Friday Favorite

or, Favorite Friday? Most of the people I know, have Friday as their favorite day of the week! But that's not the point of the post. I am starting a new series today. Yes, I know that I have miserably failed in following up any of the series so far, whether it was Project Snapshot or Tuesday Tags. I have excuses reasons for discontinuing both of them but I am not getting into them now. All I will say: Most of the things I try, I usually don't succeed in my first few attempts. I deleted my first 2-3 blogging attempts and here I am blogging continuously for past 2.5 years now! So let me give another try to this series thingy.

So the idea behind this series is simple enough. I will pick an old bollywood song every week and give some details about the song and embed the song here or provide the link for you to listen. Let me put a disclaimer first: I am no expert in music and raagas and all that stuff. To be fair, our school did have music teachers and they did try to teach us some classical music too (I know my SaReGaMa, thanks to them) but as the grades for music didn't count in the final grades, most of us didn't take it seriously. I always got a C in my music classes (lowest passing grade), though my fear of public-singing can be a contributing factor in that. But then, I don't remember any of the raagas from those classes, so may be I am simply tune-deaf.

However, in my teenager years, I used to be a music maniac: the bollywood kind of music. (On a side note: I wonder why don't they use bollywood songs to teach us music, it will be so much more interesting and easier). My specialty was old bollywood songs. However, over the years, I have lost touch. So I am starting this series to get in touch with this old passion of mine. So here we go:

Today's song is "Chuppa lo yun dil mein pyar mera" (Click on the link for listening to the song.) from movie Mamta (1966). The music for the movie and this song was given by Roshan. It's a beautiful duet sung by Hemant Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar. The beauty of this song lies in the absence of noise of musical instrument. A constant beat of ghungroo accompanied by few instruments (flute? violin? ) while the voice of the singers carry the song. I especially love the lyrics:

Chuppa lo yun dil mein pyar mera, ki jaise mandir mein lo diye ki,
Tum apne charano mein rakh lo mujhko, tumhare charano ka phool hoon,
main sar jhukaye khadi hoon pritam ki jaise mandir mein lo diye ki

Oh yes I love the second line of the song as well. Even though the lyrics of the second line are humbling, the pitch of song rises (rendered beautifully by Lata) giving it quiet a contrast and then it drops down with "main sar jhukaye khadi hoon pritam", giving the beautiful effect of total submission (note the emphasis on the word "khadi"). It's just perfect.

And I can't even start the beauty of the words "jaise mandir mein lo diye ki". Trust Majrooh Sultanpuri to come with such beautiful words.The rest of song is also very well written and obviously very well rendered by Hemant and Lata. This song has been one of my favorite songs from the moment I heard it. Hope you like it too.

Okay, enough procrastination. I need to work now...