One song at a time - 41. Amay Prasno / Kahin Door

-

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 song we will see today, 'kahin door jab din dal jaaye'. Salilda's stamps his magic on each of these songs. What melody, what innovation!!! 

For a long time I was not aware that 'kahin door jab din daljaye' had a Bengali counterpart (which ofcourse is the original.) I bought a CD of Bengali songs composed by Salilda and was pleasantly surprised to find the Bengali version of this song. The Bengali version is sung by Hemanta Mukherjee (aka Hemant Kumar) and goes, "amay prasno kare'. His baritone voice adds so much depth to the song. While I cannot understand more than a couple of words in this song, I can't miss the sheer beauty of Bengali language. The words sound so soft as if saying anything harsh may wake up a sleeping infant. Salilda, as usual, works his magic both in the tune and the interludes. The song overall is very soothing. Listening to it late in the evening, sitting on your balcony, when all city traffic sounds have ceased, will be a good antidote for all the stress we develop within ourselves.



Now let us listen to the Hindi version. What a contrast the voices are. While Hematda's is a bass voice, we have Mukesh here starting off in his nasal voice. In some places it is sung a bit more loudly than the Hemantda's version. Yet the song sounds equally sweet in its Hindi version as well. That you understand this language does have a bearing on your enjoyment. We can dissect this further but I will leave it here.

I always believe that in case of music, more the merrier. So instead of being a fan of any singer, I just take both of them. And my joy doubles.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Well! Music has no language barriers as MUSIC intself is a universal language and it is gr8 to hear both as you mentioned. Both sound good to me.
June 4, 2011 at 3:27 AM
Venkatesh said…
>when all city traffic
>sounds have ceased

And when will _that_ happen?!
June 4, 2011 at 5:01 AM
Raj said…
Thanks for sharing!

Recently, my wife sang Rabindra Sangeet to an invited audience and I was amazed to disover the striking similarities between the songs and the old hindi film tunes.But again, there is nothing wrong in getting inspired and that too by one of the greatest poets the world has seen..

Here too, the 'Anand' version is not a carbon copy of the original..And maybe because of the familiarity factor, I prefer the Hindi one..
June 5, 2011 at 4:52 AM
Suresh S said…
Venkatesh,

:)

Raj,

It is indeed true that lot of Bengali music had transposed itself into Hindi film music. That would be natural given the number of directors and music directors who came from Bengal. My another friend in an email had also pointed out the Rabindrasangeeth influence on Hindi music.
June 6, 2011 at 10:26 PM
Aakarsh said…
I heard the Hemant Kumar's version about 8 years ago. Beautiful composition! The tune somehow has a very breezy feel to it. Probably thats why Hrishikesh Mukherjee choose it for Anand.
June 8, 2011 at 12:37 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

One song at a time - 24. Naadamaya E Lokavella

-
Image
(Dr.Rajkumar) "Does Rajkumar sing?" asked the assistant. The music director nodded, "Muthuraju? Yes, he sings." "So why don't we ask him to sing this song in the movie?" suggested the assistant. The music director wasn't sure but the assistant persisted. Finally the music director agreed, Dr.Rajkumar sang in that movie and as the cliche goes, the rest was history. The music director was G.K.Venkatesh and the assistant went by the name of Rasayya. He would later be rechristened by Panju Arunachalam as Illayaraja!!! During my school days I had a classmate who used to love Rajkumar's voice and would tell us that Rajkumar was a great singer. It was not until I moved to Bangalore that I first heard Dr.Rajkumar's voice and the first song that I heard was a stunner. That was 'Nadamaya E Loka'. Later I came to know that this song won Dr.Rajkumar, affectionately called 'Annavaru', the National Award for the best singer. T
Read more

M S Subbulakshmi : Who misunderstood her?

-
Image
In the October 1st 2015 issue of Caravan, Vidwan T.M.Krishna wrote a lengthy article about M.S.Subbulakshmi titled, 'MS Understood' with the subtitle 'The Myths and Misconceptions around India's most acclaimed musician'.  This is a long read and spans 10 pages. You can read the complete article here Krishna, as his wont, makes lot of sweeping generalizations and hand waving arguments. I just want to react to a few aspects of his article. First, Krishna starts with a straw man, with some unknown singer stating that MS was a hoax. Then Krishna goes on to elaborate on how critics never considered MS to be a great singer and thought that she was just a singer with a ‘good voice’.  Krishna then traces MS’s origins and talks about how her music changed, how the society affected her and how she could not realize her complete potential and so on. You can read all that in the article. Once you have read the article you will understand what I am saying here more cle
Read more

SPB: A Musical History - Part 1 : A Legend called Ghantasala

-
Image
Ghantasala Venkateswara Rao (Photo source: Quora) I plan to do a multi part series on SPB, tracing his music career in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada film music. I will not be concentrating on other aspects of SPB like his acting or dubbing career. I will occasionally be making reference to some of the singing shows he did for different TV Channels. You must be surprised as to why the first part of this series is titled, ' A Legend called Ghantasala'. The idea is to give you a picture about the Telugu film music scene when SPB made his appearance. He recorded his first song for 'Sree Sree Maryadaramanna' in Dec 1966 (according to Wiki). The movie is listed as a 1967 release. So we can say that people heard SPB first in 1967. In 1967, the leading stars of Telugu films were N T Rama Rao (NTR) and Akkineni Nageshwar Rao (ANR). Actor Krishna was making his mark. The popular music directors included K V Mahadevan, S Rajeshwar Rao, Pendyala Nageshwar Rao. Other music directors li
Read more