The Mughal Ear

A weekend trawl through AR Rahman’s scores for period films — in anticipation of his soundtrack for Jodhaa Akbar — resulted in an answer to a question I never knew existed: What would Apur Sansar look like gussied up in mainstream garb, with stars and songs? The scene where Apu wakes up and discovers his wife’s hairpin in bed and toys with it, possibly recalling the events of the night that caused the trinket to slip away in the first place — couldn’t it be scored to Dheemi dheemi from 1947: Earth? When a soundtrack first makes its way into the world, it is bound so inexorably to its parent film that, short of a lobotomy, it’s impossible to listen to a song and not think of the way it plays on screen. But then the years pass and the film is left behind in the half-hidden recesses of memory, and that’s when the song, if it’s any good, assumes a life of its own. That’s when it snaps the threads that ground it to a particular film, that’s when it becomes a universal encapsulation of its essence. When we listen to Abhi na jaao chhod kar today, doesn’t it appear to have been crafted to express not Dev Anand’s entreaties of love so much as ours? And isn’t Dheemi dheemi a perfect musical analogy to the thoughts running through Apu that dreamy postcoital morning: Tu jo paas hai, mujhe pyaas hai, tere jism ka ehsaas hai?


Art is often described as abstract because solid, mathematical evaluation criteria cannot be applied to matters of discernment and taste, but a simple application of ratio-proportion to the soundtrack of 1947: Earth shows you concretely — at least, it showed me — that this is one of Rahman’s most successful soundtracks: the number of songs that have survived the wear-and-tear of overlistening (and time) is the same as the number of songs in the album. It’s a perfect one — as are two others, the magnificent soundtracks for Water and Mangal Pandey (okay, Dekho aayi Holi apart), and this makes me wonder if Rahman has, in his studio, a secret vault of everlasting goodies he opens only for filmmakers named Mehta, namely Deepa and Ketan (and perhaps, on rare occasion, for a Benegal and his Zubeidaa; rediscovering Saiyyan chhodo mori baiyyan and Dheemi dheemi gaaoon were the other highs of my weekend). A Gowarikar, on the other hand, appears way down on the period-film list, for I found that the songs from Lagaan sounded better when echoing nostalgically in the confines of my head than when leaking out of the speakers in the present day. O re chhori was every bit as folksy and lovely as I remembered it, but the rest of the album shone only in parts. I perked up at the rousing four-line openings of Baar baar haan and Ghanan ghanan, but the songs subsequently meandered away from memorableness. And while Lata Mangeshkar’s of-a-certain-age voice conveys a palpable ache in the bell-jar rise-and-fall of the line Chanda mein tum hi to bhare ho chaandni, O paalanhaare was otherwise a bit of a chore to get through.


Rahman and Gowarikar were far more successful when they collaborated on the contemporary soundscape of Swades. Yeh jo des hai tera is still one for the ages, and I’d forgotten what a beauty Saawariya saawariya was, with the closing portions of its stanzas taxiing down the tarmac before achieving blissful liftoff at Bhooli hoon main jaise apni dagariya, after which the tune gracefully descends to the mellower altitudes of the mukhda. And now, with Jodhaa Akbar, the composer and the director go back in time for another stab at another period, and after a few listens, the album seems to hover between their earlier efforts — though, thankfully, closer to Swades in terms of achievement. I feel it will age better than Lagaan, but unlike Swades, what appears to be missing here is that undefinable, perhaps even unknowable, aspect of the creative process capable of nudging an album from solid goodness into flat-out greatness. In other words, a perfect one this isn’t. The craftsmanship is extraordinary, and yet, as a whole, it’s only intermittently that this soundtrack worms its way into your soul. Perhaps it’s just that we’re too greedy, too demanding when it comes to this composer, or perhaps Gowarikar simply needs to eavesdrop on his music director’s sittings with one of the Mehtas.


The percussion heavy Azeem-o-shaan shahenshah extrapolates to an entire number the love-in-the-time-of-war feel in the interludes of Ilayaraja’s Sundari kannaal oru seidhi, from Thalapathi. I was instantly hooked by the rhythm patterns — all pounding drums and clashing steel — and it’s a superb touch that the staccato lines of melody, the unvarying ups and downs intoned with almost military precision, gradually segue into a pattern of notes that flows more organically, more tunefully, as if hinting at the warrior-emperor’s impending transformation at the hand of love and in the arms of his queen. But beyond that conception, there isn’t much to hold on to in the number, which wears its welcome out by the second stanza. This sense of gradually diminishing returns isn’t as pronounced in Kehne ko Jashn-e-bahara hai, the first of the love songs (nicely sung by Javed Ali, who sounds as if Sonu Nigam’s throat had been roughed up, just a bit, with sandpaper), but if the number feels less than what it could have been, it’s due to the strangely truncated second interlude (especially in light of the first one, filigreed with exquisite work on strings). But the tune is gorgeous — the instrumental version, with a delectable flute replacing the voice, bears this out — and Ali glides through it admirably. If I had to pick a nit, I would wish for a little more variation, perhaps emotion, in his singing. It’s as if he mapped out the high notes and the low notes and set about conquering them with a mountaineer’s diligence rather than a musician’s grace — but, again, the melodic lines are so stirring, I couldn’t help returning for a fifth, or a fifteenth, listen.


The other love song is the magical In lamhon ke daaman mein, one of Rahman’s most structurally ambitious compositions and easily this album’s standout. Hearing Sonu Nigam (with the backing of a robust chorus) seesaw expertly between crescendo and decrescendo, between moody meditation and defiant declaration, it’s as if a committed, if weak-willed, lover grew a spine of steel through the course of the song, then flopped lovesick on his mattress again, then roused himself once more, then decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and slipped back into supine romantic longing. There’s so much character in this song, it’s as if stage directions were written into its crevices. I felt this especially when Madhushree begins the second antara with humming that sounds almost absent-minded, as if she walked into the recording studio lost in her own thoughts and snapped out of her reverie just in time to ready herself for the unexpected contours of the end of the stanza, beginning with ki prem aag mein jalte hain. The anticipation to see this number play on screen is at once thrilling and terrifying. What a canvas to mount a picturisation on... but what if they aren’t up to it?


The mood of this pair of love songs finds interesting contrast in a pair of equal-opportunity devotional numbers, making this soundtrack, if nothing else, some sort of secular triumph. Khwaja mere khwaja, sung by Rahman, begins with a number of overlapping dissonances that find somewhat pat resolution almost instantly. There are interesting rhythm patterns and a great snatch of interlude music that goes on to colour the subsequent stanzas, but this isn’t a patch on — to take a loose genre equivalent — Al maddath maula from Mangal Pandey. But the instrumental version is a drop-dead stunner, veering into bylanes uncharted by the original and coming off like Pachelbel’s Canon in D reconfigured for strings and an oboe. There’s a breathtaking purity of purpose in this piece that’s unmatched by anything else in the album — or perhaps only by Bela Shende’s exquisite cry from the heart that kicks off Manmohana. The soulful mukhda is a thing of beauty, the orchestral tapestries are lushly woven with alternating flute and strings, but the stanzas are disappointingly one-note. Javed Akhtar, however, compensates somewhat with an extremely startling line as Shende drops to a murmur near the end, as if exhausted by the fervour of her full-throated devotion. “Bansi ban jaoongi, in honton ki ho jaoongi,” she whispers, and in wishing that she were a flute in service of those Lips, she reminds us that bhakti and shringar, the spiritual and the sensual, are oftentimes one and the same. And that’s true of great music too, which operates as much on the pleasure centres of the brain as the strings of the heart — and there are times the soundtrack for Jodhaa Akbar comes tantalisingly close, but it’s no hookah.

Courtesy: NewIndpress.com