Miscellaneous

Waterfalls in Bollywood

Guest article by DP Rangan (DP Rangan is a man with boundless energy. Even with a late debut on the Songs of Yore, at the rate he is writing he will soon overtake the regular guest writers. After the horse series, he switched to romantic themes of moon and stars. This post on Waterfalls inREAD THE FULL ARTICLE

OP Nayyar’s influence on other Music Directors

Guest article by Ravindra Kelkar

(OP Nayyar was a craze for some years from the mid-50s. Every music director was imitating his style, composing OP-type songs from time to time. If you thought it was simply a bandwagon effect, our OP Nayyar-expert Ravindra Kelkar unravels several factors that were at play. Some did it voluntarily, some under producers’ pressure, and some also with the not so noble intention of cutting OP out – flood the market with OP-clones to drive out the original. According to Mr Kelkar’s fascinating thesis, even redoubtable names like Naushad, C Ramchandra and SD Burman were not untouched by the OP-influence. After his inaugural article on ‘The three distinct phases of OP Nayyar’s career’ and the second article on OP Nayyar-Geeta Dutt songs, Mr Kelkar comes up with another Ace on OP.  Just close your eyes and enjoy these ‘OP’ compositions by several other MDs, with profuse thanks to Mr Kelkar. – AK)

OP NayyarOP’s musical career took off from Aar Paar (1954). A succession of musical hits followed, in the next two years, like, Baap Re Baap (1955), Mr & Mrs 55 (1955), Musafirkhana (1955), Chhoomantar (1956), CID (1956), Hum Sab Chor Hain (1956), and many others. Some of them were big hits, however, most of the movies managed to recover the money invested by the producer, largely due to the lilting music by OP. His music had freshness, liveliness, was infectious, easy to identify with, easy to hum and it was distinctly different from others. He had created his own style. It was easy to guess the identity of the composer as soon as you listened to the intro music of the OP song. Even the title music of the films had an OP stamp. It would be typically breezy and include a clarinet/flute/violins combo piece as well as a sarangi piece. In fact, OP would try to compose the title music in such a way that he would time the clarinet piece or sarangi piece when the title would show “Music Composed by O.P. Nayyar” on the screen. All this created a certain mystique around the name of O.P. Nayyar. Also, OP was easy to work with as long as you paid his price and didn’t interfere with his work, by giving him full freedom in composition, selection of song writers and singers. He didn’t really care about the star cast, story, name of the banner etc.

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Asymmetric Duets

Guest article by Subodh Agrawal

(I have often mentioned that duets, though far less in number than solo songs, present a fascinating variety of music. One variety is on account of the lesser known female singers getting a chance to sing with major playback singers like Rafi and Mukesh, and we are richer for that because we get some absolutely fabulous songs minus the Mangeshkar sisters. The other and, perhaps more interesting, variety is on account of the experimentation the music directors do in composition. On this blog there has been detailed discussion on a number of occasions about the duets in which one singer just hums, or has only a few words or just a couple of lines to sing. I developed a Duet Balance Index for analysing this kind of asymmetry in my post titled ‘Some thoughts on mathematical-taxonomic analysis of Hindi films and songs’. That dealt with what may be called ‘airtime asymmetry’. Another interesting asymmetry is ‘tune asymmetry’.

In this guest article, Subodh Agrawal takes a look at such asymmetric duets. I am sure readers will welcome his taking a break from classical songs. Thank you Subodh for another interesting and ‘different’ article. – AK) –

I am taking a break from classical songs in films to write on this topic, which arose from a discussion on AK’s post on duets of Talat and Asha. Duets are common in Hindi film music. I don’t have the encyclopaedic knowledge of Mr Vaishnav, Mr Bhatia or Mr Venkataraman to do a detailed analysis, but my hunch is that male-female duets would account for about one third of all songs.

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One hundred years of Sarat Chandra’s ‘Devdas’

Devdas_Sarat ChandraSome time back,  there was an interesting discussion between Ashok Kumar Tyagi and Hans about the story of Devdas and as to why Sanjay Leela Bhansali took so much liberties with it. I doubt if they realised that it was the centenary year of the publication of Sarat Chandra’s eponymous novel. Such coincidences have often happened on SoY. When I was planning to celebrate 2014 as the centenary year of Anil Biswas, his daughter Shikha Biswas Vohra happened to visit SoY, and on my request, she wrote the inaugural article of the series on him. Last year, a new visitor RS Ramaswamy visited some old posts and commented about MS Subbulakshmi. It happened to be her centenary year, and N Venkataraman wrote an excellent tribute to her.

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Cycle trails of Bollywood

Guest article by DP Rangan

(It is ironic that while bicycle is being crowded out by scooters, motorcycles and cars in the developing world, it is the developed world where bicycle riding is being promoted in a big way as a means of transport to commute to work or pleasure. A time may come when bicycle may become a distant memory to be savoured from old film songs in India.  Not too long ago, it was the main mode of transport. It also has a fascinating history going back to about three centuries, but, surprising as it may sound, the modern pedal-bicycle evolved later than trains.

After taking us through horses, tongas and steam engine, our indefatigable DP Rangan now logically takes us on a joy-ride of cycle songs. Along the way, he also writes a dissertation on its history. Blog readers have a short attention span, but SoY has a number of readers who would find this part interesting and useful. I must thank Mr Rangan profusely again for his great effort. – AK)

Cycle songI started my first post on a thematic subject – ‘horse’ – because my knowledge of Bollywood in its various aspects is next to nothing. I even admit to some muted feeling of jealousy on my part at the multi-faceted genius of the blog founder AK who can turn out post after post of a bewildering variety with aplomb and rapidity. Theme writing has already been established and I adopted it conveniently to suit my needs. Dinesh K. Jain, a keen and punctilious commentator of the blog made an observation on my first post:

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Songs of Yore completes seven years

Celebrating with some newly discovered gems and a tribute to Master Madan

Songs of Yore Seventh anniversaryWhen I wrote on the sixth anniversary, I had been concerned by Gaddeswarupji’s ominous statistics that many promising blogs start losing steam in the sixth year. Seven years is ripe age for a blog. This is the stage when, I guess, a blogger starts thinking whether he/she is able to keep the readers still interested, or is doing more of the same. I believe SoY has been able to do more of different things. We are getting new readers, we also get to know of many who follow the blog regularly, though they may not be participating. A highlight has been the arrival of two new guest authors: Ravindra Kelkar and Ashwin Bhandarkar. Mr Kelkar had already made a mark as an OP Nayyar-expert. He filled up an important gap in SoY as I could not have given him the profile commensurate with his fan following. Ashwin is a Master with a light touch. Readers can expect many more offerings from them.

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Some unique good good songs

Multiple version songsIf you think there is a glaring mistake in the title of this post, you have to blame Mumbaikar8 for it. She only gave me the idea for this post. Don’t ask me what is her good name, please. If she is not disclosing it, I am also not disclosing it. As you know she is living in the US, but I am living in India only. Therefore, when she is writing mail to me, I am sleeping; and when I am writing to her, she is sleeping. I have reverted back to her many times. But, some things one can talk clear clear only face to face. But, she will be coming to India during vacations only. She cannot prepone her visit for very small small things. However, she suggested some very good good songs for the post. Therefore, I had to do the needful and I am posting it now. The date April 1 is purely coincidental. I hope Mumbaikar8 understands. Little little things often cause big big misunderstandings.

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“Whose father’s what goes?”

Wishing the readers a very Happy Holi with some songs of brazenness

Rang barseOnce a casual acquaintance, but who had a way of showing great familiarity, visited me. He started discussing something very animatedly, every second sentence he would look at me intently and ask, “Whose father’s what goes? Isn’t it?” I didn’t know what to say, because I had never heard this expression before, nor did it make any sense to me grammatically, until I had a flash. If you are still puzzled, try to translate it into Hindi. Of course, he meant: किसी के बाप का क्या जाता है?, or KKBKKJH. There are times when nothing but WFWG can convey what you want to say.

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Hundreds of shades of Pyaar

Wishing the readers a very happy Valentine’s Day with guest article by Shalan Lal

(Today on Valentine’s Day, love is in the air everywhere. Love of mushy messages; of roses and chocolates; of romance and togetherness. ‘Genre’-theorists hold that the concept of genre is not relevant for Indian films, as all our films are essentially musical romances. Thus, right from the beginning of the talkies we had love songs aplenty in our films. On Songs of Yore, I have explored some variants of love: New Theatres’ Prem’ which was deeply spiritual; the intelligent woman’s romance for the dunce etc. Its converse is the attraction women have for the ‘zulmi’ or ‘bedardi’.

The ‘bedardi balma’s in our songs are naughty and playful, but not mean or vicious. However, taking off from Subodh’s query as to why the women in our films find men with such negative qualities attractive, Shalan Lal explores the darker side of love based on domination by men over women in literature, arts and films. Her thesis may jolt you and you may find the narration discordant to the occasion, but her selection of songs is quite benign depicting love with many shades. Her research is as usual very exhaustive. I wish the readers a very happy Valentine’s Day with this befitting piece by Shalan Lal. Thank you Shalan. – AK)

Pyar hua iqaraar huaThe Hindi word “Pyaar” evolved out of the Sanskrit word “Prem”, so says the “Hindi Shabd Saagar”, the mammoth Hindi word dictionary in many volumes, published by the Nagari Prachaarini Sabha of Varanasi in 1933. It has had many reprints, and revised editions. AK has written a wonderful post on “Prem” and called it New Theatres’ romance with Prem. And he has interpreted the songs of love by the New Theatres’ composers, lyricists, singers and actors who presented them as he said, “The New Theatres took love to entirely unexpected heights. It was not merely a matter of semantics that pyar, mohabbat, ishq, for them was Prem or Preet. It also denoted for them something deeply spiritual, other-worldly and supremely blissful.”

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Flowers bloom in Bollywood

Guest article by DP Rangan

(Someone suggested a post on flower songs, Hans offered to compile a list of such songs, and our man of many flowers, the evergreen and eternal romantic, DP Rangan, offered to write a post. And here we are.

Flowers are a common motif across cultures with a variety of associations – from offering in pujas, to greetings for all occasions, to decorations, to expression of love, to varmala, to funeral wreath etc. The wilted flower can also denote sadness of a lady whose lover is away. Bollywood found another use during its prudish phase when two flowers touching each other due to breeze signified intimacy between the leading couple hiding behind the bushes. Mr Rangan explores through film songs several of these emotions and moods. His write-up shows his usual in-depth research of the subject. As we welcome the onset of spring with blooming of myriad flowers, let us enjoy another fine post by Mr Rangan with thanks to him. – AK)

FlowersThe mere sight of flowers lining the roads and pathways sends us into a tailspin of unbounded joy and uplifts us into a higher plane of existence. When we see them spread all over the meadow or covering bushes and trees in full bloom with resplendent hues and colours, our spirit is uplifted and romantic illusions start building up. Flowers in splendid array affect human beings in a myriad ways and we all succumb to its magic of seduction to forget our day to day worries and travails and be a part of the magic world they entice us to.

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