Tag Archives: Safar

Lata Mangeshkar: Ten Solos, Ten Composers – Part 3

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When I posted a Lata Mangeshkar tribute to mark the passing of the singer, I had thought I’d just focus on ten songs with ten different composers; but that, as it turned out, wasn’t enough. There were too many composers, too many good songs, that fell by the wayside in compiling that first post. So I ended up compiling a second, follow-up post, with ten other composers. In the process, I wound up with more songs, more composers than could fit in that second post.

Here, then, is a third list of solos sung by Lata Mangeshkar: ten songs, ten different composers. Of course, none of these composers feature in my two earlier lists. Also, these songs do not overlap with the ones on my very first ‘Lata in Ten Moods’ song list. As always, these songs are all from pre-1970s Hindi films that I’ve watched.

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Ten of my favourite ‘recording studio’ songs

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A former reader of my blog—who left in the wake of much rancour—had, as a parting shot, told me that she had got a good laugh out of seeing the completely idiotic themes I thought up for song lists. I know she won’t be reading this, but I thought of her when compiling this list.

Not that I think this theme is idiotic (or that any of the other themes I gave chosen so far are, for that matter), but that it’s an unusual theme. The point is, I see a situation or hear a word or a phrase in a song, and I realize that this is not the only song I’ve seen this in or heard this in. It rings a bell, and I remember all those other songs that have been (for example) picturized in a similar setting.

For example, a recording studio. Considering there are accomplished singers in just about every Hindi film (barring the very occasional songless film like Kanoon or Ittefaq), it’s not utterly surprising to find at least some of those people not merely singing at parties or while dancing in gardens: some of them are accomplished enough to be able to sing professionally. In recording studios, on radio, for albums, and so on.

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Ten of my favourite Aankhen songs

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Not nayan, not naina, not chakshu or any other Hindustani/Hindi/Sanskrit word for eyes, but aankhen.

This post, though the immediate spur for it was Anu’s delightful list of zulfein songs, has been in the pipeline for the past several years, since a fellow writer first asked her friends (of whom I’m one) on Facebook for all the songs we could think of that were about eyes. I came up with so many that it occurred to me then that I could do a post about them. That idea stayed on the backburner for a while, but when Anu’s zulfein songs post appeared, I thought, “I have to do that one on aankhen.”

Because, just as hair are praised, so are eyes. And unlike hair—inanimate, more often than not, and compared perhaps only to the dark velvet of the night, or the spreading black of a storm cloud—eyes have a life of their own. They convey infinitely more than hair ever can, from love to fear to hatred: they cannot disguise the soul, the emotions.

Beautiful eyes - Shakila in 'Mast aankhen hain ke paimaane do' from Nakli Nawab

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On Rajesh Khanna and the Ephemerality of Life

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I saw very few films till I was about ten years old. Till then, my father had been posted in small towns that had rather dreadful cinema halls. Then, in late 1982, we acquired a TV. And suddenly, though there wasn’t a spate of films to see (Doordarshan’s Sunday 5:45 PM film was the highlight of our week), there were some films to see. And, thankfully, I was old enough to understand what was happening onscreen.

One of my earliest recollections of that period is of watching Anand. For me—exposed till then to the usual Hindi film, where the hero always had a love interest, and where there were few (and mostly pretty melodramatic) moments of tragedy—Anand was different.
There was never any doubt that Rajesh Khanna’s character was the hero. He was ebullient, full of life, charming, friendly, yet (in those moments of solitude) sensitive. I kept waiting for a heroine to pop up.

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