Jaane kahan gaye voh din!

Re: # 73

ranjit - You are more than welcome to appreciate the vocals that I would not even go near. That`s what happens when good poetry is sung by someone you are not very fond of. By the way, who is HR? I do not listen to indian singers or pre-partition singers. So, I guess I never developed the taste. But it seems that HR is a character from Lord of the Rings :) May I please suggest that you keep him in your back pocket...No need to let him out.

I do not want to disrupt the romance and nostalgia in the air, but I have to express my dislike for Nur Jehan`s voice. I could never stand a single song sung by her. I do not even remember if I ever listened to one complete song by her. I would rather listen to the horrible voice of Mukesh...I am sorry that`s a bad example. Mukesh was even worse. ugh.
Lata was far more tolerable. Aasha B has some spark in her voice.

DM and kaal,

1. Meera opposed rituals and emphasized love (you may call it devotion). Nizamuddin, Khusro etc. did something similar.... don`t you think?

2. kaal you make a very subtle point. Let me go ahead and make a very heroic statement - for the unwashed masses in the sub-continent, Islam was NOT PERFECTLY true by and of itself. Perfection is being imposed by a subsect which has gained new followers - the chattering class or what I call Pakistani aunties. Mr. Bin Laden`s chamchas from the West were amazed at the `rituals` followed by the Afghans and desis. What appaled them further was that these rituals were tolerated in the camps. Furthermore, Mr. BL did not discourage such rituals .... as long as the `ritual` of jehad reigned supreme.

DM

True, debate and criticism (shastrarth) of all traditions WAS the Indian tradition, in which every heretic pretty soon became a hero or heroine to some groups of people (until Europe-educated Gandhi and Nehru decided to freeze the Indian mind with their silly insistence that every idea must be respected no matter how illogical and unacceptable it may be).

kaal#68:

I think that what GT meant was the tradition of speaking up against false rituals and superstitions which is a time-honoured tradition in India - from Buddha to Nanak and continues to the present day. Kabir was part of that tradition although I am not so sure about Mira Bai being in the same mould. She was more into devotion than religious reform.

GT

I think the Indic view has always been that while religions can be false, or take false steps, there can never be one perfectly true, and certainly not the sole true religion. Any `religion` that made such a claim is, by Indian definition, a patently false religion.

You would, therefore, be hard put to find anybody in long years of Indian traditions ever making such an exclusivist claim.

If DM Sahib disagrees, we could surely listen.

GT:

Khusrau was perhaps the first Hindi poet, though he was equally good at Persian poetry. His poetry is a classic combination which can be considered as both folk and mystic, for example, his classic ``babul mora neehar chhuto hi jaaye``. BTW I sometimes wonder if the beautiful song ``chhaap tilak sab chheeni re`` was meant to wean Hindus were from ``false religion``.

Re: # 61

DM:

You may very well be right. The tradition of weaning people away from the `false religion` always existed and still does in India, even within the Indic religions. Think Mira Bai here for example. According to me, and I know nothing about this aspect, Khusro`s genious (he was supposed to be very arrogant you know) lay in a very intuitive undertanding of the spiritual desires of the common people. Through this, he also understood pathways for reform. At that time there was very little of today`s Hinduism or Islam.

HN#52:

Gulzaar is indeed in a class by himself. Unfortunately, I am not as familiar with his work as of others but he does come across as a master of free-verse, such as ``mera kuchh samaan vapas kar do`` or Rudali`s hauntingly beautiful song, ``dil hoon hoon karay``.

But I would disagree that the Urdu poetry`s only growth ``was in the leftist/socialist/humanistic political poetry``. The only thing the Urdu poets sacrificed for films was their persian vocabulary. And romance oozes through many of their creations. Almost every ghazal sung by Talat Mehmood was rich in romance and/or philosophy. Listen for example, to Rajendar Krishan`s ``yeh hawa yeh raat yeh chaandni teri ik ada pe nisaar hai`` in Sangdil or his ``Yoon hasraton ke daagh mohabbat mein dho liye`` or Sahir`s ``kabhi kabhi meray dil mein khyal aata hai``. Even Hindi poets like Bharat Vyas and Shailander have produced wonderful romantic songs like:

sur aadha hi shyam ne saadha
raha radha ka pyaar bhi aadha
aadhe chhalke nayan, aadhe dhalke nayan
rahi man mein milan ki voh baat aadhi

Or this one from Shailendra:

chori chori aa kay piya baithna sirhane
jaan ke main chup rahungi neend ke bahaane
mujhe chhed ke jagaana re sajna
meray sapnon mein aana re sajna.

I could go on and on..

Jane Kahan Gaye Wo...

``This is a personal take, but perhaps worth pondering over. Urdu poetry got stuck in romantic phase for so long that it got pickled in it. Its only organic growth after that was in the leftist/socialist/humanistic political poetry. I am here of course speaking of only popular culture.``
HN,
Urdu is a language that resists corruption; in this sense it is different from Hindi /English. It requires non trivial education to speak write it correctly;which is probably not different from any other language.But urduwallahs will resist any attempt of cockney Urdu to be included in the literary canon..more vehemently than say,Hindiwallahs.What this does is that it effectively precludes a social class from participating in the literary canon. Even the leftist poetry in Urdu has a romantic /elitist slant to it. Its not ``zameen kii kavita`` a la Nagarjun or Trilochan.

#52 HN

[…moved to Bollywood enriched Hindi lyrics at the cost of Urdu poetry]

The implication that poetry – when it gets adapted into a movie song becomes less of poetry is truly mind-boggling.

Write the stuff in Deonagri.

Write the same stuff in the wiggly script.

What’s the difference?! It sounds the same and it feels the same.

BTW, I was concerned that those ``Nagas`` got to you before you could get to ``complete`` their ``story``.

So, when are you going to start EARNING your “featured writer” status again?

DM,Warrier et all,

It is great to read this article for its nostalgia, above all else. Somewhere there was a mention of Gulzar, who I think was the last of the Mohicans in terms of the great migration of Urdu poets to Bollywood in the forties/fifties.

Also, while Sahir, Majrooh, Kaifi, Shakeel and Hasrat have got their due, I personally think Gulzar is often erroneously considered a lightweight. My personal take is that while the entire horde of Urdu poets who moved to Bollywood enriched Hindi lyrics at the cost of Urdu poetry, Gulzar alone has outlived them, literally and figuratively.

His being alive and kicking is perhaps out of tune with nostalgic eulogy. But, strictly from a poetic sensibility, I think Gulzar is the most modern, most “grown” lyricist in Hindi films straddling at least two distinct eras of Hindi music.

This is a personal take, but perhaps worth pondering over. Urdu poetry got stuck in romantic phase for so long that it got pickled in it. Its only organic growth after that was in the leftist/socialist/humanistic political poetry. I am here of course speaking of only popular culture.

Gulzar has singlehandedly scraped political paint off Urdu poetry and actually gone on and done things with the language that is still very unpalatable to the purists. The man who started out with mera gora ang laile has also penned hits that can never be connected to him. Think of Goli maar bheje mein in Satya, And yet, in Dil Se he came out with that most brilliant line….jis ki zubaan Urdu ki tarah.

He also used his poetry for unromantic/anti-romantic lyrics like dil vil pyaar vyaar mein kya janoon re…and…tujhe ho na ho mujh ko to itnaa yakeeN hai….mujhe pyaar tumse nahi hai nahi hai…. His romantic poetry is a rich vein of Hindi lyrics through out his career. But those haunting Yaara silli sili…an occasional Beedi Jalaai le jigar se piya…and then that sensuousness of …. Ek so solah chand ki rateiN aur tumhare kaanDhe ka til….and Raah pe rehteiN haiN, yaadoN mein basar kar teiN hai…it takes a lot of maturity to fill out the sheer emptiness of a truck driver….

As regards his lyrics beating the easy metric rhyming scheme…again I think it is what underlines the man’s changing…and growing as a lyricist/poet. I remember reading how R D Burman, a duh with Urdu…and perhaps not really a great Hindi scholar either…saying to Gulzar that he cut the articles of Times of India into some sort of lines…and asked him to put it to tune. That RD’s genius combined with Gulzar’s so well and is now lost….is something Hindi films will always miss. Vishal Bharadwaj is of course a promising talent with the same sensibility.

And let’s not even attempt to put Javed Akhtar in the same bracket as Gulzar…please. Not that anyone has done it so far…but this is just a preemptive statement to cease and desist.


HN

Re:swarrier#50

Speaking of Raag Shivranjani, the Kishore song ``Mere Naina Sawan Bhado`` is also in Shivranjani. Awesome raag!!

Re: # 51
Ranjit
That is a lovely song. Shivranjani seemed to be a particular favourite of Shankar Jaikishen. Another one I like is from the film Professor, ``Awaaz de ke , humen tum bulao, mohabbat me itna.....
A couple of my favourites are by Lata , ``Khabar mori na leeni, bahut din beete`` LP and Bharat Vyas joining up in Sant Gyaneshwar, and ``Agar tum ho saagar , main pyaasi nadi hoon``, Jaidev and Naqsh Lyallpuri in Tumhare Liye.

Bahadur Shah Zafar`s ``Na kisi ki aankh , ka noor hoon`` in Lal Qila too.

ZahraJ#46:

This is not among my most favourite songs but it served as an appropriate title for this article as it conveyed its messge very well.

As to why we like melancholy music, ahmedmadani has given a good answer. For a musical answer, go to the following website and click on ``hain sab se madhur voh geet``:

http://www.dishant.com/album/Legend_-_Talat_Mahmood_-_The_Silken_Voice.html