Archive for the ‘Ghazal’ Category
- In: Ghazal | Guest posts | Lata NFS | Lata solo | Lata song | NFS | Post by Sadanand Kamath
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
During 1960-70, Lata Mangeshkar had sung some beautiful non-filmy ghazals. Two of these NFS, viz. dahar mein naqsh-e-wafaa and aankh se aankh milaata hai koi have already been covered in the blog. These ghazals were composed by Faiyyaz Shaukat and K Mahavir respectively. In 1969, a LP of her non-filmy ghazals of Mirza Ghalib composed by her brother Pandit Hridaynath Mangeshkar was released.
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Wo jo roothhen to manaana chaahiye
Posted on: April 25, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Most of us are aware that a ghazal is a series of couplets (she’rs), each one being independent of others. In fact each she’r is a poem by itself. So theoretically, she’rs written by different poets (shaayars) can be woven to make it a ghazal. This is easier said than done as there are other parameters to make it a traditional ghazal. Normally, there are five essential aspects of a traditional ghazal. They are
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Aankh se aankh milaata hai koi
Posted on: April 20, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
It is a human nature that most top professionals would think that they are perfect in their professions, be it in the fields of sports or fine arts. Then why do we need coaches, guides, trainers etc ? A few years back, it looked odd to me to know that top seeded professional lawn tennis players have personal coaches. Some of the coaches may not have even played in any of the grand slam tournaments. Even in cricket, some of the teams’ coaches have not been top cricketers in their own national team. Now I know of two maxims in professional sportsman-coach relationship. First, all top players need not be perfect and coaches of these top players need not be top sportsmen in their fields. Second, the best coaches have the wherewithal to extract from the top professionals something more than the perfect which makes a vast difference in closely fought competition. This led me to think why not have a system of coaches (in Indian musical parlance, ‘guru’) for professional singers as well?
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Traditionally, ghazals are supposed to be rendered in a soft voice and in a slow tempo to make the listeners understand the deep meaning behind each words. Ghazals rendered in an appropriate mood can awaken emotional feelings even in a stone-hearted person. Perhaps it was in these context that ghazals were sung in thumri style in the early 20th century, creating a melancholic mood and offering the opportunity for singers to emphasise on some specific words in the ghazals which were important in understanding the meaning in the ghazals. Singers like Begum Akhtar, Kamala Jharia, Master Madan, K C Dey, K L Saigal etc sang ghazals mostly in thumri style.
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Chaand tanha hai aasmaan tanha
Posted on: March 31, 2013
- In: "chaand" song | Ghazal | Guest posts | Meena Kumari NFS | NFS | Post by Sudhir
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This article is written by Sudhir, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
A remembrance of today that must include her own expressions. Mahajabeen was an emotional personality, and as with all emotional people, there is an expression of the artist in ways more than one. A poetess in her own right, she is known to have been writing couplets and ghazals from a very young age. And when her life started on downhill glide, it was the drink that became a faithful companion, and it was her pen that became an outlet for her to tell the world, about her sorrows and her wounds.
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Udaasiyon mein nazar kho gayi
Posted on: March 29, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
Majrooh Sulatanpuri’s filmy career as a lyricist started with ‘Shah Jehan’ (1946) under the music direction of Naushad. In the same year, he also wrote lyrics for ‘Keemat’ (1946) for which Naushad was the music director. It was only after the success of ‘Andaz’ (1949) that Majrooh Sultanpuri got his foothold in Hindi film industry. Unfortunately, this success was short lived as he was arrested in 1949 for his anti-establishment poems. He was given an option of either to apologise or face two years of prison. He opted for the later. At the time of his arrest, he was writing lyrics for the film ‘Aarzoo’ (1950) and it was his first collaboration with the music director Anil Biswas. This film also became a hit and all the songs including the iconic song ae dil mujhe aisi jagah le chal became very popular.
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Jis raat ke khwaab aaye
Posted on: March 19, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular cotributor to this blog.
The name of Habba Khatoon, the Kashmiri poetess may not be familiar to many people. This name became familiar to me only sometime in 1987 when Muzzafar Ali ( of Umrao Jaan fame) announced his plan to make a film on the life of Habba Khatoon. Dimple Kapadia was taken for the title role with Vinod Khanna in the role of the first husband of Habba Khatoon. The title of the film was changed to ‘Zooni’, Habba Khatoon’s maiden name. The lyrics were to be written by Shahryar and Khayyam was to give the music direction. Muzzafar Ali believed that Zooni’s life was the powerful vehicle to project the real Kashmir. After nearly 20 months of shooting in Kashmir, the film was shelved in 1989 probably due to the rise of militancy in the Kashmir valley. I got my hand on a small video clip of the film on YT uploaded by Basheer Ali who was the Director of Photography for the film. From the content of the clip which also has a part of the song ‘rukh-e-dildaar deedam daras ko aaye preetam’ picturised on Dimple Kapadia, it appears that it was made as a part of marketing the film for international audience. The video clip is here.
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Dil e naadaan tujhe huaa kyaa hai
Posted on: March 18, 2013
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
In recent years, there has been a trend in Hindi film industry to make sequels of the box office hit films. Sequel films are said to be comparatively risk free as the success formula has already been tested. The earliest sequel film that I spotted on the internet was ‘Hunterwali Ki Beti’ (1943) which was supposed to be a follow-up of ‘Hunterwali’ (1935). I doubt whether the maker (Wadia brothers) of these two films ever thought in terms of a sequel but the story of the later film seems to be a follow up of the first film. Fearless Nadia (real name Marry Ann Evans) the first stunt heroine in the Indian film industry, John Cawas and Bhoman Shroff were part of the cast in both these films which were box office hits.
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Dahar mein naqsh e wafaa
Posted on: March 7, 2013
- In: Ghazal | Guest posts | Lata NFS | Lata solo | Lata song | NFS | Post by Sadanand Kamath
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath,a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
The year was 1947. Dilip Kumar, Anil Biswas and Lata Mangeshkar were travelling in a suburban local train to Malad where Filmistan Studio was located. During the journey, Anil Biswas introduced Lata Mangeshkar as a Maharashtrian girl who would be the singing star of tomorrow. Those days most of the Hindi film songs used to have more Urdu words than Hindi. Dilip Kumar retorted sarcastically. ‘A Maharashtrian? Her Urdu would not do justice to the song. My ears would tingle in shame’. These words stung Lata Mangeshkar so much that in the following morning, she started learning Urdu from an Urdu tutor just to prove Dilip Kumar wrong. This incident was revealed by Lata Mangeshkar in a private function at Dilip Kumar’s residence some time in 1970. Dilip Kumar in his characteristic style, replied that Lata Mangeshkar’s pronunciations and diction both in Hindi and Urdu are so clear and correct that now his ears tingle in shame for those remarks he made in 1947.
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This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a regular contributor to this blog.
A few months back, I came across a non-filmy ghazal ‘asser-e-gham ka bhalaa phir kahaan thikaanaa thhaa’ sung by Kamla Jharia, a classical singer of dadra, thumri, ghazals and devotional songs. She was also an actor-singer and a playback singer mainly in 30s and 40s. I loved this ghazal so much that in token of my appreciation, I decided to write an article on this ghazal for which I was collecting background information on it. During this period, I came across another audio clip of the same ghazal on YT, sung by her. But this time, it was accredited to a Hindi film ‘Struggle’ (1936). So I put my plan to write an article on hold until I solved the puzzle of this ghazal being labelled both as non-filmy as well as a filmy ghazal.
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