For the SoY regulars, the title of this post may come as a surprise, because DP Rangan has already written an exhaustive post on songs on stars. That was about stars in the sky (i.e. तारे/सितारे). However, there are another kind of stars around whom the film world revolves. They have names like you and me, but when they become too big, they acquire special monikers like ‘the Great Trinity’, ‘the Dream Girl’, ‘the Big B’, ‘the Jumping Jack’, ‘the Phenomenon’, ‘the Three Khans’ and so on. From the media we know that they inhabit the terra firma, but for common folks like us, they are really the ‘Stars from Another Sky’.
Songs have been an integral part of our films right from the very first talkie Alam Ara (1931). The common understanding is that music had been an integral part of our folk, classical and theatre traditions, and it was a natural extension to films. Our early films were largely based on our existing theatre forms. Very soon film songs assumed an identity of their own; they could be enjoyed decoupled from the films they were set in. Gramophone records and radio became the primary source of propagation and circulation of film songs to people, and soon they became the most identifiable feature of popular culture.
It was the best of years, it was the worst of years. The euphoria of independence was marred by the trauma of partition, the communal frenzy sweeping large swathes of the country, the bloodshed, and the largest mass migration in history from one side of the border to the other. The film world too could not remain untouched by these events. Many Muslim music directors and actors chose to go to the other side or would move shortly – Ghulam Haider, Rafiq Ghazanavi, Firoz Nizami, Khursheed Anwar, Noorjehan etc. It was a sad year for another final departure – the greatest actor-singer ever KL Saigal passed away on 18 January 1947 at a young age of 43. But the year also saw the debut of Lata Mangeshkar as a ‘playback’ singer in Aap Ki Sewa Mein.
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 some pictorial representations by sketching on rocks and caves. Thank you Mr Rangan for another article, in a long series of guest articles, loaded with information . – AK)
Living beings emerged from the primordial chemical bath some three billion years ago on Earth and human beings seem to be the latest in the ladder of life. Unlike other living entities who were solely concerned with their day to day survival and perpetuation of their species, humans, because of their extra sensory perception and intellect, sought to understand the surroundings in which they evolved. They are the only species not to live in harmony with nature, but try to twist it to suit their living conditions with disastrous consequences for all. They seem to have developed a sense of ego and creativity all along and exhibit it in some form or another. They developed the art of drawing on rocks leaving behind memories of the environment in which they evolved. Thus was born the art of sketches and drawing and tasveer was a by-product of this trait.
(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 songs and blending them into a single medley of varied tunes. There is more creativity involved in this because the music director has to ensure that the output does not become a hotchpotch of unconnected tunes. But if it is done well, it is obviously more fun. The more the merrier.
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, but he very generously allowed me to go ahead with my article. His list has been very useful. Therefore, I start with acknowledging and thanking Ashokji. – AK)
As is commonly known, parody is an exaggerated imitation of a person, song, literature or performance to produce a comic effect. It seems parody has existed from the earliest days of dramatic performance. Wikipedia states that according to Aristotle, Hegemon of Thasos was the inventor of a kind of parody; by slightly altering the wording in well-known poems he transformed the sublime into the ridiculous. In ancient Greek literature, a parodia was a narrative poem imitating the style and prosody of epics “but treating light, satirical or mock-heroic subjects”. The ancient Indian treatise on dramaturgy, Natyashstra by Bharat Muni, is of similar antiquity. Though it mentions Prahasan as one of the ten types of play, from its definition it seems to be a low form of performance – something like burlesque – and not quite parody as we know today.
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 promoter of tourism to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Switzerland. The main attraction of Mount Titlis is to get yourself photographed with the cardboard cut-out of Shahrukh Khan and Kajol.
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, medical facilities and entertainment, which pull people from the hinterland to the big cities. Therefore, Bharat Darshan is not complete unless we cover the Metros too.
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 kids a jhaanki of Hindustan by train. You can imagine the logistics involved in the exercise – about ten groups of a dozen officers each to be sent from one part of the country to another, stopping for different lengths of time at about eight locations, reservations in connecting trains, board & lodging and asking host organisations to impart orientation training to the group. All these in the days of snail mail and telephone, which was more a decorative piece signifying status rather than an instrument for making calls. The exercise was mindboggling. Come to think of it, all this trouble and expense was avoidable. Our film songs do a very good job of giving a Bharat Darshan. They go not only to the metros, but also to the hinterland, which is where the real India lives. They also give some interesting social and cultural information about the place, not available in any history book or tourist literature.
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 lot of sociological information on the evolution of the institution of marriage across cultures. He also comes up with an outstanding collection of songs of different hues. Thank you Mr Rangan for yet another excellent article. Coincidentally, a message is doing the rounds that the state of Virginia (US) has resolved to designate 14 January every year as Pongal Day in their calendar. Let me also wish the readers Happy Makar Sankranti and Pongal. – AK)
Male and female interrelationship among Homo sapiens tended to be loose in ancient days when they started to spread over the globe, starting from Africa. They migrated on foot in close-knit groups and colonised Europe and Asia over a period of more than several thousands of years. At that time they were primarily a hunter gatherer group wandering all over following their prey. There were no permanent settlements. Life expectancy was low and mortality rates quite high particularly among males who were the prime hunters. There was no fixed bond between male and female and change of partners was quite common.
For the SoY regulars, the title of this post may come as a surprise, because DP Rangan has already written an exhaustive post on songs on stars. That was about stars in the sky (i.e. तारे/सितारे). However, there are another kind of stars around whom the film world revolves. They have names like you and me, but when they become too big, they acquire special monikers like ‘the Great Trinity’, ‘the Dream Girl’, ‘the Big B’, ‘the Jumping Jack’, ‘the Phenomenon’, ‘the Three Khans’ and so on. From the media we know that they inhabit the terra firma, but for common folks like us, they are really the ‘Stars from Another Sky’.
