AUDIO SCAN
A gift from Pakistan

Khuda Kay Liye—In the name of God (Sony BMG)

AFTER all these decades of separation, a Pakistani film has finally come to India, having won awards in several international competitions. Not only is the film a good showcase for Pakistan, its music is also outstanding.

It is mostly Sufi, which has been complemented by a few classical songs, plus another few which have snatches of English vocals. The overall impact is impressive indeed.

In the CD released in India, the remix versions feature before the regular songs. But this is one album in which even the remixes have been done aesthetically.

The finest of them all is Bulleshah’s Bandya, which has a regular version, a remix by DK Suketu and also a rock version.

One thing odd about the CD is that it does not mention the name of the singers with the individual song. The score is by Rohail Hayat. The voices are penetrating and ideally suited for the Sufi frenzy. But the music of almost all songs is international in nature.

The other songs which are equally hypnotic as Bandya are Allah hoo, the title song, and Janie Janie. For that matter, there is not one song in the album with which one can find fault.

Pakistani songs have been making waves in India for quite some time, but to hear a whole Pakistani album is a great experience.

DON’T think the word crazy figures only in the title of this film. Many of the qualities have also seeped into the music of the film. Things have been made loonier by the spat between producer Rakesh Roshan and music director Ram Sampath, who says some of his tunes have been lifted. It is another matter that the former says that he had taken permission from the music company which had made the jingles and that he had reached an out-of-court settlement only to make sure that the release of the film is not delayed.

Coming back to the music proper, the most ‘off-beat’ are the two penned surprisingly by Javed Akhtar. One is O re lakad sung by Kailash Kher, Sowmya Raoh and Neeraj Sridhar. The other is Ik rupiya by Sudesh Bhosle, Kirti Sagathia, Bhavin Dhanak, Labh Janjua, Rahul Vaidye and Jimmy Moses.

Among the more sober ones, I could not differentiate between the Krazzy 4 title song and Break free, both of them penned by Asif Ali Beg and crooned by Vishal Dadlani . To make confusion more confounded, there are two versions of both these songs.

Then there is the seductive Dekhta hai tu kya by Sunidhi Chauhan and Kirti Sagathia, which too is in two versions. — ASC