Songs on themes

Swing a song of sixpence

Raagmala painting_Raag Hindol January 1, 2019

Swing into the New Year with guest article by Ashwin Bhandarkar (A promise made is a debt unpaid. When Ashwin Bhandarkar wrote his first guest article on 6 May 2017, titled Beena madhur madhur kachhu bol, I had indicated he would be writing more articles for SoY. Here he makes good his promise, and I […]

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Tasveer exhibits of Bollywood

Tasveer March 22, 2018

Guest article by DP Rangan (A lesser mortal, when asked to write on songs on ‘tasveer’, would have made some general observations about pictures, and mentioned some songs which contained the word ‘tasveer’. Not DP Rangan, as we know well by now. Mr Rangan takes us to pre-historic days when mankind would have started making […]

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Parody songs: Part 2

Parody medley March 12, 2018

(I thank Ashok M Vaishnav for very generously sharing his compilation of parody songs with me – AK) In Part 1 of this post I covered the parody songs based on a single song. This seems to have later led to the practice of parodying the mukhada or a short portion of a number of […]

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Parody songs: Part 1

Parody March 2, 2018

Wishing the readers a very Happy Holi (I have been compiling parody songs for a while, when I got a mail from Ashok M Vaishnav that he has also been doing such a list, and whether he could write a guest article for SoY on this. No one does compilation and analysis better than him, […]

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Around the World in Songs

An evening in Paris February 18, 2018

Today everyone has a nephew into software who works on-site in the US or Europe. But there was a time when ‘people like us’ did not travel to foreign lands. Today, there is hardly a film which does not have some song-dance sequence, if not most of the film, shot abroad. Bollywood is an important […]

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Bharat Darshan in Songs (2): Metros

Ei hai Bambai nagariya February 6, 2018

In the first part of our Bharat Darshan in songs, we journeyed through small towns for which I have a special liking. But, ‘progress’ means progression from villages to small towns to big cities. If you live in small towns, you are a lesser mortal. There are practical aspects of jobs, infrastructure, access to education, […]

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Bharat Darshan in Songs (1): Small towns

Bikaner January 26, 2018

Greeting the readers on the 68th Republic Day When I joined service, an important part of our training was to go on a 30-days’ Bharat Darshan by train. This had been sanctified by Mahatma Gandhi at the inspiration of his mentor and political guru, Gokhale, and romanticised by Richard Attenborough. In between, Abhi Bhattacharya showed […]

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Nuptials in Bollywood

Thumbnail image for Nuptials in Bollywood January 14, 2018

Guest article by DP Rangan (With Makar Sankranti and Pongal, as the month-long ‘inauspicious period’ comes to an end and the wedding season is set to resume with full vigour, our indefatigablete  DP Rangan comes up with a very nicely-timed post on nuptial songs from our films. In his characteristic style, Mr Rangan packs in a […]

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Waterfalls in Bollywood

Waterfall in Bollywood November 2, 2017

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 in […]

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Beena madhur madhur kacchu bol

BHanwra bada naadan May 6, 2017

Guest article by Ashwin Bhandarkar (If we broadly divide the SoY community into two categories – ‘music experts’ and ‘others’ – Ashwin Bhandarkar belongs to the first category. Therefore, it is not surprising that he is appearing as a guest author; the surprise is that it has taken him so long to do so. He […]

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