A fresh catch from the Net

Once in a while, it pays to switch off reality and get well and truly lost in cyberspace

Enough, enough of writing about traffic, intolerance, corruption, consumerism, power outages and other human horribleness. Once in a few weeks, even the chronic cynic comes up for air and happens upon something that is also utterly human and thoroughly good. There are many such things, different things on different days. One of them happened to me today. Many old-Hindi-film-song fans must have experienced it. You wake up with song in your head. If you don’t have the song as part of your collection (or the door of your CD player refuses to open and it simply cussedly says open-close-open-close, signaling that you have to take it to the dealer who omitted to tell you that that particular system does not merit a ‘home visit’ from the repair guys, and you have to lug the piece, warranty and all, to somewhere in the boondocks, jumping over half-done bridges and burrowing through half-finished underpasses…oops I almost started talking about roads and traffic again), you get on to the internet (oh lucky day, electricity and broadband working at one and the same time – Pune shining!), you google the song. And not only do you get to hear the song, sometimes YouTube plays the clip for you. After watching mesmerized, you are then pulled down several deliciously dizzying option-avenues. The tune or the lyrics or the movie or the stars remind you of another song, and that one of yet another song, and another, till you are fully and enjoyable lost in the byways of Hindi film music.
Take for instance, my song this morning. I woke up with O mere sanam O mere sanam from Sangam playing in my head. I had to hear it – urgently. It’s like that with good music. A sense of urgency-emergency that you simply have to have to access it right away. Shooing sundry dogs out of the way, I put on the computer and in seconds had the song as well as the scene playing out in front of me. Raj Kapoor’s blue-green eyes flashing fire and ice at Vaijyayantimala’s distressed, luminous ones looking pleadingly at him. And the haunting song playing out the protagonists’ predicament. Magic.
From here the haunting melody opened up so many avenues for me. Idhar jauun ya udhar jauun? Should I pursue more songs in this haunting raga, Shivranjani? Or should I look at more Sangam songs? Or should I go down the lane that promises more Lata-Mukesh songs? Or explore which one of our now great sitar-players rendered those sitar pieces in the song?
It’s all available just a click or two away…and I voluntarily get drawn into one part of this sweet maze. I go for the raga angle. More Shivranjani songs pour forth: Laagi na mora jiya – Asha Parekh looking vulnerable and at the same time accusing, in black and white. (And then I remember my mother singing this song rather, rather well, reading the words from her purple song lyrics diary, in which she painstakingly and rapidly wrote down the words as the song played on the radio….but that’s again another lane to visit.) Onward on the Shivranjani track: Shammi Kapoor and someone (Kalpana?...another bylane to explore) searching, seeking, singing: Aawaz dey kay, hamay tum bulao – Mohmmad Rafi’s voice echoes from the depths of the Kashmir Valley. From here, I’m drawn into the ghostly Kahi deep jale kahi dil…and deliciously spine-tingling memories of Vividh Bharati eerily and appropriately playing the song at 9.30 pm…just like in the movie! There are at least 15 more superb songs that I listen to and watch in this exploration, one leading to the other, the other leading to the other, and a few detours on the way, not to do with the raga I was exploring, but maybe a movie or a face or a lyricist…for instance, I found myself gazing at more gorgeous Kashmir views in the song Ek tu na mila…sari duniya mile bhi toa kya hai…Sheer magic.
A note of caution, particularly for Pune readers: this is not an encyclopaedic piece, so I urge you not to spend time pointing out which songs I ‘failed to mention’ from the Shivranjani-inspired film songs. Go on your own stream-of-consciousness music exploration. It’s like putting together a wonderful, musical jig-saw puzzle of your own.
And look…I managed to spend over an hour without talking about bad roads, demented drivers, intolerance….even Kashmir, poor Kashmir, appears in this column today, not as an ‘issue’ but as the jannat it is/was.
Gouri Dange