the present on the verge of a momentous transformation Osian’s CARD presents the most comprehensive exhibition of Indian film history ever, consisting of a show of all document types in the
archives such as posters, lobby cards, showcards, song- synopsis booklets, film stills, hoardings
and much more. Viewers will get to see a comprehensive view of Bombay film history.
Within this larger focus on the history of Indian cinema Osian’s CARD presents a specially curated
show of film memorabilia that specifically highlights what we think were the milestone moments
in the history of Bombay cinema leading up to the moment of what the film curatorial team for 11
OCFF has dubbed the NewStream in Bombay cinema. Memorabilia pertaining to the output from
studios such as New Theatres, Prabhat or Bombay Talkies in the 1930s, the cinema of Raj Kapoor,
Guru Dutt and the Anand Brothers in the 1950s, Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s as well as parallely
the Indian New Wave and the films of Mani Ratnam and Ram Gopal Varma in the 1990s will
meld into memorabilia for films of the NewStream. In short, from Devdas 1935 to DevD 2009.
Meeting all these people will always be memorable, listening to everything from themselves was even more intriguing and interesting, and finally, as the lights grew dimmer, and I reached home on time.
P.S- Last day of the festival tomorrow, attending the closing ceremony, and meeting the ever so sweet people at the management, Sweta Das!
Tags: 11 Osian Cinefan Film Festival, film festivals, gulzar, osian
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
talking to shirin neshat at the viennale it was discovered that the very lyrical film maker is extremely excited about the ‘women without men’ screening at mami.
she sounded disappointed that she was invited to mami.
she would have loved to be in mumbai…
Thanks Jehan for this. Really loved the way you’ve put the session updates in the post.
The RDBurman part was quite touching. All have known Gulzar ji’s collaboration with Vishal Bharadwaj, but few know the gems that they have given.
thanks a lot for sharing bro J. u r one lucky guy to listen to Gulzar Saab’s gems. Awesome.
Hey Jehan, those OLE sessions were priceless, also Vishals and Gulzar saabs session at siri fort 1, really loved the “chaddi” anecdote from jungle book, and to learn about their creative association was also interesting, even though Osian was very low key it turned to be very eventful, i managed to catch some really great films like hooked, waltz with bashir, before the burial etc. over all a great festival, cant wait to go to IFFI goa though.