Music And Movies

After he saw my post on Raveeendran's "thamburu kulir", my friend Sanjay mailed me. "I was expecting a tribute to Bhimsen Joshi", he said in his mail. I replied back saying that I had not heard Bhimsen Joshi enough to write a comprehensive tribute. Then I realized I was wrong. While it is true that I have not heard Bhimsen Joshi much, it is also true that he was a major figure when I grew up. Especially when we were slowly getting sucked into the beauty of classical music. I was also wrong because this blog is not just about my experience alone but about shared experiences. While I write about my experience with Bhimsen Joshi's music, I would request others to share their experience as well. During our college going years, Bhimsen Joshi had already become a cult musician. I would define a cult musician as someone who is praised even though the person praising has never heard his / her work!!! Whenever we heard the name Bhimsen Joshi, we would go, "Wow...

(Raveendran Master) One particular aspect which makes me go listen to a composer often is the way he deals with raagas. To me, the more imaginative the music director is in dealing with a raaga, the more new ideas he is able to showcase, the more respect I have for him. In this regard, Raveendran is one music director for whom I have high regard. He was very good in dealing with various raagas in a very original fashion. Raveendran ruled the Malayalam film music in the 80s. He has given songs which will always stay with the Malayalis. Songs like 'Harimuraliravam' and 'Pramadavanam' are all time classics now and some of the movies he worked like 'His Highness Abdullah' and 'Bharatham' had his music as their mainstay. Ravenndran's effort is even more laudable for he was in an industry which was quite adept in dealing with Carnatic ragas. Music directors like Dakshinamurthy Swami, Devarjan Master, M G Radhakrishnan et al have dealt wonderfully with va...

(Rajesh Roshan) We spoke about music directors who did not get their due, we spoke about those who just vanished from public memory. Today we shall speak about someone who showed a lot of promise but somehow did not end up fulfilling the initial promise shown. One such music director was Rajesh Roshan. Rajesh Roshan, the son of legendary music director Roshan, started off with a bang. When movies like 'Kuwara Baap' and 'Julie' happened, people stood up and took notice. The music of Julie was on everybody's lips those days. Be it 'bhool gaya sab kuch' or 'dil kya kare' or 'yeh raaten nayi purani'. Not to mention the wildly popular English song by Preeti Sagar, "My heart is beating". None of my generation would have grown up without listening to these songs. It is not easy matching up to the legacy of a giant like Roshan but Rajesh Roshan's first steps cannot be faulted. Later Rajesh Roshan did some nice movies like 'Swami...

(Gulebakavali Katha) In the last post I spoke about Jaidev, whose talent was not given its due by the film industry. But we have to be thankful that he is still remembered by the connoisseurs today. In certain other unfortunate cases, the song remains in public memory but the memory of the creators has totally slipped into oblivion. One such case is what I will be talking about today. I first heard the song, 'kalala alalapai', during my hostel days. Those were the days when my room mate Siva and I would have the radio on continuously and keep searching for one station or the other to listen to songs. Other than the usual suspects like 'Vividh Bharathi', we would also tune into Radio Ceylon, which would play Telugu songs. (The role of Radio Ceylon in propagating Indian music is enormous. A big book needs to be written about it.) The signal of Radio Ceylon was never strong and so most of the music we heard on that channel was combined with noise. Inspite of that, we use...

(Jaidev) I write this blog on New Year day and what better song to start the year than the one which asks life to come to the doorsteps. The song of today will be "zindagi mere ghar aana" sung by Bhupinder and Anuradha Paudwal for the film "Dooriyan". This also lets us pray tribute to one of the most underrated music director in Hindi films, Jaidev. It is paradoxical that while he received the National Award for being the best music director three times, he was not well known to the lay audience!!! In our films, success depends, as in life, on a lot of factors other than just the skill you possess. While that is true, we should also take to heart on this New Year day that talent and skill will finally out. What is indisputable now is that Jaidev is regarded highly by connoisseurs of music and his songs have a good following among them.  Anyone with a good ear for music can immediately make out a highly original and talented mind at work when he hears the s...