Music and Lata Mangeshkar are synonymous
Even in film where her voice is as far removed as Led Zeppelin from Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Lataji’s voice makes a guest appearance when Prachi Desai bursts into a feelingly-done Ajeeb dastaan hai yeh.
Han mere dost the magic of the Meleody Queen lingers….even when music has moved to a completely different spell of sound..
It looks like musicals are out to create their magic in our movies once again. Rock On!! is a full-on musical. And so is Himesh Reshammiya’s second outing as an actor . The Karzzz soundtrack has quickly danced up the charts And now a lot of filmmakers want one of those in their movies. I mean a soundtrack that rocks. But who’s giving?
Though there’s no dearth of distinguished lyricists(Gulzar, Javed Akhtar, Prasoon Joshi are outstanding) we’ve very few genuine music composers left in the industry. And the composing talent we have, we don’t respect.
Pyarelal of the imperishable Laxmikant-Pyarelal duo is still at his creative acme. He proved it in the one tune that he was allowed to do in Om Shanti Om. But nothing after that. The composing genius sits at home waiting for the opportunities(read: vision-unimpaired producers) to knock on his door.
Wonders never cease.Till the other day Abhishek Kapoor was just Ekta kapoor’s cousin and a producer who I remember had got into a squabble with Apoorva Lakhia over the script of Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost.
Abhishek was also Twinkle Khanna’s leading man in a long-forgotten film Uff Yeh Mohabbat shot in Nepal.
Though he’s born-again in Rock On!! let’s not forget he also directed Aryan , a not-so-bad film where Sohail Khan played a sullen luckless boxer on the skids(akin to Arjun Rampal in Rock On!!)
That didn’t work. Rock On!! does. So here’s to films about music and musicians across the decades. The first film that comes to mind is is Anuradha where Leela Naidu played a classical singer whose ambitions are thwarted by her chauvinistic husband.
Cut to Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Abhimaan many decades later where Jaya Bhaduri strarred as a woman whose ambitions are thwarted.
Both the films depended heavily on classical and semi-classical ragas by Pandit Ravi Shankar and Sachiv Dev Burman. But the common factor to both was the ageless immortal voice if Lata Mangeshkar.
Till a decade back no filmmaker could dream of making a film based on music without using Lataji’s voice. Whether it was V. Shantaram’s Jal Bin Machli Nriyta Bin Bijli(phew!) or K Vishwanath’s Sur Sangam …Latajis voice held the musical themes together.
Today’s musical is re-defined by Rock On!!. It not only brings a new spirit and sound to the audience it also re-invents Farhan Akhtar’s career as an actor.
We’ve had major stars turning into directors. But no major director turning into a leading man.
So chalk up a first For Farhan.
As he told me on the day after the release, “The response has been very very gratifying so far.We always knew that Rock On!! wasn’t just about rock music. It was about much more in life than meets the eye. But if we said this cynics would’ve accused us of trying to get ourselves a bigger audience.”
Sometimes underselling a film helps. Overselling never does.
Star Of The Week: Arjun Rampal in Rock On!! As the embittered angry musician on the skids Arjun lives the pain so closely , you fear for his wellbeing.
Subhash K Jha -(SAMPURN)
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