Music And Movies

One day while driving my car to office I tuned into a Kannada FM channel heard this song. Right from the first flight of violins I knew that this was definitely an Illayaraja song. As the song progressed, I would have wagered my salary on it. I wanted to know which movie this song was from. Unfortunately by the time I reached office I had forgotten the lyrics. Given my inability to sing even the simplest of the tunes, all I could tell my colleague was, "It was a wonderful song and it went like..lalala lalala". She smiled, probably thinking that this was one mystery which even Sherlock Holmes would be hard pressed to solve. Then I saw this song on TV but as is their wont, they did not put up the film name!! One day I saw a cassette of the movie 'Pallavi Anupallavi'. Knowing it was a Raja - Maniratnam combination movie I immediately picked it up. And I was pleasantly surprised when this song played. We will listen to this song today. If you observe Maniratnam's mo...

It is always interesting to compare and contrast two versions of the same song sung in different languages by different singers. I am not talking about dubbed movies but where the songs were made in each of the language with the same intensity and was a hit in each of these languages. Rafi's "chal ud jaa re panchi' from Bhabi can be contrasted with Ghantasala's rendition of the same song in Telugu, "payaninche o chiluka". (If fans of respective singers are involved in this comparison business it can lead to bloodshed. Just check out the youtube comments for this Telugu song!!)  A movie which moved everyone to tears and made Rajesh Khanna almost a legend was 'Anand'. Other than Rajesh Khanna's acting, Hrishikesh Mukherjee's direction, the film is also known for its superb music. How many films can boast of songs like, 'maine tere liye hi saat rang ke sapne chuni', 'naa jiya laage na', 'zindagi kaisi hai paheli' and the...