Tuesday, December 15, 2015

जलते दिये

Nice love song that has in it some irony: The girl wishes that she is with her lover; but, the boy seems to disagree. (As of this blog post, I have not seen the movie).

The lyricist has used the lamp's light metaphor to describe the female's love; the male uses the same metaphor to point out that the flames of a lamp can also burn, create stains, ...

Beautifully woven lyrics.


Monday, December 07, 2015

गेरुआ

This song portrays love with several metaphors, some of which are highlighted below:
  1. "... wherever we met, time stood still." Time stood still is a sensation many poets have written about; the particular manner Deepak Chopra describes this feeling regarding love comes to mind.
  2. "Forgetting the [rest of the] world, I have met you. This wish has come forth of my heart ... that you give me — i.e., my life — the gerua color ...". Color is how many people describe liveliness, equating colorlessness with lack of life.
  3. "... I am the caravan, you are the destination to which every path leads." Bollywood lyricists equate the state of love to a desirable destination including, of course, the ultimate destination of reaching God.
Nice music, invites repeated listening.


Friday, August 07, 2015

Friday, May 29, 2015

कैसी पहेली ज़िन्दगानी

When you watch Aratrika Dey present this song on Sa Re Ga Ma Pa North America 2015 to become the winner, one of the thoughts you would get is to find out about the original track.

The original is a song sung by Sunidhi Chauhan, and pictured on Rekha, in the movie Parineeta. (Hyperlink for the original is with the button below).

For a teenager, Aratrika does an excellent job of presenting the song, very reminiscent of the original.

Bollywood certainly has a style of presenting life's philosophies in unexpected places: in a night club, in this case.

Sunday, March 01, 2015

ಕೃಷ್ಣನಾ ಕೊಳಲಿನಾ ಕರೆ

The mesmerizing sound of Lord Krishna's flute is described through the act of a housewife running towards the source of sound, abandoning the all-important house work ... That the raga ♫भैरवी, or ♫ಸಿಂಧು ಭೈರವಿ, has been chosen to bring out the lyrical essence visualized by the poet, ಪು ತಿ ನ, is noteworthy.

Acknowledgments are due to my dear friend, Alamelu Iyengar, the poet's daughter, for helping me present the correct lyrics. (Disclaimer: If mistakes still exist, you can attribute them to me, the blog post author).

Saturday, January 31, 2015

चिंगारी कोई भड़के, तो सावन उसे बुझाए

When you discover some good characteristic about a matter than you knew previously, there is a certain immense pleasure.

I first heard this song nearly four decades ago. Even though I liked the song, and even hummed it on occasion, I didn't know that it is in Raag Bhairavi; neither did I know it projected a certain sadness by invoking the ideas in proverbs such as the Fox Guarding the Hen house.

There is a Kannada proverb with a similar import: ಬೇಲಿಯೇ ಎದ್ದು ಹೊಲ ಮೇಯ್ದರೆ

Saturday, January 24, 2015

आगे भी जाने न तू, पीछे भी जाने न तू

When you hear an instrumental of this song, as I did tonight, it seems to be more poignant in reaching you. It is true, isn't it, that you don't know what the future holds, and you don't quite know why certain things happened in the past? This song reminds you that all there really is, is the present. The song exhorts that listener "to seize the present to fulfill the wishes'.

A Bollywood version of Carpe diem.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

सुमिरण कर ले मेरे मना

A moving rendering of the Guru Nanak composition by Pt. Jasraj. The Guru exhorts:
"Meditate on the Lord, Oh my mind,
Otherwise, your life will be over without the Lord's name."
The first video (1988) is a concert to present, along with Smt. M S Subbulakshmi, Mahatma Gandhi's favorites. This particular number starts at 10:15 in the video.