When Peter Drucker wrote in 1986 that the world economy is not changing, it has already changed, “We are living in a changed world” became a fashionable jargon. His assertion was open to question, but Corona has changed the world in a very fundamental way. Someone said that in the human history whenever mankind faced a major crisis, it came together to save itself, but today is a crisis when we have to stay apart to save the world. We are into Lockdown 3.0; even after it is lifted, would it be really back to the normal? It is already being said that we have to brace for a ‘New Normal’, and we can feel it within ourselves. Would I feel confident in going to my neighbourhood salon for a haircut? We always knew that there was a risk of infection, but didn’t give much thought to it. Or to a mall, a restaurant, a multiplex, or a wedding reception indoors?
Miscellaneous
Nayika Bhed in songs
Commemorating International Women’s Day (March 8) and wishing everyone a very Happy Holi
The erudite readers of the SoY will be surprised to see a post on Nayika Bhed on the International Women’s Day (March 8), which commemorates the movement for women’s rights relating to equality etc. If you look at Nayika Bhed from the prism of a modern woman, it objectifies women and categorises them on the basis of their physical attributes, conduct, and their state (अवस्था) of union/ separation/relationship with their lover/husband – the very antithesis of what the IWD stands for. I have no explanations or excuses to offer except that long ago a silent US-based reader Anant Desai, out of the blue, wrote a mail to me on Nayika Bhed and also gave a list of songs befitting each type. From time to time Shalan Lal also chipped in with her mails to me on the subject. Sometime back Vidur Sury, a known lover of vintage songs, wrote to me that he was trying his hand at writing poetry in Brajbhasha, and sent me some in the style of Ritikaleen poets (17-19th century) on अभिसारिका नायिका. I don’t know whether he has since written on other types too. And lastly, when Ashwin Bhandarkar had to locate from Pune to Boston on job, he was not excited about his foreign assignment, nor worried about the challenges of relocating there; his primary concern was about a विरहोत्कण्ठिता नायिका he was leaving behind who would pine for him thus in Raga Jaijaiwanti:
Film Songs From Firmament
Guest article by DP Rangan
(DP Rangan is by far the most prolific guest writer on SoY, and among its most senior members. If he is appearing after a long gap, I am partly responsible for it as a couple of his articles have been in my folder for a while. I had already scheduled some articles which most fitted earlier. But Mr Rangan has unbounded energy, and he is always bubbling with new ideas. He can willingly write on command on any topic, even during his travels abroad to meet his family. I have restrained my temptation to palm off some topics to him in deference to his age. But whatever comes from him, I take it happily if it fills a gap in the SoY.
The topic of ‘Atmospheric songs’ has been on Mr Rangan’s ‘firmament’ for quite some time. After consultations back and forth, this is the final product. If you miss his usual heavy research, I am again to blame. But thank you Mr Rangan for your understanding, and I am grateful for this nice article from you. You can see these songs as a cousin of Surrogate Songs about which I wrote a post last month. In the earlier post readers often mixed up surrogate songs with atmospheric songs. This post will clarify that the two are distinct categories. – AK)
With the advent of talkies, films became a hot favourite in Hollywood from 1927 and commanded a huge following of film crazy viewers. India followed suit with the first talkie Alam Ara in 1931 and music became an integral part of our cinema. Songs were of many kinds, i.e., solos by male and female singers, duets – male/female, male/male or female/female and also chorus songs, main singer followed by a multitude of nondescript characters repeating the stanza. The songs were generally lip-synchronized by the actors and the live song scene was part of the film. All these categories of songs were more or less fitted in the films in line with the unravelling of the plot. As instances of conundrum, certain songs did not fit the bill. They seem to float down from an empyrean source and not identifiable with the characters in the scene. It also appeared that they were the most appropriate one for the scene unfolding before the viewing audience.
‘Vandya Vande Mataram’: The story of a Song Perennial
Guest article by N Venkataraman to celebrate 70th Anniversary of the Republic
(During our days of innocence we learnt in the school that ‘Jana Gana Mana Adhinayaka Jaya He’ was our ‘National Anthem’ and ‘Vande Mataram’ was our ‘National Song’, both of equal reverence, and we sung both with equal fervour on special occasions.
When we grew up and became more ‘knowledgeable’, we learnt that both the songs had controversy dogging them right since they were created. ‘Jana Gana Mana’ was said to have been written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1911 in the honour of the British King George V on the occasion of his visit to India, and ‘Vande Mataram’ occurring in Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s 19th century novel, ‘Anandamath’, was said to have religious overtones, which might offend the sensibilities of the minority community.
This controversy carried on right through the sessions of the Indian National Congress and, later, Constituent Assembly debates when question as to the declaration of a National Anthem came up. There were strong voices in favour of ‘Vande Mataram’ – as a matter of fact the Constituent Assembly session on 14 August 1947, which is famous for Nehru’s ‘Tryst with Destiny’ at the midnight, began at 11 pm with singing of this song. However, the hesitation to take a final call continued. Finally, right on the last day, i.e. 24 January 1950, at the time of signing of the copies of the Constitution, the President Rajendra Prasad made a statement that ‘Jana Gana Mana’ shall be the National Anthem and “Vande Mataram, which has played an important part in the struggle for Indian freedom, shall be honoured equally with ‘Jana Gana Mana’ and shall have equal status with it.”
Today we are again at troubled times because of the sectarian fault lines. As the Indian Republic turns 70, we wish all the best for our country and its people. To celebrate the occasion, N Venkataraman writes a scholarly article on the National Song ‘Vande Mataram’. As per the policy of this blog to steer clear of contentious political issues, Venkataramanji has put the focus specially on its rich musical history.
This article has long been in the making. A keen follower and the creator of the mega-series ‘Multiple Version Songs’, Ashok M Vashnav was also contemplating to write on different versions of ‘Vande Mataram’, but happily passed it up when he came to know that Venkataramnji was at it. I am happy that despite his personal difficulties and other commitments, he has been able to complete it on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Republic Day, which happens to be in the 10th year of this blog. Thanks a lot Venkataramanji. – AK)
Let me backtrack to my early childhood days, a nostalgic trip down the memory lane. At the break of the dawn, as the activities of the house started, I would wake up to the Akashwani signature tune followed by VANDE MATARAM on the National Echo radio-set placed on the shelf of our living room (then it was my bedroom too). It took a minute for the vacuum tube valves to start up and the green magic eye to glow. Initially only a crackling sound could be heard before the station came on air. If I remember right it was 6:00 AM, I have no doubt that most of us and many more woke up to a new dawn listening to the Akashvani signature tune and ‘Vande Mataram’. And that was my first acquaintance with this song.
Surrogate Songs
Music and dance became an integral part of our films right from the first talkies, as our sources for initial films were Parsi Theatre, or Marathi Natya Sangeet which had music galore, or Mythologicals in which apsaras entertained in the Devlok. These gradually evolved into usual romantic stories, with a third angle thrown in at times, or villains who put spoke in the wheel. This gave rise to the lead actors expressing love with songs – solos and duets – and songs of despair and separation when the affair went off-track.
Romancing the Route 66
Wishing the readers a very Happy New Year with some nostalgia about Americana
I became aware of the name ‘Route 66’ after I started blogging, but my dream of driving cross-country through small-town America goes back about three decades when I was a graduate student at Yale. As a country boy landed in the big city, I was first dazzled by the physical America – the soaring twin towers of the World Trade Centre, the 300′ high LED screens shining bright whole night at the Times Square, the cavernous supermarkets, acres and acres of open parking lots, and hundreds of miles of seamless expressways. It soon gave way to my admiration for the American values of freedom and individualism. Along the way, I soaked in classic Hollywood, thanks to some very active film societies on the campus. The Westerns, which were not only about cowboys and guns, but how the frontier was opened literally yard by yard, and towns came up where sweet water was discovered, with their Main Street, and saloons with the barmaid of ambiguous morality who would dispense her favours equally to the hero and the outlaw. The B&W road movies in which the rugged hero was thrown in with the runaway pampered daughter of a wealthy baron in a bus, and later in a motel, ending up in romance after the hero had instilled some sense in her; or the girl on the run having stolen the bank’s cash to help her boyfriend tide over his financial difficulties, landing up at a creepy motel in the night which would end in horror in the shower. Roadside motels, simmering neon signs announcing ‘Vacancies’, Diners, Mom and pop stores, Service stations, and on to the road again piercing through vast emptiness ahead as far as your eyes could see.
Ek bangala bane nyara
Having a shelter over one’s head is one of the basic needs of humans. Having one’s own house used to be the lifetime’s dream. It happened only once at the time of retirement when one pooled in all the savings to make this investment. But this meant buying sand, cement, steel, stone-chips, cables, tiles, bathroom, electric fittings, and dealing with masons, carpenters, electricians and plumbers. You supervised in grime and dust, and dealt with cantankerous and recalcitrant workmen. Till a generation back this was how a middle class person got his house made. It was far from the romance of ‘Chhota sa ghar hoga baadalon ki chhaon mein’.
Songs of Yore completes nine years
After about the fifth year, I have been approaching each anniversary of the Songs of Yore with some apprehension whether it has been able to hold the readers’ interest and maintain quality. As I look back on the ninth year completing today, I am quite satisfied, and a great deal of the credit goes to the readers who have continued to participate with high-quality comments. Some readers have taken the trouble of writing guest articles which have significantly enhanced the blog. I owe my heartfelt thanks to all the readers.
Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore: Part 3
Guest article by Shalan Lal (After the earlier two articles covering the 1930s and 1940s, Shalan Lal concludes her three-part thesis on chorus songs with the Golden Decade of the 1950s. As we have come to expect from her, these articles do not merely present the representative songs of the period, but also take usREAD THE FULL ARTICLE
Chorus Songs in the Hindi Films of Yore: Part 2
Guest article by Shalan Lal
(In the first part of her three-part dissertation on chorus songs in the films of yore, Shalan Lal covered the first decade of the 1930s, dominated by three major studios: The New Theatres of Calcutta, Bombay Talkies of Bombay and Prabhat Film Company of Poona. This was published on 2 May 2019. The second part, dealing with the second decade of the 1940s, and chorus songs from this era, gives a good insight into the main trends during this period and style of music. I compliment Shalan Lal on another well-researched article and thank her on behalf of the readers for her painstaking work. Shalan Lal is a UK-based academic. – AK)
Three Decades of Chorus Songs
Introduction and the Second Decade 1941-50
Now into the tuneful forties.
In this section we discuss how the choruses and musical accompaniment in the films already established by the studio-based film companies had been used by the other companies to further the art of songs and chorus songs to their advantage.
The three film companies, New Theatres, Prabhat, and Bombay Talkies, mentioned in the first part of this series, developed internal institutional troubles and towards the end of the forties they were going to be dissolved or go limping to vanish; so more or less individual music directors became independent and allowed themselves to be hired by the film companies and the individual entrepreneurs to do contracted piece-work and free to do work for other companies on contracts. The reason for this was that the studios themselves would go on renting their space and facilities to other companies as well. Music directors would hire outside halls to rehearse their songs. As playback became gradually became the norm, the recording studios would need their studios booked in advanced.