Ada Lyrics – A Disappointment

This is a very general belief that a collection of unknown/distant known/difficult known words can make a good piece of prose or poetry. But my definition of good poetry says something else. I believe that unless the readers/listeners realize that piece of poetry completely, that art does not have its salvation.

Another general belief says that lyrics have no role in making a song beautiful or lousy. A lot of people has said me that they don’t really give ear to the lyrics of a particular song. But I fail to understand this concept. If lyrics really have nothing to do with the concept of the song then can ‘Man Mohana’ be sung with the lyrics of ‘Hai Rama’ or vise versa? For me a song without proper understanding of lyrics is like savoring a dish without smelling it!

As I was listening to Ada songs and as I was getting more and more disappointed with the lyrics, I was giving the concept of lyrics in Hindi cinema a serious thought.

For me, the lyrics in Hindi cinema can be of two types – thought driven or word driven.

Let me give an example of a thought driven lyrics.

Jo gumshuda khwab tha..
…………………………
Who loha tha
Pighal gaya
Khincha Khincha
Machal gaya
Sitar Mein Badal gaya
Roobaroo roshni

Is there any word that cannot be understood easily?

This is an exemplary piece of poetry that actually makes you wonder what the writer must be thinking; that how can anybody think so beautifully and convey his thought in such pleasant manner.

On the other hand the word driven lyrics say very simple things with some unconventional words. The words that seem to play hide and seek with you while instigating you to catch their meaning. This kind of poetry can take any song to a different height. Most lyrics by Gulzar are like that. For example,

Kabhi neele asmaan pe
Chalo ghumne chale hum
Koi abra bil gaya to
Zameen pe baras le hum.

But what to do with such lyrics that neither gives you food for thought nor encourages you to get the meanings of the words. For example

Ishq ada hai, Ishq sada hai
Ishq dawa hai, Ishq dua hai
Ishq baka hai, Ishq fana hai
Ishq wafa hai, Ishq jafa hai
Ishq niha hai, Ishq aya hai
Ishq rida hai, Ishq haaya hai
Ishq asa hai, Ishq gada hai

Such a piece of poetry is a total let down for me. Why these particular words picked? Because they sound similar? Except for the sentence “Ishq baka hai, Ishq fana hai”, the others seem to be made forcibly to match the rhyme. The meanings of two words in a sentence don’t complement each other!

Ada lyrics keeps disappointing me throughout the soundtrack. For example, when I heard

‘Tu hai niha, main hoon aya’ in Meherbaan song,

the immediate thought that struck me was that I just heard the phrase of niha-aya in Ishq Ada song also. Now it’s again used in the Meherban song! This so blatantly speaks against the lyricist’s creativity. He couldn’t think of any other phrase for the second song?

Then there is another song Hai Dard. I have no idea how ‘Tapish’ can be rhymed with ‘Khalish’! Only because they sound similar? And what about the cultural difference?

I wish Ada lyrics were a little more serious, the music would be more enjoyable.

Penguin's Cold Shock

Penguin Books recently came up with a series of books on Fiction Collection and Non-Fiction Collection to commemorate their 20 years in India.

I was in Landmark, Lokandwala last week and was amazed to see those books stacked in a very stylish manner. I could see three volumes on Non-Fiction Collection and two volumes on Fiction Collection there. All the books were huge in size and both me and my sister were tempted to have a close look at them. We picked one and started to check the index. We stopped at 'Chowringhee'. Though I have not read it, but I know very well that this is a celebrated novel by Shankar and also that it's huge in length. But in this book Chowringhee was fitted in three pages only! We both started to look at each other's face. How can it be possible?

Then we started to check for any novel in the index that I've already read. And found 'The Great Indian Novel' by Shashi Tharoor. It too had three pages alloted to its fate. I opened the page and was bewildered to find that they just picked one chapter from the novel and published it; not even the summary of the novel!

Honestly speaking, we were standing dumbstruck holding those huge books in hands, each one of which costs 250/- to 350/-. I fail to understand what made the publishers to come out with such a weird idea? Who on earth would buy these books just to read one chapter of some famous/infamous novel? Why would anyone read them? The entire concept appeared utter meaningless to me.

Cannes...Not Again !!!!!!!

Cannes Film Festival is on again. There are some facts about the festival that I have been noticing for last few years. The Indian media will again come up with millions of prints on the dresses of bollywood stars. But you will not find any information on the film festival! Every odd and oddest people will be mentioned for their cleavage showing gowns, but there will be not a single statement on which movie has the chance to win the most prestigious Golden Palm award.

I remember a friend of mine asking me 'Is Cannes a fashion show?'. I said 'Cannes is a city in France that holds the Cannes Film Festival every year.' I don't really blame her for such a question as that is what the media has projected Cannes to be. Only thing that we get to see, read and hear about Cannes is 'which Bollywood star wore what'. The entire Indian media seems to be interested in publishing one image of Aishwarya Rai and make some titillating comment on her dress.

No where till now I've come across a single statement saying that it was the year 1956 when one Indian film made us proud in Cannes by winning 'Best Human Document'. I know no one is really interested to know the name of some dark arty kinda film. But how can I forget that it was my most favourite movie 'Pather Panchali' by Satyajit Ray?

BTW, Cannes is pronounced as Kaan and NOT as Kaynz.

Why Jaipur?

Now when Indian Mujahideen took the responsibility for bombing Jaipur, there’s no more confusion regarding who did it. Whatever be the name of the terrorist group, one thing is confirmed that it’s an Islamic group and is fed by two of our neighboring countries. Those two neighboring country, for the one of which, India went on war to free it from the other. This is irony that the country who took birth from the death of thousands of Indian soldiers is now supplying terrorists to ruin it. That's a different story though.

The reason for this attack? The Indian Mujahideen has come up with an innovative thought for the answer. According to them, they wanted to hit the ever growing tourism industry in India thus ruining Indian economy hard.

Now this statement takes us to do some study on Indian tourism industry.

It's a wellknown fact that India is enjoying the footfall of thousands (if not millions) thourists' every year. Ever since Indian tourism industry came up with the ‘Incredible India’ slogan, the tourism scenario is just not same anymore. The statistics says that the influx of foreign tourists has more than doubled in last five years.

Interestingly, the two places that attract tourists the most are Agra and Rajasthan, in the order. Delhi, Khajuraho, Mumbai and Kerala follow later. So, in order to destroy the tourism industry, Jaipur seemes to be an obvious choice since it is the capital of Rajasthan. But why not Agra? If Agra alone magnets more tourist than the cumulative effort of the entire Rajasthan state, then why didn’t terrorists bomb Taj Mahal?

But I guess the answer lies in the question itself. Do I really need to say why Indian Mujahideen didn’t attack Taj Mahal?

Some Snippets

1

Yesterday till 12 midnight I was busy with one SUDOKU puzzle. This was the first time I was handling such a stubborn SUDOKU staff. It took me almost two days to finish it off.


But finally when I solved it, there was the real peace :-)


2

Much has been said, written, filmed, documented and presnted about the phenomenal characteristics of Mumbai signals. Beggers of all age stretching their hands seems to be as aboriginal to the city as the Arabian sea is. But for last two months I noticed something different. All the beggers were selling flowers in the signal instead of asking for free money. I don't know about rest of the city, but the sight at the signal next to my house was colouful. I was truly enjoying the view of rickety kids spreading their hands with a bunch of colorful roses!

3

A person sitting just next to the entrance door of my office put a small ARR image in the soft-board next to his PC. As I noticed it on my ways to enetring and exiting from office, I got very exited. I felt like having a chat with this person as till now only I'm looked like a unicorn for having ARR smiling on my desktop.

One day I found the guy sitting there and walked straight up to him. Here follows the conversation:

Me: Excuse me....

That Guy: Yes

Me: Hi....are you a fan of A R Rahman?

(That Guy looked startled, wondering what this girl wants to say!)

Me: You have put ARR's image here (pointing to the image). So I just wanted know if yoy are his fan.

That Guy: Well, I like his music, but I am not really a 'fan' of him. Actually I have put it here as it lists all Worldspace channels and I want to subscribe Worldspace.

(Then it was my turn to get shocked. I never noticed that it was Worldspace adverstisement!)

That Guy: Are you a fan of him? Do you want this pic?

Me: No no...Thanks...Yes..I'm his fan...anyway.....nice talking to you..bye :)