Maybe the Wall has some answers.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

...jiski zubaan urdu ki tarah...

Coming, as it does, several days later than it was meant to, this post does not claim a critical analysis of the movie, or of Rahman's or Gulzar's work. I ran out fifteen minutes into the movie (not necessarily the first 15 minutes of the film), and am way too great a Rahman fan, and too much in awe of Gulzar, to presume to analyse their work.

There are better A.R.R. songs, not that Jai Ho isn't great. And if I've spent the last fifteen years spellbound by every Gulzar song I've heard, Jai Ho was no different. No, I'm just plain happy that, for once, award-winning work is work that I understand! (Blame it on the limited gray matter. I read The God of Small Things three times before I could begin to understand it - maybe it was partly because I was 13 at the time; I never got past page 40 of The Inheritance of Loss. At the risk of sounding like I have neither understanding nor appreciation of good literature, I have to confess that the latter bored me to tears.)

Gulzar's lyrics are poetry. He doesn't simply write a song - he writes a nursery rhyme, or a dirge, or a lampoon, or a prayer...I've loved it all since the time I couldn't understand it. Simple, meaningful, beautiful, tongue-in-cheek, heartwarming, playful, natural...I've grown up on his lyrics. Every song a slice of life, every word deceptively simple.

And as a total layperson, I wouldn't even dare evaluating Rahman's music - except to say that it's the sort you want to listen to endlessly when you first hear it - and that you'll want to keep going back to it later too...and that is more than one can say about a lot of other music.

Anyway, the whole point of starting this post was to celebrate two of my favourite artistes getting the Oscar. Yipee!

P.S. Rahman and Gulzar together at their best - try Ae Ajnabee from Dil Se on a quiet evening, and Chhaiya Chhaiya on the highway.

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