Introducing my New Blog: The Bollywood Song of the Week

This is to introduce my new weekly blog THE BOLLYWOOD SONG OF THE WEEK.

The blog is an additional outlet for my love for Hindi films and Hindi film songs. It is an unbiased yet affectionate listen in to the music of our times. 

Every Friday, I will feature one song among the many that fill the Bollywood film soundscape on the blog. I will also review the other new songs and soundtracks, apart from highlighting and talking in depth of that one Bollywood /Hindi film song of the week that stood out that particular week.

Legendary Playback Singers Lata Mangeshkar and Mohd Rafi

A Never-Ending Musical 
Ever since sound came into Hindi movies in the pre-independence era, every Hindi film (barring a handful) have featured songs. The uniqueness of what is popularly now called 'Bollywood Movies' - is the lip-syncing and bursting into a song and dance routine at any slightest excuse or inclination.

Very few directors are able to make the song an audio-visual experience integral to the story. The rest, as they say, is mayhem.We talk here of the song as a purely audio experience. But notable visuals will certainly be talked about.

Now, there are over a million Hindi film songs and counting, which, if played together at the same time would resemble some epic fun-fair of sounds.In this blog, we celebrate many such songs and their makers, the transition of the same onscreen, the stories behind them, the legendary singers, how the failure of the film can take some beautiful songs into oblivion, and how box-office success ensures delusional immortality.

Hail, The Great Hindi Film Soundtrack!

Great Singers All: Asha Bhonsle, Mukesh, Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar & Manna Dey

Bob Dylan turns 75

On May 24, 2016, the multifaceted, enigmatic, 'the man of the thin growl voice', the mesmerizing banyan tree of a songwriter, protest singer, folk-singer, harmonica-round-the-neck man - Bob Dylan, turned 75. If compared to a very commercial Hindi film song sequence, Dylan wears and discards many of his superhero to ordinary man costumes in the space of one song at a time.

Now, we may not call him a free-flowing great singer like Lata Mangeshkar, but the culmination of his wispy voice and sheer power of his elevating songwriting (what beautiful, searing poetry!) makes him sort of a charming, caravan-living, mysterious traveler who sings all that he absorbs from life, whenever one listens to him. Here are the lines from one of the first songs that made him conspicuous, way back in the mid-sixties:

"Blowin' In The Wind"

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man ?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand ?
Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, how many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea ?
Yes, how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free ?
Yes, how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn't see ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky ?
Yes, how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry ?
Yes, how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died ?
The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind. 

Stalking Lata

Mumbai, 1948

Lata Mangeshkar was on a local train, on her way to meet her guru and music director Kemchand Prakash. It was when she alighted from the train that she noticed a man following her. There were no motor vehicles at that time, so you had to hire a horse carraige to travel. Lata beckoned one and much to her alarm, she saw the man following her in another carraige.

Lata got down at her destination and hurried to her guru's home. On seeing the other carraige stop outside the home, Lata told her guru, " That man has been following me all the time."

The man was already walking towards Prakash's home. Kemchand Prakash smiled and said, "This is Kishore, Ashok's little brother. He is here to learn too..."

That is how the Hindi film playback legends Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar first met.

Celebrating the Hindi Film Soundtrack History

A great site for hindi film song lovers, is a site by the name of www.downmelodylane.com.


Mohd Rafi, actor Ashok Kumar and his brother Kishore. Rafi sang most of his songs in the fifties and sixties. Kishore regaled us in the seventies and eighties. Comparisons can do no justice to these extraordinary singers.


The queen of song:Lata Mangeshkar strumming a guitar. Lata's favorite band is the Beatles.


Rafi lets his angelic voice take over


Asha Bhosale and RD Burman, along with SD Burman and his wife pose for a family picture.