AR Rahman’s iconic Jai Ho symbolises the symbiotic relationship of Indian cinema with the 60,000-km railway network, which binds the country
together.
It could be a choreographer’s nightmare or a challenge—but India’s ubiquitous sawari continues to chug in and chug out of the Bollywood factory with aplomb and chutzpah.
From the 1954 release Jagriti’s ‘Aao bachchon tumhe dikhayen’ written by Bharat Ratna awardee Pradeep, to Anand Bakshi’s philosophical lyrics in ‘Gadi bula rahi hai’ in the 1974 film, Dost, to the unforgettable ‘Mere sapnon ki rani’ from Aradhana to the more recent AR Rahman’s Oscar crescendo, ‘Jai ho’ from Slumdog Millionaire, trains and Hindi music have been inseparable.
“Bakshiji’s lyrics have a fantastic connection with life. It’s really about leaving people behind and meeting new people. At the end of it, the journey just continues,” says an emotional Dharmendra when queried about the song from Dost. It was shot in Simla over three days. “The song gave me a chance to reflect on the past. A lot of events close to my heart came to the fore,” adds the actor.
The juice of creativity
The allegory of a journey — life, a blooming romance or just the wheels of history (as in Jagriti) — is irresistible for a lyricist. Some, like Shailendra, effortlessly combined a situation with humour, which lyrically found its way into the 1960 Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman starrer, Kala Bazaar. The song was ‘Apni toh har aah hi ek toofan hai, uparwala jaan kar anjaan hae’, which scriptwriter and lyricist Jaideep Sahni of Chak De fame recalls rather fondly.
“These were lyricists who knew what they were doing,” says Sahni. Take a look at this. “The obvious meaning is Dev Anand singing to the gods but the twist in the line, ‘Uparwala jaan ke anjaan hae’, brings a smile to the viewer when he sees Waheeda Rehman being aware of the actor’s message to her. After all, she is on the upper berth of the train,” he says with a laugh. Other songs that he recalls are the poignant ‘Wardhi hai Bhagwan, fauji mera naam’ from Fauji and the qawaali from Ravi Chopra’s The Burning Train. Gulzar’s lines for ‘Dhadak, dhadak’ from Bunty aur Babli is about a train though the word is never mentioned, says Sahni with admiration. The song and beyond..
Many songs with trains as the backdrop or focus have done remarkably well. Interestingly, the success of the music was not exactly planned in advance. Slumdog Millionaire, the film that put India on the Oscar map, is one such instance.
T-Series president (marketing) Vinod Bhanushali has acquired films with AR Rahman’s music over the past two years and Slumdog Millionaire was a given. Trade reports were pretty lukewarm on ‘Jai ho’ though Bhanushali knew he had a winner on his hands when he heard the number. “There is an Indianess to ‘Jai ho’. It is a term which most Indians greet each other with. It was catchy, what followed was history,” says Bhanushali who is said to have bought the music rights to the film for less than Rs 1 crore.
For choreographer Longinus Fernandez, who recently won the Astaire award for ‘Jai ho’, shooting the song at Mumbai’s iconic CST station was a dream come true. “Platforms 3 and 4 were the location and three days were all we had. Shooting was allowed only between midnight and half past four in the morning, the period between Mumbai’s last local train out and the first in the morning. The cooperation from the railways was hugely helpful. I had a tight brief from Danny Boyle who said this was the film’s climax. I had around 3,000 people who had to look like daily commuters, and the dance had to be combined with the celebration of the hero having won the contest and found his love. For their part, the railways had everything in place — security, restrooms apart from the train drivers being there well after their working hours,” says Fernandez.
Like Fernandez, Farah Khan has a close relationship with Dil Se’s chart-buster ‘Chaiyya chaiyya’. She underplays her contribution saying the choreography looks more difficult in retrospect. “We did shoot the song over four days on a moving train, but with Mani Ratnam, Malaika and Shah Rukh things were only easier. Speaking for SRK, he wanted to jump all over the train and even climb up the funnel,” says Khan with a laugh, who took a break from attending to her triplets. The song was shot on the Nilgiri Mountain Railroad in Tamil Nadu.
The moolah for good music always exists and songs like ‘Chaiyya chaiyya’ and ‘Jai ho’ merely confirm that. For Bhanushali, ‘Jai ho’ was hit and the Congress party acquired the rights to the song for reportedly Rs 80-90 lakh for one year for their election campaign, which saw the Congress forming the government. An additional Rs 40 lakh came in through offerings such as ringtones while CD sales were reportedly between 60,000-70,000 units.
For Bollywood, the song with the train has been historical. While ‘Mere sapnon ki rani’ gave the country its first superstar, ‘Jai ho’ brought India international recognition. Through the years, the inextricable link between great music and trains has made for some great moments. That story is unlikely to end in a hurry.
Courtesy: economictimes.com
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