Dilli 6- Music Review

Fresh from the Golden glory, A R Rahman has done it again. This creative titan seemingly holds the motto, that the sky is never the limit. Rahman has once again woven the musical web which captivates a listener. It is a real treat of all Rahmaniacs. The film's story maybe a well guarded secret right now, but after Rang De Basanti, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is trying hard to prove his metal again in form of Dilli 6. Keep in mind his first movie with AB senior was a disaster called 'AKS'.


Now back to the music of DIlli 6.

The first track is rushing up the charts due to the excellent promos running all over the music channels and the web. “Masakalli” grabs you by the ear right away with the sweet accordion sounds of the keyboard and soft percussion, but what really gets it going is the excellent singing by Mohit Chauhan (of Indi-Pop band Silk Route) who is finally given a chance to shine. His rendition of the title word, masakalli, but also the way he inflects his accent really gives the track a Delhi flavor. Rahman wisely lets the singer’s voice take center stage and provides just the right supporting instrumentation. Prasoon Joshi should be given special attention for writing the smashing lyrics, as they are a living breathing part of the song. This one has to be played loud as you dance that goofy dance that we do when no one is around! Thums up on this one…. way up!

From there we move into the world of classical music, with “Bhor Bhaye”. One can picture a beautiful Sonam Kapoor performing a classical dance to this. Shreya Ghosal is in top form and she is able to handle the swerving lyrical vocal effects of the classical raga. Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan provides the masterji voice. The unique beginning of the track as if it’s being listened to on an old cassette deck adds a nice touch to it. Rahman backs the classical vocal styling with the traditional tabla and harmonium instrument combo. Fans of classical music will love this short but sweet track. Another thummmmmms up as classical dancers sway this way and that!


Amitabh Bachchan’s deep throated growl is the selling point of the next track, “Noor”, which is basically him talking over some celestial new age sounding music (think twinkling stars against the midnight sky). The shayeri styling is excellent. Short, sweet and to the point. Not really a song per se, but worth a listen.

Speaking of celestial music, the next song, “Tumre Bhavan Mein” is a beautiful aarti (prayer) song. Rekha Bhardwaj, Kishori Gowariker, Shraddha Pandit, and Sujata Majumder provide the angelic voices. The music is kept simple with the gentle strumming of sitar and ringing of bells to provide the calm atmosphere that one experiences during a religious ceremony or at the temple. A prayer to God and another thums up for this beautiful aarti!

Looped synth bass pervades the next song, “Genda Phool”, which is a traditional sounding track based on a family situation layered over a madman’s techno beat. It’s an interesting fusion by Rahman, and something that perhaps only a talented creator like him could carry off. It’s mad, it’s wild, and it’s strangely catchy. It’s cultured tradition for the techno crowd. Give it a listen, and you’ll be strangely captivated as your thumb slowly rises to say…thums up!

The next song breaks through that; however, as it’s what I feel the best track on the album. “Dil Gira Dafatan”, simply takes your breath away from the beginning. What with the opening lyrics eloquently sung by Ash King. Keyboards (keyboard violins) and the strumming of guitars in a very meditative style support King’s vocals. It’s almost gives the listener a feeling of riding a horse over the hills of the countryside, while the sun sets behind you and your heart pines away for the love of your life. The musical interludes are a pleasant fusion of Irish sounding flutes mixed with a bit of Chinese styling added in very subtly. Chinmayee provides the female counterpoint at just the right points.

After the breathtaking “Dil Gira Dafatan”, we are whisked to the present day with the “dance” track of the album, the quirkily titled “Hey Kaala Bander”. The title will leave you laughing and the rest of the song will put a smile on your face. It’s odd, and has a wandering techno beat, but the quirky lyrics and the interlude with the Arabic style singing adds a nice touch. Who knew that Prasoon Joshi had such a wicked sense of humor? Karthik, Naresh, and Bony Chakravarthy provide the aggressive singing that has a bit of rapping and a lot of attitude. Sometimes you don’t need a deep song to enjoy the music.

“Rehna Tu” starts out with a funky percussive beat with Rahman singing in a very jazzy style that immediately grabs your attention. The layered voices that support him include Rahman mainstay Benny Dayal and Tanvi. It’s jazzy, it’s funky, and it’s Rahman being playfully creative by combining different styles of music. The way Rahman enunciates…”Rahna Tu….hai jaisa tu” is very moving.

Yeh Delhi hai mere yaar…! You’ll be singing along to the next track “Delhi 6”. It’s funkedelic fun that will make you want to visit Dilli right away! The music is trip hopping with some mad guitar playing. Vocals by Rahman mainstays, Blaaze, Benny Dayal, Vivinenne Pocha, Tanvi, and Claire are suitably aggressive. The lyrics by Vivinenne Pocha and Claire fit the situation set up by the song.

What an amazing musical journey it has been so far with this soundtrack. Rahman has given us styles that range from the folksy “Massakalli” to the classical “Bhor Bhaye”, to the higher level aarti “Tumre Bhavan Mein”, to the funky yet traditional “Genda Phool”, to the absolutely masterful “Dil Gira Dafatan”, to the quirky “Hey Kaala Bander”, to the soul stirring “Rehna Tu”, to the urban funk of “Delhi 6”, and finally to a masterful end with an irresistible qawwali, “Arziyan”. Javed Ali and Kailash Kher bring the house down with this track. You will clap along with them as they sing the higher power lyrics written by Prasoon Joshi.

One would think that Rahman couldn’t raise the bar any higher.Just when you wonder how high he can go, he raises the bar even higher until one feels that he has attained true musical nirvana and we are lucky enough to be along for the ride. “Dilli 6” shows a Rahman that is at the top of his game. He is a league ahead of his contemporaries and an artist that transcends global boundaries to spread the joy of his music throughout the world. Do yourself a favor and listen to this one over and over. You won’t regret it as you let the music take you to the darkest and brightest parts of your soul. Rahmaniacs rejoice in the musical nirvana that is A.R. Rahman!

Track Listings:

1. Bhor Bhaye - (Shreya Ghosal, Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Gujri Todi) - (3:19)
2. Masakali - (Mohit Chouhan) - (4:51)
3. Noor - (Amitabh Bachchan) - (0:50)
4. Aarti (Tumre Bhavan Mein) - (Rekha Bharadwaj, Kishori Gowariker, Shraddha Pandit, Sujata Majumdar) - (3:01)
5. Genda Phool - (Rekha Bharadwaj, Shraddha Pandit, Sujata Majumdar) -(2:50)
6. Dil Gira Dafatan - (Ash King, Backing Chinmayee) - (5:39)
7. Hey Kaala Bandar - (Karthik, Naresh, Srinivas, Bony Chakravarthy) - (5:43)
8. Rehna Tu - (A R Rahman, Benny Dayal, Tanvi) - (6:51)
9. Delhi 6 - (Blaaze, Benny Dayal, Vivinenne Pocha, Tanvi, Claire) - (3:36)
10. Arziyan - (Javed Ali, Kailash Kher) - (8:42)

Guide (1995)- Classic Review

My all time fav movie. Reviewing a classic gives you a thrill and is an extremly challenging rather than reviewing some crap movie which are churned out today.

Navketan International have made some of the great movies like Jewel Thief,Jhonny Mera Naam, Hum Dono, Kala Bazar . But Guide is one of the biggest and most memorable movies under their banner. Based on R.K. Narayan's novel 'The Guide', the film is immortalized by director Vijay Anand's bold, unconventional strokes. Who would have dared to show a man and woman living together outside the sanctity of a marriage way

The movie revolves round Raju (Dev Anand), once a successful tourist guide who hesitates to return to his hometown of Udaipur after his release from jail and decides to search for his fortunes elsewhere. He ends up in a remote village temple wearing over his threadbare clothes a saffron scarf which had once belonged to some passing mendicant and finds himself suddenly elevated to the position of a holy man. Raju's mother and Rosie reach there and watch helplessly as Raju slowly drifts towards death due to the fasting.

The film is enhanced richly by the two central performances. Dev Anand gives perhaps his best shaded performance in the title role, playing him perfectly with just the right amount of grey and his perfectly nuanced performance won him his second Filmfare Award for Best Actor. Good as Dev Anand is, however, the life and soul of Guide is undoubtedly Waheeda Rehman. It was a daring role to play in those times, of a woman who leaves her stifling impotent husband and lives with her lover, a guide who helps her in her ambitions to become a famous dancer. Waheeda was in fact told she was committing professional suicide taking on this role.

The other big star of Guide was its musical score by S.D. Burman. The film represents perhaps Burman Dada's greatest work and he is aided tremendously by Shailendra's lyrics and the flawless rendering of the songs by Mohd. Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar and himself.

Initially Guide had a tough time being sold because of its so called bold theme but thanks to Production Controller Yash Johar's perseverance, the film was finally sold and released to great critical acclaim and was a big commercial success. R.K. Narayan was most unhappy with the final film as he felt it deviated too much from his novel. One of the major changes that Vijay Anand did was to change the setting of the film from Malgudi to Udaipur and while this did give the film an exotic, grand visual look, admittedly perhaps this took away from the ambiance of the small town of Narayan's novel. The ending too of the film was significantly different from that of the novel. But then Vijay Anand has always maintained that he was never interested in merely copying any work of art from one medium to another unless there was scope for value addition and to be fair to him, he has made Guide into a rich and unforgettable cinematic experience.

Guide was made in two versions simultaneously- an English version in collaboration with Pearl S Buck and directed by Ted Danielewski to introduce Dev Anand to western audiences and of course the Hindi version directed by Dev Anand's younger brother, Vijay Anand. The English version said to be closer to the novel and in spite of a nude scene using a duplicate instead of Waheeda Rehman, flopped miserably but the Hindi version remains a classic to this day.

Blade Runner (1982)

"Wake up, Its time to Die"

Welcome to Ridley Scott's lurid slither into sci-fi noir. Blade Runner was definitely ahead of its time with a post-industrial, seemingly post-apocalyptic future, reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984. Ridley Scott has made movies in almost all the genre be it war ( Black Hawk Down), epic (GLadiator, Kingdon of Heaven), thriller (Hannibal/American Gangster), drama (Matchstick Men) and sci-fi (Aliens, Blade Runner). Scott set the sci-fi banchmark with Aliens which many directors tried to imitate afterwards. And which he himself broke with Blade Runner.

Set in a vast, vulcanized Los Angeles in the year 2019, complete with flying automobile and a neverending assault of rain, Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a "blade runner": a cop who's hired to "retire" androids. There are four dangerous androids who have escaped from an "off-world colony" and Deckard's duty is to track them down and kill them before they wreak havoc in this already dreary world.

Blade Runner is not an easy film to like. It has little overt characterization, a slow pace and a lot of background information to absorb before the whole thing makes any sense. Although the plot is a simple manhunt, the story stopped explored many issues. Things like 'what makes us human,'is it morally right to exploit the human
genome' and other classic science fiction themes are competently explored. The replicants are not just mindless killing machines. In fact, some of them were portraying more sympathetically than some of the human characters.

The acting is a bit unnatural, but that's obviously because of the movie's subject. There's minimum dialogue and maximum expression through nuance and innuendo in this movie. This kind of acting style is very effective in a

movie that successfully captures such a dark mood through its artistic direction. It's also fitting that all the characters have mechanical, robotic interactions with each other, signifying the often obscured line between humans and androids and the overall closetedness of emotional life in this bleak city.

What I really appreciate about Blade Runner is its acuity in visual detail. Ridley Scott has taken a lot of pains to make this an intensely visual experience. I've never seen such a variety of styles in lighting technique in a movie. Blade Runner utilizes darkness to set the tone of the plot - a harsh, fluorescent kitchen light, the rays of sharp illumination through a broken skylight from a passing blimp, and the reddish sunset that permeates the sky like a layer of smoke.

The movie also challenges us with some modern interpretations of genetic manipulation and human experimentations in being god. It serves as a horrible reminder of what could be and what is happening: a lot to deal with in the span
of two hours, but of course Blade Runner accomplishes that feat expertly.

In conclusion, this is one superb piece of filmmaking. It reached new heights in cinema in terms of its

cinematography, its audacious storytelling and its pessimistic outlook. A true classic.