Tag Archives: Shaadi

Moon Songs, Part 2: Adjectives for the Moon

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When, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing, I posted my list of songs addressed to the moon, I ended with a caveat: that was not the only post. There would be more. Because the moon is so popular a motif in Hindi film song lyrics, it’s not surprising that it is dragged into songs about the night (which, of course, is almost synonymous with romance); about the beloved (whose beauty is compared to that of the moon); and even about someone much-loved, not necessarily a love interest.

But there are also plenty of songs which are about the moon. Yellow, lost, crazed with love, wan, lonely: the metaphors applied to the moon are a dime a dozen.

Therefore, this list: ten songs that contain an adjective for the moon. Besides my usual restriction—that the song should be from a pre-1970s Hindi film that I’ve seen—I’ve imposed one more restriction: that the adjective for the moon must occur in the first two lines of the song.

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Ten of my favourite ‘Jaa’ songs

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Or, to be rather more lucid, songs that begin with the word ‘Jaa’ (‘go’).

This post sprang out of my post on ‘Aaja’ songs.  Fellow blogger and friend Ava suggested that I might want to do a post on ‘Jaajaa’ or ‘Jaao’ songs, and that started me thinking: is jaajaa a word, just the way aaja is? Or is it jaa jaa (repeated for emphasis?), and so the core word is actually only jaa? A little online discussion took place between me, Neeru and Milind, and we came to the conclusion that jaa jaa is probably poetic license, a word repeated in order to fit the beat. Which I tend to agree with.

So, the word here is jaa. And these ten songs all begin with ‘jaa’ (and I’m being strict about this; no variations, like jaaiye or jaao). What or who is being sent away differs, but the crux of the matter remains: go. Go away. All these songs, as always, are from pre-70s films that I’ve seen. And they’re in no particular order.

Jaa songs

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Shaadi (1962)

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Shaadi isn’t one of the better films I’ve seen in recent times. In fact, it had some definitely irritating moments, and it called for more suspension of disbelief than is generally expected in Hindi films. On the other hand, it had quite a cast: Saira Banu, Manoj Kumar, Dharmendra, Indrani Mukherjee, Balraj Sahni, Om Prakash, Manorama, and others. Even more interestingly, it was Saira Banu’s second film and one of Dharmendra’s first few films. Overall bearable, especially since I didn’t have anything better to do.

Saira Banu in Shaadi

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