A Journey....


Ours is filmy family :), We basically eat/drink/sleep on Bollywood movies/music, and it is not just our generation. Both my grandparents were avid movie lovers, So are my parents and Uncles and Aunts.
I have heard from my dad that during his days, he would bike for 40kms just to watch the movie, there are so many stories associated with him and his brothers/cousins. One of the incidents which I remember is during my time as an expat in then Bangalore, he visited me. I would go to the office early in the morning and come very late. I was feeling guilty because of it, As I had the opportunity to be with him after 10 years or so for this extended period and I was not able to give him time. So one day I casually asked him about his routine, what surprised me was the answer. He said I go to a movie in the afternoon in the nearby theater. The reason for surprise was not that he went for movies, but in fact, there was no Hindi movie theater nearby. He would go and watch Kannada, Telugu or Tamil movies which he does not understands a word. When asked more he said the language is not a barrier to watch a movie, you can understand the movie by expressions and action.
So if you see me being a crazy fan, you can possibly understand it now.

Music for that matter does not need any language, but excellent lyrics attached to music can enhance the experience. It directly connects to your soul. So if a musician gets inspired and creates a beautiful number, the lyricist ends up creating the connection with you. And for the most part, people actually prefer the lyrics over the nuances of music attached with a song (as long as the base music is rhythmic).

So for the elders in my family, I thought of writing this piece on the music of 50's and 60's.  The first song which comes to my mind is the one I already talked about earlier with inspiration derived from Mozarts symphony.

Then comes the song whose inspiration was introduced to me by a good friend of mine Karthik who is also a crazy fan and manages the webpage on plagiarism in Bollywood song. He did a lot of digging around and was successful to trace the roots. It is a very interesting story on his part, on how he was able to achieve it. You can actually read all about this on his page.  Since the song has Polish roots, the information came from a polish girl who was his friend's sister in law. And the original was part of their Wedding Video. So as they say where there is will..there is a way. 

 Enough of build up, the original is  Szla dzieweczka do gajeczka . I don't even dare to pronounce it. Neeta Ben, I am sure you can. The song is about 200 years old is a folk song. The link I have put is a little modern version. But I am sure after listening to this you can very well guess which Indian classic song was inspired by it. Yes, you guessed it right, it was Salil Chowdhury composed, penned by Shailendra and sung by Lata and Mukesh from the 1958 Classic Madhumati Dil Tadap Tadap Ke Keh Raha

 Law of Balances works perfect, this classic song was inspired and this classic movie was an inspiration to a lot of movies built on the similar theme of reincarnation. Madhumati was the first and then came rest.

Another song which I want to mention is very close to my heart is from 1961 classic Jhumroo, We were out camping by Crater Lake back in the summer of 2002 and we had our boombox with us, At night time while campfire, because of the serenity of the place, Samir one of my friend put this number on. Samir loves songs from likes of Talat and Saigal, so it was not surprising to see him putting this song. The song just started to playing and our neighbors in the next tent, a couple in the mid 50's. Linda and Matt swung by and said, So you guys like Domani. Well everyone else was clueless but I knew what they were talking about based on my past experiences. So I got more inquisitive and started asking questions. It was from them I got the piece of information on Julius La Rosa. A former Navy and vocalist with close ties to Arthur Godfrey. Julius after his separation from Godfrey was still successful and ended up creating Domani which was # 1 on charts. This was in 1955. Kishore Kumar composed (sigh copied) and sung this song Thandi Hawa Yeh Chandni Suhani which had an excellent lyrics by Majrooh to create an Indian wonder which was not as popular back then, but more so in Revival series.

So without my family, friends and some luck, I would have never been able to find these gems. More to be continued.






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