Archive for the ‘Hariharan-K S Chitra duet’ Category
This article is written by Sadanand Kamath, a fellow enthusiast of Hindi movie music and a contributor to this blog. This article is meant to be posted in atulsongaday.me. If this article appears in other sites without the knowledge and consent of the web administrator of atulsongaday.me, then it is piracy of the copyright content of atulsongaday.me and is a punishable offence under the existing laws.
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‘Swaami’ (2007) was produced and directed by the well-known choreographer, Ganesh Acharya. Juhi Chawla and Manoj Bajpayee were in the lead roles supported by the debutant Maninder Singh, Neha Pendse, Vijay Kashyap, Vivek Shauq, Manmeet Singh, Ashok Beniwal, Aryan Thakkar etc. Amitabh Bachchan was the narrator. The film is a subtle love story of a middle-class married couple who live in harmony in a house in rural setting. The film has some scenes of melodrama, not of tear-jerker type, during the second half.
The unique thing about this film and probably the first time in the history of Indian cinema was that entire soundtrack including the background score was recorded before the commencement of the film’s shooting. The film was shot on the background music like a song. (Source: Interviews of the film’s music director duo, Nitin Arora-Sony Chandy in ‘Bollyspice’, March 15, 2015).
The gist of the story of the film is as under:
Swami (Manoj Bajpayee), a Maharashtrian brahmin is an accountant in a jewellery shop who happily lives in a village in Maharashtra with his Tamil speaking brahmin wife, Radha (Juhi Chawla). They live in a perfect harmony. After 10 years of their marriage, a baby boy is born. Like any other middle-class family, Radha is keen to give her son a better educational facility. They sell their house in the village and shift to Mumbai after Swami finds a job at a jewellery shop. They get the son enrolled in a good school. From his childhood, Swami has a liking for having a rocking chair in his house but because of its prohibitive cost, it has remained as his unfulfilled desire.
Radha often falls ill and the doctor has diagnosed her illness as kidney ailments. He has recommended surgery which requires money. Swami works overtime and manages to save the money for the surgery. However, one day, he sees a rocking chair in his house which Radha has bought from the money he had saved for her surgery. First, he gets annoyed with Radha but realises that she had purchased the rocking chair out of love for him. So, he had to do some more hard work to save the money for the surgery. However, before Swami could manage money, Radha seriously falls ill and passes away.
Before her death, Radha has taken a promise from Swami that he would give their son a good education so that he can aspire to go to the USA and eventually settle down there. Swami fulfils the last wish of Radha. The son, Anand (Maninder Singh) completes his higher education and joins a multinational bank. Anand has liked a girl, Pooja (Neha Pendse) and he intends to marry her. Anand takes this matter to Swami who gives his assent to the marriage as he himself had a love marriage with Radha. In due course of time, Anand and Pooja are blessed with a baby boy.
While running around in the house, the boy accidentally falls on Swami’s rocking chair injuring his head. In a spur of the moment, Pooja gets annoyed at Swami for his rocking chair and after few days, she disposes of the chair to a second-hand shop. When Swami does not find his chair, he gets upset but does not apparently show it on Anand and Pooja. When things have cooled down, Pooja feels bad about disposing off the chair and goes to retrieve the same but returns empty-handed. Since Swami was emotionally attached to the rocking chair, he feels restless.
Anand gets opportunity to visit the USA. However, he is reluctant to go leaving his father alone. Swami convinces his son that it was his mother’s last wish to see him settled in the USA and he has already made arrangement for his stay at an Old Age Home. The film ends with Swami bidding a goodbye to his son, daughter-in-law and grandson. He enters his room at an Old Age Home and is surprised to see his rocking chair. He hugs the chair for, he has lot of emotional attachment with Radha through this chair which is the only memento left in his lonely life.
The film flopped badly at the box office. Probably, for the audience, the story of the film was out of tune with the 21st century audience. For the front row audience, the usual ingredients for them in the film was absent.
For me, it was a pleasant surprise that the ace choreographer, Ganesh Acharya selected a sensitive subject for his directorial debut. His handling of direction can be comparable to any middle-of-the-road-cinemas. Both Manoj Bajpayee and Juhi Chawla have given the excellent performances. The director has admirably handled some delicate moments in the film like the death scene of Radha and also at the end of the film when Swami sees his rocking chair in his room in Old Age Home. No one would imagine that an ace choreographer, Ganesh Acharya would refrain from having any dance sequence in the film. He had opportunity to add an item number of song with the well choreograph dances in the film on the occasion of Ganapati immersion. Instead, he has left to the crowd to dance in their natural way as often happens during Ganapati immersion.
The only drawback if one would like to call it as such with this film is that all the characters in the films are too good to each other which seldom happens in the real world.
As I mentioned earlier, the film has more than a dozen snippets of songs, all written by Sameer and set to music by the debutant, Nitin Arora-Sony Chandy pair of music director. All the snippets are sung by K S Chitra and Hariharan, mostly as duets.
I am presenting the first song, ‘rishton ki khushboo sadiyon ka chandan’ from the film to appear on the Blog. The song is rendered by K S Chitra and Hariharan. This is the opening song of the film which starts with the two verses of Shri Venkatesh Suprabhatam, followed by some dialogues between Swami and Radha and thereafter the mukhada and an antara. This is the only part of the song which is lip synced on Manoj Bajpayee and Juhi Chawla. Other snippets of this song are played in the background at least a dozen times, in the film, alternating between mukhda and different/repeat antaras.
The official audio clip of the song has two antaras. I have made the video of the songs joining at least two snippets with different antaras to make it the song of three antaras. There are two more short antaras in the film played at different times.
I have noted from various online sources that there is no uniformity as to how to present the Sanskrit verses of Shri Venkatesh Suprabhatam in English. So, for the opening verses, I have relied on the book on Shri Venkatesh Suprabhatam published by Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam. The English translation of the opening verses given in the book is as under:
The precious child of the noble Kausalya, it is twilight in the east. Wake up, Rama, the best among men. You should perform your morning rituals. Get up Govinda, get up, the lord of the eagle banner. Get up, the spouse of Lakshmi. Bestow the auspicious on all the three worlds.
I heard this song and watched the video clip for the first time only recently and was surprised that such a melodious song has remained on the backburner.
Video Clip:
Audio Clip:
Song-Rishton ki khushboo sadiyon ka chandan (Swaami)(2007) Singers-K S Chitra, Hariharan, Lyrics-Sameer, Nitin Arora-Sony Chandy
Both
Lyrics (Based on video clip)
kausalya supraja rama poorwa sandhya pravartate
uthishta nara sardoola karthavyam daivam anhikam
utishthottistha govinda uthisht garuddhwaja
uttistha kamalakaanta trailokyam mangalam kuru
rishton ki khushboo sadiyon ka chandan
jeewan to hai saanson ka bandhan
tode se toote nahin een
chhode se chhoote nahin
rishton ki khushboo sadiyon ka chandan
jeewan to hai saanson ka bandhan
tode se toote nahin Raadhe
chhode se chhoote nahin Raadhe
Chandan
Chandan
Chandan
swaami….
mere swaami
mere swaami
mere swaami
jaise diya sang jalti hai baati
jaise hawa laaye saawan ki paati ee ee
tera mera aisa milna….
lenge hazaaron hazaaron janam
par na juda na juda honge hum
khushiyaan miley yaa miley laakh gham
ab preet ki pyaas hogi na kam
humne yahi mil ke li hai kasam
humne yahi mil ke li hai kasam
li hai kasam
ek doosre se alag hoke bhi
ek doosre mein samaaye rahen
aankhon ki jhapki khuli putliyaan
palkon mein soorat bithhaaye rahen
donon jaahan ko bhulaaye rahen
donon jahaan ko bhulaaye rahen
bhulaaye rahen
Atul’s Song A Day- A choice collection of Hindi Film & Non-Film Songs 
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