Tag Archives: Bollywood music

On Salil’s Music for Madhumati

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Last week, a little late in the day, I posted a list of my favourite Salil Chowdhury’s Hindi film songs. A ‘little late’ because the music director’s 100th birth anniversary had been on November 19. I had hoped to be on time for this one, because Salil is a favourite of mine.

Anyhow. Though I was late to the party, at least I managed to post that list. And now, here’s another post I wrote, also on Salil Chowdhury. For Learning and Creativity’s Silhouette Magazine, an article on Madhumati (1958). Madhumati is a film I’ve reviewed earlier, on my blog, but this time I look at the film primarily through the lens of the music Salil composed for it. It was a score that brought him the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director (the film itself won a whopping nine awards, a feat unparalleled until Dilwaale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge, 37 years later). And while Madhumati is a good film, I think Salil’s music for it plays a huge part in the film’s success, and its ability to hold its own even now, close to 70 years after it was made.

Click here to read the entire article.

Ten of my favourite Salil Chowdhury songs

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In the 17 years this blog has been in existence, I’ve created song lists for a large number of music directors: OP Nayyar, Madan Mohan, Naushad, Ravi, SD Burman… but somehow, I had never got around to creating a Salil Chowdhury song list. I realized this lacuna some years back, but then, realizing that Salil’s birth centenary was in 2025, I told myself I’d plan a list to mark that. I could not ignore Salil, who has long been one of my favourite music directors.

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Ten of my favourite Dharmendra duets

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RIP, Dharmendra.

After the recent fiasco—when several news sites (including some which are supposed to be responsible) posted the erroneous news of Dharmendra’s passing away—I was sceptical when I read, on November 24th, that he had died. Another hoax, I thought. He cannot be dead; this must be another TRP-raising technique by conscienceless brute journalists.

But no, sadly not. Dharmendra truly is gone. At the age of 89, after a very long innings as an actor. Starting as a supporting actor, then going on to play the romantic hero through the 60s (a period during which he also did some of his more nuanced roles, like in Satyakam and Anupama). In the 70s, Dharmendra finally donned the ‘Kutte main tera khoon pee jaaoonga’ persona that was to—unfairly, I think—become his defining onscreen character. He was the muscle-bound action hero, often seeking revenge, in so many films that people tended to forget that Dharmendra was actually a very versatile actor, capable of everything from comedy (remember him in Chupke-Chupke and Seeta aur Geeta?) to knee-weakeningly romantic roles, to restrained, subtle acting.

Also, of course, there was the fact that he was very handsome: one of the best-looking of Hindi cinema’s leading men. One could watch a film just to feast one’s eyes on Garam Dharam, the ultimate hottie.

Anyway, a tribute was definitely in order, because this is one person whose passing I sincerely and whole-heartedly mourn. I had done a post of my favourite Dharmendra solos back in 2014, to mark his 79th birthday. Commenting on that post, several blog readers had suggested songs of his that were duets, and which I had to regretfully nix. But I thought, back then, that a Dharmendra duets list was in order. So here it is. As always, these songs are all from pre-70s Hindi films (or rather, pre-1971, since a few of these were released in 1970) that I’ve watched.

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Metropolitan Cities in India: Ten Songs

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Some months back, I published a song list on songs that mention a city/town, Tier 2 or below, in India: Bikaner, Bareilly, Nainital, Agra… and when I was going over that list, it struck me that there were also songs that focussed on India’s metropolises, the Tier 1 cities. India has six metropolitan cities: Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru, and every now and then, they find a mention in a song. Bombay, by virtue of being the hub of the Hindi film industry, probably leads the pack when it comes to metro city songs; but there are others too (though I must admit I haven’t found any songs, at least from old films, that mention Bengaluru/Bangalore).

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It’s All About Context: Ten Songs

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When I create song lists, I always include only songs form films that I’ve watched. This is a rule I’ve imposed on myself, and it’s something that’s drawn questions, sometimes even accusatory. Why would I do that? I am asked.

Besides the fact that this is my blog (and so I get to govern it!), I have usually responded to that question by saying that some songs are best known in context.

Some songs. In fact, not very many. Most Hindi film songs—whether romantic, or depressed, or philosophical (or whatever other emotion)—are almost invariably neatly stitched together with the picturization. What’s happening onscreen is what’s echoed in the song.

Not always, though. There are a few songs where the song’s lyrics, or the picturization, are deceptive. If you don’t know the context, you may well end up interpreting the song as something very different from how it appears in the film.

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Ten of my favourite ship songs

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Many years ago, on this blog, I’d posted a list of boat songs. Boats happen to be fairly popular ‘platforms’ (so to say) for songs. For philosophical songs, for romantic songs, for songs of everything from despair to hope. There are songs on motorboats, on rafts, on rowboats and shikaras and whatnot. Many of Hindi cinema’s most famous songs from before the 70s were boat songs.

Much rarer, though, have been ship songs. Ships, after all, aren’t usually a part of most narratives (they’re less easily accessible, plus of course require a greater outlay on the part of whoever’s financing the film). Shipboard songs, I’ve realized, fall into a few fairly specific brackets. Either the singer(s) is/are employed on board a ship (as naval officers, deck hands, even pirates), or they are wealthy people travelling overseas. The latter, especially, became a more common theme in the late 1960s, when several films had a cruise as an important part of the storyline, invariably as a setting for a blossoming romance.

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Small Town India in Ten Songs

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I must begin this list with a disclaimer regarding that title: no, not really small town. However, a title that went ‘Tier 2 and Below Cities’ would be just too clunky. So give me some leeway here.

When I was watching Sapan Suhaane a few months back, the one song that really stayed with me was Naam mera Nimmo muqaam Ludhiana. Not only because it’s so catchy and Helen is so vivacious, but also because of the words. Why Ludhiana, I wondered. Was Shailendra thinking of Sahir when he wrote the lyrics of this song? Or did Ludhiana just seem to fit the metre and the rhyme scheme well? (It does, and really well).

That thought led to another: all the other songs that, like this one, also refer to the smaller towns of India. The really big cities—the metropolitan agglomerations like Bombay (a particular favourite, of course, given that the Hindi film industry is based there and most films have Bombay as a setting) or Delhi or even Kolkata—have plenty of references to them in song. But the smaller cities, the towns: they are rather more elusive. Not, however, completely missing. And that was what I set out to find: songs that mention smaller cities and towns (not the metros).

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Ten of my favourite Manoj Kumar Songs

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RIP, Manoj Kumar.

The first week of April has seen two major actors of the film world pass away. Hollywood great Val Kilmer (whom I actually always associate with The Saint, though most others probably think Batman and Jim Morrison of the Doors), on April 1st; and on April 4th, Manoj Kumar. Kilmer, though I’ve watched several of his films, isn’t part of my timeline when it comes to blogging; but Manoj Kumar certainly is.

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Ten of my favourite ‘record player’ songs

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Many years ago, a blog reader with whom I had some differences, and who never seemed to be in agreement with me, parted ways with my blog. As she departed, it was with the scathing comment that I chose the most outlandish and weird of themes for my song lists. Unfortunately (or fortunately? I cannot decide) comments like that only serve to make me want to prove how unwarranted the remark is. In this case, by showing the reader that she “ain’t seen nothin’ yet”, as they say. If you thought I chose weird themes, you don’t known what a weird theme is. The weirdest is yet to come.

… and this is it. The germ of this idea was planted in my mind when I was doing research for another weirdly-themed list: my recording studio songs list. Several of the songs that feature people singing in recording studios also show the other side: people listening in, an audience tuned in to a radio or a television. As I’d watched song after song on my longlist and then my shortlist, I’d noticed that several songs weren’t just played on radios, but on record players, on gramophones. That had to be a separate list, I decided.

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Book Review: Manek Premchand’s ‘And the Music Lives On’

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In the past couple of years, I’ve read two books by Manek Premchand—Director’s Chair, and his biography of Majrooh Sultanpuri—so when he offered to send me a copy of his latest book, And the Music Lives On, I leaped at the opportunity to read yet another Premchand.

The cover of this book gives a fair indication of what And the Music Lives On is all about: those stills from Mughal-e-Azam, Awara, Guide, Madhumati, Memsahib and Dilli ka Thug are a clear pointer to the films and the era Premchand writes about here, an era in Hindi cinema’s history that may be long past, but whose music lives on.

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