Tag Archives: Dil apna aur Preet Paraayi

Ten of my favourite Shankar-Jaikishan songs

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When it comes to Hindi film composer duos, for me there’s none greater than Shankar-Jaikishan. By no means the first (Husnlal Bhagatram, for one, predated them) and definitely not the last (there have been many others, from Laxmikant Pyarelal and Kalyanji Anandji to more recent duos like Anand-Milind), Shankar Jaikishan were unparalleled in the sheer quality of their work. They composed some of Hindi cinema’s best-loved tunes, all the way from Westernized club songs to ghazals, from dreamy love songs to peppy folk numbers. Versatility, finesse, and that ability to appeal to the common janta, to have ordinary folk humming their tunes: these were some traits which set Shankar-Jaikishan apart.

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Ten of my favourite dream sequence songs

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When I posted my ‘Khwaab/Sapna’ songs list, Anu commented that, by reading the title of the post, she thought it was about dream sequences. It wasn’t, of course—it was a list of songs which literally contained the word ‘dream’ in the first couple of lines of its lyrics. And while I did write in that post about the different links between songs and dreams in Hindi cinema, I didn’t mention that I had another post lined up to follow the ‘Khwaab/Sapna’ songs list: the dream sequence songs list.

A ‘dream sequence’ is part of a cinematic production that is separated from the rest of the story—by devices such as graphics (think spiraling), fogging, music, etc—to depict an event that does not really happen but which a character may imagine. Dream sequences allow, in Hindi cinema, all sorts of interesting possibilities: grand spectacles, enormously enlarged sets, things that aren’t possible in real (or reel) life. Lovers who are forbidden, relationships that cannot be.

There are dream sequences aplenty all through Hindi cinema, ranging from the very opulent one in Aan, where Nadira’s character sees herself switching places with her rival, played by Nimmi—to the many songs that take the form of a dream sequence.

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Ten of my favourite boat songs

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Some of you may know that I’ve recently returned from an exhilarating time at the Bangalore Literature Festival—one of the highlights (at least for a cinema fanatic like me!) of which was that I got to meet Nasreen Munni Kabir. (And was introduced to Farhan Akhtar, and met Sidharth Bhatia, and got to get photographed within the same frame as Gulzar… but that’s a different matter). Nasreen Munni Kabir and I actually shared a cab for the two-hour trip from the airport to the hotel, and spent most of it chatting about all things cinema. I told her about this blog, of course, and happened to mention that among the most popular posts seem to be song lists.

Which reminded me: it’s time for another list. And because this popped into my head while I was travelling, I decided to do another ‘sung in transit’ list. But because I’ve already done car songs (not to mention ghoda-gaadi songs and train songs), I’m going the water way this time: with boat songs. The criteria here (besides my usual ones, of the films being all pre-70s ones that I’ve seen) are:

(a) The singer(s) should be on the boat for at least three-fourths of the song’s duration
(b) All types of boats are allowed—shikaras, rafts, motorboats, ships, anything. Moving or not.

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Lata in Ten Moods

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When I did the Rafi in Ten Moods post a few months back, Stuartnz suggested I also do a Lata Mangeshkar post sometime. It’s taken a good deal of thought, since—like Rafi—Lata also has such a huge corpus of work, it’s impossible for me to pick my ten favourite songs. This, therefore, is the easy way out. It’s a list of ten songs in ten different moods. Not Lata’s ten best songs, but ten songs that showcase her voice, in every emotion from joy and playfulness to heartbreak and deep sorrow. These are all from pre-70’s films that I’ve seen (Pakeezah is the exception, but I never count that as a 70’s film—for me that’s very 60’s).

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