Lyrix
Now this was outrageously cheesy, campy and tending towards kitsch. People must have seen the latest promos of Farah Khan's film Om Shanti Om, her ode to bygone cinema era. I really can't believe Javed Akhtar has written these lines for the song - Dard-e-Disco.
Now what is that supposed to mean. SRK worked out so much for his abs and puny torso that he broke a bone or two while disco-ing? The initial lines are the stuff usual words and constructs Hindi cinema lyrics (not Bollywood it is a denegrating word) are made of. And there are some good Urdu words thrown in. The hackneyed lines make me remember the brilliantly humorous movie Chashme-Buddoor (starring suave Farukh Sheikh, girl next door - Deepti Naval and a host of other likable characters). It had a great take on the typical song and dance routine in Hindi cinema. The song went like: Chham chham Payal, kaise ho paagal and all the inane stuff that rhymes.
Coming back to Om Shanti Om. The song took me by surprise after listening to lyrics the recent dud movie - Cash where a despo Shilpa Shetty look alike (errr or is she her sis) cries out for her MindBlowing Mahia! (Aaj Tak watchers was there any hidden connection between her and Mahendra Mahia Singh Dhoni?). She did a hell of Job to Blow [Blowing Minds you dirty minds!]
I never expected this from Javed Akhtar. Probably it was some else who screwed and made the singers sing it, probably it was some underworld don who made them do it instead of extortion to get pure kicks out of the whole meaninglessness of it.
Or does he suffer from multiple lyricist disorder! He has a Sameer residing in him! Or just like Aks (Amitabh Bachchan, Manoj Bajpai, Nandita Das) Sameer enters his body and makes him write these lines to vamoose into thin air leaving even him agape.
14 comments:
though not personally acquainted with Hindi music enough to consider myself an authority on it, the way you are, I still would have to point to you that Javed Akhtar is on the verge of being called a sellout already, what with the Indian Idol hoopla the manner in which he too has resorted to bending over backwards for the sake of commercialization and making a total monkey of himself on screen with some random comments purely for the sake of sensationalism. Under these circumstances, it is hardly a wonder that he came up with the kind of lyrics that he did.
Hmmmmm Indian Idle, I have not seen much of it. In fact not beyond a single song. Some how it used to creep in between my rigorous thumb yoga (which the ignorants call channel surfing).
But what is that Mathur chick doing amongst over the hill Alisha Chinai, Smiles-plastered-all-over-the face Udit Narayan and Narcissist masturbator (read A new Malik)?
Actually Javed Akhtar has done some really kewl work like Kathhai Ankhon wali in Duplicate, 1947 Earth in the past but this was a rude shock to me.
I think u missed this one out,
- Strawberry Aankhein from Sapney
And there wud many others just can't think of them right now.
wht happened to the utter simplicity of hrishida movies and the dense poetry which complimented it beautifully.
Although wont comment on the gahrayi of ur fav ones, like
Love tujhe Love main karta hun
Main Laila Laila chillaunga kurta faad ke
etc etc
Sameer is born genious
@Desi: Sameer also has a biography written for himself. Though the way he has churned out lyrics is amazing. There was a brief period when some really pseudo-dadaist lyrics were written by I don't remember who. Like
telephone dhun main hasne wali
melbourne machhli machalne wali
Imagine you are on date and you crack a witty joke in front of the girl and in reply she laughs like an old telephone - TRING TRING.
Then there where double meaning ones like
Chad gaya oopar re
atariya pe lotan kabootar re
Followed by totally clueless ones like:
Pyar tera dilli ki sardi
To meaningless like
Tota mirchi khaa gaya
The last one is epitome of abysmally low IQ in Hindi Cinema. Why is the lady singing about a parrot eating pepper!
@Others: love tujhe love is a song by Mr. Sameer and on television he was actually vivisecting the lyrics in his typical style. His inspiration was that people refer to their loved ones as love so in the song a loved one is singing to a loved one referring to the girl as love and claims that 'love' I love you. (Love is not only in the air it seems it has seeped deep into our chaps brain, coz it is filled with thin air!)
The Farha Khan's movie should be renamed to Om ShantY Om if it goes dud. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/shanty)
telephone dhun bye mehboob
this guy penned lyrics for all the southy-mumbaiya convertibles
horrible lyrics, most of them, although sometime they turn out to be good as the Rukmani song from Roja
Another one,
Baarah Aaana de, again penned by you-know-who
When I had heard that baaraa aanaa (12 aanaa == 3/4th of a rupee) I thought the lyrics are for a rent request: Bhada na de . I imagined all sorts of scripts like Akshay Kumar would be a harried landlord complaining about the due amount to Shilpa Shetty in his shirts-are-worn-to-show-chest-hair style fashion borrowed from our own salacious villain Ranjeet.
gr8 post pointing out the other self of javed sahab...
what about the song "Bulbula re bulbula... mujhko bahon mein bula"
@Kapil: Bullbulla. You have to decrypt the message. Break it at the right point and it becomes:
Bull Bulla
Now Bulla is Telugu word for phallus.
You can find the complete lyrics here in hindi font.
So the protagonist is talking of bovine phallus. It's not about bubbles or male variants of bulbul bird. Probably Sameer belongs to some secret libertine anarchist organization waiting to upturn the uptight society with its straitjacketed norms of natural sex!
Speaking od Sameer, you should listen to the lyrics of Saawariya ... some might say they are good ... but Oh my Lucifer ... they are just jumbled words ... with no beginning and no end ... sigh ...
They are the run of the mill lyrics. There is a secret and yet not so secret method to spout words for songs. It is too clear in case of Punjabi songs or songs with Punjabi touch. Add a lot of Mahi, Soni, Dhola [Lesser known is that fact that Dhola is Rajasthani folk lore and Maru is the counterpart].
Words are there to be grammatically correct sentences which rhyme at the end. Like Matrix rules can be bent/broken so at times even grammar is sacrificed :)
i am suprised that this suprise is hitting you so late...remember arjun pandit (http://www.dishant.com/album/Arjun-Pandit.html)
yes....kudiyan sheher diya...aai hai..ye kudiya sheher diyan...and my ghaghro lachhedaar churi...smthing smthing....yes javed saab...
And that was around the same time when he gave amazing lyrics of earth 1947....it seems he is a great example of supply and demand!!
@DK: 'Kudiyan sheher diya' was I think run of the mill stuff. You know lyrics written in slumber or probably drunken stupor.
Javed also was not known too much for his lyrics back then.
I think hindi cinema works based on assumption similar to economic theoretical concept of 'Average Economic Man'. We have an 'Average College Going Kid', 'Average Lovers', 'Average Family' so the calculations and formulae
Sorry to disappoint but Javed has only shown momentary sparks of talent. he wrote the great song from Sapney
'Strawberry aakhen sochti kya hai,
Ladki tum to mehlon mein ho pali
woh ice cream ho jo hai fridge mein rakhi'
Apart from Silsila and maybe a few more I can't think of anything great that Javed wrote. I may be biased but I find his poetry mostly day to day dialogues, nothing wrong with that but see how poets like Neeraj and kaifi Azmi handled simple words. kaifi wrote 'aakhon mein nami hasi labon par'...simple but poetry, Javed just writes bland stuff 'agar main kahoon, mujhe tumse mohabbta hai' It is two people just talking!
@aditi:
1942 a love story was excellent. Lagaan was good. Dil Chahta hai was apt (not poetic but gelled in the movie very well).
There are moments where he is good and most of the time they are what many people call 'chalu lyrics'
And most of them are run of the mills thingies
Basically his speciality is in how words sound! He even named his characters in the scripts in some arcane manner (not an algorithm but the way the words sound)
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