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Mumbai
moviedom seems to have rediscovered the sounds of the 1980s. The industry is currently remaking many a Hindi superhit of the past. It is but natural that many of its leading composers are swaying to beats that ruled the film music charts several decades ago. Retro is cool. In the recent past, Himesh Reshammiya doffed his hat to the signature rhythms of Rahul Dev Burman with a robust item number, “Balma”, in the Akshay Kumar-starrer Khiladi 786. German model and actress Claudia Ciesla gyrated to the number in the company of the action star as Pancham’s bespectacled visage hovered in the background. Sajid-Wajid dipped into qawwali lore to weave strains of the classic Aziz Nazan chartbuster from the early 1970s, “Jhoom barabar jhoom sharabi”, into the Dabangg 2 item song “Fevicol se”, performed on the screen by Kareena Kapoor. You hear “Angoor ki beti” on the soundtrack, and you are instantly transported back to an epoch gone by. The ever-popular qawwali was first used in I.S. Johar’s C-grade film, 5 Rifles (1974).
Disco is back
The disco numbers of the Mithun Chakraborty era, too, have made a comeback of sorts in the realms of Hindi film music. In Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om (2007), a film that was an avowed homage to Hindi cinema of times past, Shah Rukh Khan sang of how his heart was filled with ‘Dard-e-disco’. Last year, producer-director Karan Johar, who has an obvious penchant for the dance floor set pieces, utilised Nazia Hassan’s title track from the 1981 pop album Disco Deewane lock, stock and barrel in a contemporary setting in Student of the Year. In action-comedy Himmatwala, a remake of the 1983 Jeetendra-Sridevi starrer, director Sajid Khan gets Sonakshi Sinha to don the Parveen Babi/Zeenat Aman look for the peppy “Thank God, it’s Friday” nightclub routine. The music of the 1970s and 1980s is clearly back in favour and how! Himmatwala has two other numbers on the soundtrack that are straight lifts from the original Bappi Lahiri compositions. While Amit Kumar and Shreya Ghoshal replace Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar in “Naino mein sapna”, Mika Singh and Shreya step in for Kishore and Asha Bhosle in the quirky “Taki taki”. This is by no means a recent phenomenon. Way back in 2002, actor-turned-director Anant Mahadevan made Dil Vil Pyar Vyar, a film in which every song was a R.D. Burman composition rendered by a contemporary singer. While Hariharan lent his voice to the haunting “O hansini”, Shaan sang “Meri saamnewali khidki mein”. It was a lush soundtrack that had unforgettable Pancham pieces like “Oh haseena zulfonwali” and “Raat kali ek khwab mein aayi” sung, besides Hariharan and Shaan, by Kumar Sanu, Abhijeet, Babul Supriyo, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Alka Yagnik and Sunidhi Chauhan. RDB has had tributes paid to him on several other occasions, among others by Ramgopal Varma in the disastrous RGV Ki Aag and by Sujoy Ghosh in his well-received film Jhankar Beats. In Nautanki Saala, directed by Rohan Sippy and starring Ayushmann Khurrana, the lead actresses (Pooja Salvi and Evelyn Sharma) do a new-millennium interpretation of Madhuri Dixit’s “Dhak dhak karne laga” (Beta, 1992). The new version of the Anuradha Paudwal number has been rendered by actress Saba Azad. Interestingly, the dhak dhak number has an indirect link with ‘disco dancer’ Mithun — he lip-synched to Kishore Kumar’s “Dil dhak dhak karne laga” in Patita (1980). The song, like many others picturised on Mithun back then, was filmed in a nightclub setting.
The re-jig business Sridevi is another favourite of those in the business of re-jigging old hits. In the recently released I, Me Aur Main, the memorable “Na jaane kahaan se aayi hai” from the 1989 film, Chaalbaaz, which had the actress in a double role, was remixed and filmed on John Abraham, Chitrangda Singh and Prachi Desai. Director Bejoy Nambiar invoked Sridevi in his 2011 film Shaitan through an innovative overhaul of the “Hawa hawai” number from Mr India (1987). While the original song was in the voice of Kavita Krishnamurthy, it was rendered for a new generation of music lovers by Suman Sridhar in a style that marked a complete break from the past. In the 2012 film, Char Din Ki Chandni, produced and directed by Samir Karnik, Tusshar Kapoor and Kulraj Randhawa stepped into the shoes of Rishi Kapoor and Sridevi and did a re-enactment of “Chandni o meri Chandni” from the 1989 Yash Chopra film, Chandni. The original Shiv-Hari composition was retained and Sunidhi Chauhan did an impressive impersonation of Sridevi (who had sung the original number with Jolly Mukherjee), but the new film, a laboured comedy, was a complete washout. Many other recent films have employed old sounds in a bid to find new takers. In Yamla Pagla Deewana, Dharmendra did a repeat of his “Main jat yamla” number from Pratigya (1975), while Sajid-Wajid fell back on the Kalyanji-Anandji composition, “Apni to jaise taise” (from Laawaris, 1981) for Housefull. Not be left behind, Pritam, for 2011’s Thank You, whipped up a new-gen version of “Pyar do, pyar lo”, a foot-tapping song that Rekha performed in Feroz Khan’s 1986 hit, Jaanbaaz. The compositions of masters like RD Burman, Laxmikant Pyarelal and Kalyanji-Anandji are still alive and kicking in today’s Bollywood soundscape and for good reason.
The vocalist who loves to experiment Carnatic vocalist Bombay Jayashri might have been working for 15 years by 15 hours a day yet one moment changed the way people looked at her. It was the moment this gifted singer won an Oscar nomination for her song in Life of Pi. With this, she not only sang her way into history and became media’s darling, but also had other opportunities knocking her door. She reveals how she was being invited to China not to sing the Life of Pi lullaby but what she is adept at, Carnatic vocal music. “Now that is a huge recognition for a classical artist.” Her initial reaction to the prestigious honour was of wonder. “The nomination is almost like an award.” The child in her so hoped that she would walk home with the Oscar statuette. But today as she looks back, she reasons, “I won an Oscar nomination for it was an Ang Lee film.” She not only swears by the perfectionist filmmaker’s vision and attention to detail but also goes ga ga over Lee, the person, who she says, is so Buddha-like. She recalls how not even for a moment the “Oscar man” did gloat in the glory of his success. About the red carpet event at the Oscars, where she wowed audiences, she says, “among the melee of backless gowns, if one walks in a red Kanjeevaram saree, one would stand out.” But what had made her shine among the galaxy of Indian musical world for Lee to single her out? According to her, it was her Surdas bhajan on internet that swayed him. On the controversy that the song has generated after a trust named after Carnatic musician Irayimman Thampi accused her of plagiarism, she asserts, “Maybe, I was inspired by the maestro who lived 600 years ago. I can’t claim that what I create or sing is not something that I have not internalised or heard at some point.” She grew up listening all kinds of music, including songs of Lata and Rafi. She had even formed her own band. She takes pride in her “undying attraction” for beautiful music. Be it when she makes a foray on Coke studio or while lending her voice for an audio-biography on former Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, besides singing in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu cinema as well as in Bollywood. Singing for films, and Bollywood in particular, that fetched her the Filmfare Award has been rewarding too. However, back in time when she sang her first song for A.R. Rahman, she was a trifle apprehensive about the reaction of classical music fraternity. Today as audiences and classical artistes have dropped their rigid code over what a classical music artist should or shouldn’t do, she is happy to experiment. As she moves on to create an opera for Cleveland Cultural society, she shares her wish to create a students’ choir in Carnatic music. She believes, “Art is so much bigger than everything else.” Mumbai, whose name she wears like a badge of honour in the tradition of carrying one’s village name, opened her to many worlds. She might be based in Chennai but she owes her broadened world view to her formative years spent in Mumbai and to her mother who ensured that she learn a bit of Hindustani classical music too.
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