what we are reading – EightandHalf
The film is directed by Ajoy Varma and stars Manoj Bajpayee in the lead, along with Asrani, Dilip Prabhawalkar, Govind Namdeo, Aarti Chhabria & Bharti Achrekar. The music is by Sandesh Shandilya and lyrics by Gulzar.Warner Brothers have produced the film.
Ajoy also directed another film for Warner Brothers – SRK starring Vinay Pathak. Warners have been sitting on it for a long time and there are still no signs of it release. And if we are not wrong, both the films are remakes of Malyalam hits.
We struggled really hard to figure out what to write on this D-day, how to write a new post on the legend, and write something that has not been written or said before. Or something that his fans haven’t seen before. Naah, everything has been discussed and dissected million times in trillion ways. 116 (chaand ki raatei) has turned into a magical number too, with everyone having their own theory about it. From Bandini to Beera, Kinara to Kaminey, Dil Se to Dil toh baccha hai ji, he never fails to surprise. Will there ever be any Gulzar ? Well, we all know the answer.
Click on the play button to see if the video surprises you…if you have seen Gulzarsaab in this avatar before…
Got it ? If no, read on. The film is Jallianwala Bagh and was produced and directed by Balraj Tah. As the name suggests, its based on the historical Jallianwala Bagh incident. Gulzarsaab played an Indian student studying in England, and as a part of freedom movement, he delivered speeches in the campus. He played a friend to Parikshit Sahni, who was one of the main characters in the film. The music was by R D Burman.
As the story goes, most of the people were associated with this production because there were in good terms with the makers of the film. Hrishikesh Mukherjee was also involved with the film as a “friendly” director. In Gulzarsaab’s words..
“Kyonki production mein bahut saari cast ki zaroorat thi, isliye jitne bhi log film mein backstage pe bhi involved the un sabko in front of camera khada kar diya..(except Pancham) aur sabse kaha ki ek ek role kar lo.. meine jo specific character kiya wo sirf isliye kiya ki film Thand ke dino mein shoot huyee thi.. aur film mein kewal mera character ki dress pullover (fully covered) mein thi :)… isliye wo character meine maang liya.”
And now its time to test your GQ – Gulzar Quotient. Guess the names of the films in which he has made onscreen appearance. Clueless like us ? Well, check out this song from Basu Bhattacharya’s Griha Pravesh starring Sanjeev Kumar, Sharmila Tagore, Sarika and Dinesh Thakur.
Can you remember any other film where he has made onscreen appearance ? Do let us know in the comment section.
PS – And as always, thanks to Pavan Jha for everything!
Slumdog Millionaire is still scoring and how! The Mozart of Madras has scored again! And its again a double score for A R Rahman. He was nominated in two categories for the music of Slumdog Millionaire and he scored both the Grammy Awards!
Rahman won the first Grammy in the Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture Category before his Jai Ho won in the Best Song Written for Motion Picture Category moments later. Jai Ho is credited to Gulzar, A.R. Rahman & Tanvi Shah, songwriters (A.R. Rahman, Sukhvinder Singh, Tanvi Shah, Mahalaxmi Iyer & Vijay Prakash).
The other nominations in the Best Compilation Soundtrack category included Steve Jordan for Cadillac Records, Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds, and the producers of Twilight and True Blood.
In the Best Song Category, the other nominations were The Climb” (From Hannah Montana: The Movie) – Miley Cyrus, Decode (From Twilight) – Paramore, Once in a Lifetime (From Cadillac Records) – Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen’s “The Wrestler” (From The Wrestler). How we were hoping against hope that The Wrestler gets it this time beacuse it surely is more deserving. And at the Oscars, it was not even nominated! But then, may be it was all written.
BTW, if you are still not bored of the so called Jai Ho dance, click the play button and enjoy!
Its that time of the year when we love making those lists. The best, the worst and the top ten. We sat down with some of our favourite music in non-stop loop and made our list of the good, the bad and fuglies. Whatever caught our attention, from every possible extreme.
1. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not – We had Himesh Reshammiya in non-stop loop! He had Rekha Bhardwaj for company, but this Himesh is all new. Check it out, if you still havent!
2. Cuss Word Converter – Give a cuss word to him and it will never be the same again. The reason why Gul-still-Czar! Add Vishal’s vocals and you have the best title song of the year! Meri aarzoo kamini, mere khwab bhi kaminey, ek dil se dosti thi, yeh huzoor bhi kaminey!
3. Whats In a Name Song – Earlier they had no names. It was kabootar ja ja ja and atriya pe lotan kabutar re! Rahman and Prasoon Joshi made sure that we all googled Masakalli. And you are still wondering whats in a name, that too of a dove!
4. Religion Converter Song – It seems that A R Rahman is hell bent on making sure that we go for religion conversion soon. First it was Piya haaji ali, then Khwaja mere khwaja and this year he gave us Arziyaan. If I ever convert, blame it on Rahman, only Rahman. For cheap thrills, we still try to count the number of times “maula” is there in the song. Whats your count ?
5. Killer One Song – Shankar Ehsaan Loy had the complete album, Amit Trivedi killed them with just ek gaana called ek taara!
6. New Genrae – Piyush Mishra invented a new genrae of mujra, polticial mujra! Jaise door desh ke tower me ghus jaye re aeroplane. Gulaal. Now our only worry is if he can be denied USA visa for putting 9/11 in a mujra.
7. Legends Should Retire – Dont attack us! But if this is what we get, legends should remain as legends. Illayaraja’s music did little for Cheeni Kum and it was the same for Paa. Except the theme tune nothing worked in Paa. The udi mudi judi or whatever it is, doesnt stay even for few seconds! or May be legends should never work with their fanboys!
8. Song ONLY for the Big Screen – It proved us wrong. Dhan tedan! Its only for the big screen, in a dark theatre. We saw it once. We went again. Watching it on tv, we were wondering why has Vishal shot a song inside a nightclub in such unimaginative way. We saw it on the big screen and ate all our words, twice!
9. Musical Aag of The Year – Is Ashutosh Gowariker’s music sense complete zero ? Was it all Rahman ? Like his film, the music CD was quite a fat one packed with 13 forgettable songs! And shot in similar way! Is this the same man who shot yeh jo desh hai tera & khwaja mere khwaja ?
10. Music That Was Hit in Fantasyland – The album was hit in twittosphere but shit otherwise. Aladin. The cast and the crew went on overdrive with their tweets but as Time Out’s Nandini Ramnathan wrote, it was all gone in sixty seconds!
11. Vishal Dadlani must be the only rock-star who writes nursery rhymes. Have you heard the “hey baby, you may be” whatever shit it is! But he can put his vocals to great use. Kurbaan hua had our Rocky in full throttle!
12. No Pun Intended Song – Pocket me rocket hai, pocket me. As a friend said, it sounds like a great jingle for sex toys.
13. Cheap-est Thrill-est Song – Only for Adults! Bold and bitchy! Dev D. Courtesy lyricist Amitabh Bhattacharya. Pyaar, emosanal atyachaar, bitch and (w)hooooore – all at one go!
14. Best Installation Art in a song – Chandni chowk came close to New York, Gau Mata was near Gucci and we had our eyes wide open because Dil gira daftan.
15. Mohit Chauhan can do a masakalli and melancholy with equal ease! Can we now spare him! Why only rona dhona senti menti songs?
16. Best of 2009 – Bunch of kids got together in an “Audio Garage” and delivered the album of the year and the love anthem of our generation. Dev D. Music director, lyricist, singers – all new. Amit Trivedi, Amitabh Bhattacharya and the gang! ( If Rahman and Bhardwaj dont deliver, who will. So, would not put them here).
17. A R Rahman gave us a musical note for boo boo. Its called Buuloooo.
18. Best Closing Notes of the Year – Check out the last 2 mins of Rehna tu! Pure bliss. Can someone enlighten us what instrument it is.
19. Underrated Songs of the Year – Pankho ko from Rocket Singh – Salesman Of The Year and Delhi Destiny from 99. Everything else gets so much overplay that the joy of discovering a good song is almost dead. Jaideep delivers one of the best lines of the year…..uljhe nahi to kaise suljhoge….bikhre nahi to kaise nikhroge.
20. Imtiaz Ali is going for formula in his music too. One punjabi bhangra for closing credit, one peppy number with english words, one sad song in Mohit or Raahat’s voice and blah blah! Partner in crime – Pritam.
21. Weirdest Words of the Year – Bhangra bistar! Courtesy – Jaideep Sahni.
22. Wannabe BPL Rock Album of the Year – London Dreams.
23. Worst Musical Import of the Year – Kylie Minogue with chiggy wiggie! whatever that means.
24. Worst Musical Export of the Year – Rahman with Couples Retreat. Why, O Dear Lord, why ?
25. Self-Flagellation Song of the Year – Bebo main bebo!
26. Musical Sucess Party of the Year – Dulha Mil Gaya! Yes, they threw a party to celebrate its musical success. Who is listening ?
27. Jingles of the Year – dil titli…dil titli….kabhi yaadon ka…kabhi sapno ka and Yeh kis pyaari hifazat me ho befikri ki haalat hai..yaara o yaara. First one is by Swanand Kirkire and second by Gulzar.
28. Few things that never change – Atif still singing out of tune, here, there, everywhere. But its still working…tu jaane na ( Ajab Prem ki Ghajab Kahani )…nobody knows why and how! Confession – we also love it!
29. Cinematic Homage Song of the Year – Akira Kurosawa from Chintuji. Its a riot…Kapola kapola! Listen carefully and see how many filmmakers you can spot!
Coming up next is filmy fuglies of the year!
PS. BPL – Below the Poverty Line.
Mr Vishal Bhardwaj, what have we done to you ? Why are you hell-bent on killing us slowly and softly ? If you dont believe us, check out the new song promo of Ishqiya….dil toh bachcha hai ji and the strategically placed “fatak” by Vidya Balan….thoda kaccha hai ji! Words by Gulzar and music by Vishal Bhardwaj. Can someone please tell us when the music is going to be out!
Ishqiya is directed by Abhishek Chaubey, produced by Vishal Bhardwaj and stars Naseeruddin Shah, Vidya Balan and Arshad Warsi.
UPDATE – And like us, those of you who are still drooling over it, there is more. Here is the making of the song…
Finally, the audio and video of the original Dhen Tedan song is out. Though Vishal Bhardwaj has admitted it many times in his interviews, but those of you who still cant recall, click the play button. Its sung by Suresh Wadekar and Roop Kumar Rathod for Vishal’s directorial debut on television. Remember the series Gubbare ? Check out young Sharman Joshi. The original was also by Vishal Bhardwaj and Gulzar.
And for the full audio track click here.
Like us, if you are googling and shouting out Dhen Tedan at regular intervals, we got something more. The complete lyrics of the title track of Kaminey – Dhen Tedan! Now sing along! Lyrics – Gulzar. Music – Vishal Bhardwaj. Singers – Vishal Dadlani & Sukhwinder Singh.
For a change, we are putting something in hindi. So if you are not comfortable with hindi, bear with us.
गीत : ढेन-टेड़ान
फ़िल्म : कमीने (2009)
गायक : सुखविंदर, विशाल डडलानी
संगीतकार : विशाल भारद्वाज
गीतकार : गुलज़ार
आजा आजा दिल निचोड़ें
रात की मटकी तोड़ें
कोई गुडलक निकालें
आज गुल्लक तो फोड़ेंतिल तिल तारा मेरा तेली का तेल
कौड़ी कौड़ी पैसा पैसा, पैसे का खेल
चल चल सड़कों पे होगी ढेन ढेन
ढेन-टेड़ान टेडाटेडान
ढेन-टेड़ान टेडाटेडानआजा कि, वन-वे है ये ज़िंदगी की गली, एक ही चांस है
आगे हवा ही हवा है, अगर सांस ले तो ये रोमांस हैयही कहते हैं, यही सुनते हैं
जो भी जाता है, जाता है, वो फिर से आता नहींआजी आजा दिल निचोड़ें…
कोई चाल ऐसी चलो यार, अबके समंदर भी पुल पे चले
फिर तू चले उसपे या मैं चलूं, शहर हो अपने पैरों तले
कहीं खबरें हैं, कहीं कब्रें हैं
जो भी सोये हैं कब्रों में, उनको जगाना नहींआजा आजा दिल निचोड़ें
रात की मटकी तोड़ें
कोई गुडलक निकालें
आज गुल्लक तो फोड़ेंतिल तिल तारा मेरा तेली का तेल
कौड़ी कौड़ी पैसा पैसा, पैसे का खेल
चल चल सड़कों पे होगी ढेन ढेनढेन-टेड़ान टेडाटेडान ढेन-टेड़ान टेडाटेडान
And if you haven’t heard the song yet, click on the video link for the complete song.
We are loving it! We got two new posters of Kaminey and we want to kill the waiting game now! Have a look and let us know what you guys feel about the posters. BTW, the man in blue, looking upward, in left hand corner of the first poster is Amole Gupte ( writer – Taare Zameen Par). Killer looks!
And here is one more….
For two other posters, click here.
Kaminey stars Shahid Kapur (in a double role), Priyanka Chopra as a middle-class Marathi girl and Amole Gupte (writer of Taare Zameen Par) in a negative role. The music of the film is by Vishal Bhardwaj and lyrics by Gulzarsaab.
For the plot/story/synopsis of Kaminey, click here.
The film will release on 14th August, 2009.
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 