A.R. Rahman to use his Lajjo compositions for Ravana

If you are a diehard fan of the Rahman-Rathnam combination and follow every single news item about them, you will remember that they were both working on Lajjo seriously until the summer of 2007 but were forced to give up the project later. Now, the buzz is that A.R. Rahman has decided to use the tunes he had composed for Lajjo in Mani Ratnam's new project Ravana (this tentative title is also referred to as Raavana). It is also heard that Mani Rathnam has also permited him to do so.

For those who do not know about the film, Lajjo is Mani Rathnam’s Bollywood project which was supposed to star Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor. As usual, Mani invited his favourite music director A.R. Rahman to compose the music of this period film. The project was supposed to start in 2005 but Aamir was busy with Mangal Pandey then, so it got postponed to 2006, a time when Mani was busy with Guru (Abhishek Bachchan). Again, Lajjo got postponed. When finally Mani returned to the project in 2007, speculations were rife that the film would be dropped and the film’s producer Bobby Bedi did not scotch that rumour. But unfazed by these rumours, Mani Rathnam and A.R. Rahman kept working on the project diligently until August 2007. Mani formulated a perfect screenplay for the film which he discussed with Rahman regularly and the latter came up with several beautiful compositions. But with no response from Bobby and the different tracks Aamir and Kareena have gone after Mangal Paandey and Jab We Met respectively, the project’s future seems too bleak.

Whether Lajjo is revived or not, the music originally meant for it will definitely get a new lease of life in Ravana/ Ashokavanam.

Courtesy: galatta.com

Aamir finally goes bald

There is a popular saying in Bollywood that ‘Whatever Aamir ‘Perfectionist’ Khan does, he does not follow any style, because whatever he does, simply becomes a style in itself’. The latest one being that he has gone bald for his forthcoming film Ghajini, with the southern sensation Asin and the Bollywood hottie Jiah Khan paired opposite him.


He going bald had become the talk of the town for quite some time now. And the ‘day’ decided was his Birthday, which eventually got postponed. Now the D-Day (or is it the B-Day- Bald Day) arrived yesterday when ‘Mr. Perfect’ Aamir ultimately bid good bye to his much loved hair, in the presence of his near and dear ones. And the person instrumental in this was the renowned celebrity hair stylist Avan Contractor, and the location was Aamir’s residence in Bandra. The ‘USP’ of this one and a half an hour ‘balding session’ was that, at the end of it all, at the behest of Aamir, Avan created a scar with the razor on Aamir’s head!

It looks quite ironical that it was the same Aamir who had gone full fledged with his locks in Mangal Pandey: The Rising. And now it is the same Aamir who has gone bald, though the common factor remains that both of these ‘hairstyles’ were not an overnight decision. Aamir had spent lots of time working out on these looks.

So, please do not be surprised if you suddenly find the young men going bald. Because you know that the reason is not the summer, or the dandruff and definitely not the lice, but it’s called the refreshing ‘Aamir slice’!!!

Courtesy: Indiafm.com

Aamir reveals his new look

We all know that Aamir Khan is sporting a new look for his upcoming film Ghajini and he finally revealed his new crew cut look at the premiere of ‘Race’ last night. Making his first public appearance with his new look, he says “This is how it’s gonna look and I’m going to keep it like this till the end of the film.” He also rubbishes the rumours that he is going bald for the role. “No, this is what I’m going to look after the second part of the film. The character, I’m playing in the film suffers head injuries and you can see some prominent spots in my head,” he reveals. Aamir was very nervous initially when hairstylist Avan Contractor was about to work on him. His wife Kiran Rao, close friend and lyricist Prasun Joshi, designer Arjun Bhasin and director A R Murugados were present at Aamir residence at the time of his hair cut. It is believed that Kiran and Prasoon constantly joked about Aamir going bald which made him all the more nervous. The entire process took one-and a half hour.


Aamir said, “Ghajini is an action thriller and this look is an important dimension to the character I’m playing. I’m very happy with the way it has turned out.” He was so happy with his cut that they had an impromptu dinner party to celebrate the new look. Known to be a thorough professional, Aamir and Avan spent weeks trying to work out this look.

Aamir is known to experiment a lot with his looks in different films. In Mangal Pandey he had long hair and a moustache. In Dil Chahta hai, he sported a never seen before young look with small hair and a tiny beard. Even in Lagaan he was playing a farmer in brown jacket, a turban and a dhoti. And how does his wife Kiran finds out “Isn’t he looking hot,” smiles a beaming Kiran.

Courtesy: indiatimes.com

Hattrick for Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan with Jodha Akbar ?

Will Jodha Akbar / Jodhaa Akbar prove third time lucky in openings for Bollywood queen Aishwarya Rai and the superman Hrithik Roshan. The magical duo has already proved their magic in Dhoom 2 .

Aishwarya Rai ’s great run started with Guru opposite now husband Abhishek Bachchan and continued with Dhoom 2 where she lip-locked opposite Bollywood hunk Hrithik. And again with Jodha Akbar, can Aishwarya prove her worth ! Her Hollywood movies Pink Panther 2 and Singularity are still in post production but we doubt if the beauty queen needs to go back to Hollywood any more.


Hrithik Roshan has been magical right from his first movie Kaho Na Pyar Hain in his home production (Papa Rakesh Roshan ’s). And could deliver box office magic only in home productions which included science fantasy Koi Mil Gaya and sequel Krrish. But Hrithik has now three back to back Bollywood hits and much like Akshay Kumar and Shahrukh Khan, he is among the most dependable stars today.

But due credit for Jodha Akbar goes to the Oscar nominated director Ashutosh Gowarikar for this epic movie. Not all historical movies work well in Bollywood as proved by Umrao Jaan ( Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan) and Mangal Pandey [corrected: thanks natalia] (Aamir Khan, Rani Mukherjee).

Jodhaa Akbar already earned Rs. 25 crores over the weekend all over India and is doing great abroad. The movie started slow but is already picking up in box office numbers. The controversies in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh are still on. But as we have seen in the past, controversies help the movies to stay in the headlines and help box office statistics. Question remains if it can recover the huge investment and be declared a hit.

Courtesy: cityupdates.com

Aishwarya Rejects one more!

Close on the heels of the confirmation from Aishwarya Rai that she will be acting opposite Rajinikanth in Robot is the news now that she will not be part of Jhansi Ki Rani: The Rebel, Ketan Mehta's ambitious historical sequel to Mangal Pandey: The Rising..

The media is abuzz with the question of why Ash has walked out of the project. Is this so that she can allocate enough time for Robot?

Speculations are rife. Readers might also remember Behindwoods carrying the news of the actress turning down a Karan Johar offer quite recently.

Talking to the media, Ash expressed her disappointment over her being linked to the project. "Please stop dragging my name into Jhansi Ki Rani. Ketan spoke to me nearly two years back when he was very keen on making this film with me. But thereafter, he has not been in touch with me and I don't think that as of now I am working in Jhansi Ki Rani. So I would appreciate it if the media stops writing stories about me playing Rani Laxmibai." The actress further added that what she was most keenly looking forward to now was her Hollywood stint in Pink Panther – an enormous and nice change from all these Bollywood blockbusters.

What is also more newsworthy is that Ash might write her own life story. Her glittering life is begging to be made into a best selling biography (and a movie) and though several publishers have been asking her permission to commission a book on her life, Ash has turned them all down. The reason was revealed only recently: she plans to write an autobiography.

Courtesy: Behindwoods.com

Controversy and Bollywood's versions of Indian history go hand in hand

Controversy and Bollywood's versions of Indian history seem to go hand in hand. HIMANSHU BHAGAT talks to some historians to find out why

WHEN K ASIF made Mughal-e- Azam in 1960, he adhered to popular folklore and showed Jodha Bai as the Rajput queen of the Mughal emperor Akbar. There was no controversy. Asif's tale of forbidden love between Akbar's son Prince Salim and the courtesan Anarkali became a huge hit. Perhaps people were too busy humming “Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya” to notice any historical inaccuracies. Or they just didn't care. Almost fifty years later, as Ashutosh Gowariker is set to release Jodhaa Akbar, a tale of love between Akbar and Jodha Bai, played by Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai, a section of Rajputs in Rajasthan has protested that the film is historically inaccurate and threatened to block its screening in the state.

Factually at least, they are on solid ground. Akbar never married Jodha Bai. It was his son, Prince Salim who did. Salim became Emperor Jehangir. And his son from Jodha Bai, Prince Khurram, succeeded his father as Emperor Shah Jahan. “All this goes to show that history is not settled business,” says Mahmood Farooqui, who is currently writing a book on 1857 but is better known as a dastango who has single-handedly revived dastangoi or the traditional art of oral storytelling in Delhi. “It is almost as if each generation has its own myths about the past.” “Those protesting the movie have two specific objections,” says Dilbag Singh, professor of Mughal history at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “That a different person was married to Akbar. And, that there was no love affair between the two.” Iqtidar Alam Khan, the noted historian and authority on Akbar who teaches at Aligarh Muslim University, points out that Akbar did marry a Rajput princess but she was Harka Bai, daughter of the Kachwaha ruler of Amber, Raja Bharmal. “The erroneous tradition that Akbar was married to Jodha Bai can be traced back at least to the 18th century. That is when we find the first written reference to it,” he says.

Shah Nadeem, who teaches history at Zakir Husain College in Delhi University, also points out that one of the palaces at Fatehpur Sikri, the city built by Akbar near Agra, is called Jodha Mahal, and is one reason why Jodha Bai is popularly believed to have been Akbar's queen. But why should getting Akbar's Rajput wife's name wrong touch a raw nerve? Is there some latent sense of communal grievance behind the protest? Singh can't see why the Rajputs should harbour any grudge against the Mughals. As he points out, the tradition of intermarriage among ruling families as a means to achieve political stability and forge new ties is an old one. Rajput princesses were married to Muslim sultans in Delhi and Gujarat during the pre-Mughal era. “The Mughals merely systematised this tradition. Akbar was the first Mughal emperor to marry a Rajput princess,” says Singh. “From the time of Shah Jahan, the practise of establishing matrimonial ties between the Mughals and the Rajputs declined. It is no coincidence that, around the same time, the Mughals had achieved a healthy degree of political stability.” And the Rajputs had no qualms about intermarriage with the Mughals. Khan feels people often forget that the medieval world was very different from ours, with different attitudes and outlook. “The Rajputs wouldn't have seen the Mughals as 'outsiders', for the idea of India as a nation didn't exist at the time,” he says. “In matters related to marriage, caste pride played a bigger role. The Rajputs, for instance, would never have married into communities they felt were lower in the caste hierarchy.” Whether it is a film based on the life of Mangal Pandey, or one on Bhagat Singh, or one that depicts the plight of widows a hundred years ago (Deepa Mehta's Water) - in India, films based on historical themes inevitably become controversial.

This also holds true for books on historical figures like Shivaji, Nehru or Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Questions about Shivaji's parentage incense some; others object to a close examination of Nehru's relationship with Edwina Mountbatten or of Netaji's links with Hitler. Perhaps the phenomenon is an indicator of the fact that India is “a land of million mutinies” where castes, community and regional groupings feel the need to assert their identity for a number of reasons. And history is the key to identity.

“In England, there is the historical [Queen] Elizabeth [the First] and there is the popular Elizabeth. There is a consensus about her there,” says Mahmood Farooqui. “But there is no consensus here. If you make a film on Ambedkar or on Bhagat Singh supporters of Gandhi are likely to object. And it can go the other way round.” Singh points out that in India, group identities play a larger role in the individual's psyche as compared to the West. “Mughal court historians referred to Jats as plunderers and even today the Jat community resents that,” he says. “They were actually farmers - peasant proprietors and zamindars - who resisted Mughal power.” Farooqui feels that an artist must be mindful of these realities. His current dastan (story) is set during the Partition and features a street poem from a time that is very critical of Nehru. “There is no such thing as absolute freedom of speech,” he says. “You can go to certain extent but not beyond that.” What bothers most historians is the cavalier fashion in which films and television in India treat history. They appreciate that a film is meant to entertain and not serve as a history lesson.


But there are ways of going about it. “The television serial Prithviraj Chauhan, which is being aired currently is one hundred percent fiction,” says an indignant Singh. Shah can cite any number of instances where “Bollywood's fetish for love affairs” means that facts mean nothing. He points out that contrary to what the film Razia Sultana depicts, the real Razia - the only woman ruler of the Delhi Sultanate - did not fall in love with the Abyssinian noble Yaqut. He also cites the SRKstarrer Asoka as a poorly researched film littered with factual inaccuracies. “In case you don't already know, Ashoka didn't attack Kalinga because he was in love with a girl,” he says. There is a reason why he feels strongly about this. “Some accuracy and a basic adherence to facts are necessary because films and TV have a hold on the popular imagination and shape perceptions,” he says.

There are examples which filmmakers can learn from. “A good historical film is Satyajit Ray's adaptation of Premchand's novella Shatranj Ke Khiladi,” says Shah. “The tale of two chess-playing noblemen during the last days of Awadh is completely fictional. But the setting is authentic and historically accurate. The film gave a true picture of Awadh during the tumult of 1856 and its last Nawab, Wajid Ali Shah.” The mix of history, folklore and outright fantasy can make for good entertainment but a more discerning viewership, as well as one that is quick to take offence, will ensure that film directors think twice before they decide to set their next love story in the 16th century.

Courtesy: Indiafm.com

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

Rahman to sing to Kailash Kher's tunes

Singer Kailash Kher, who is known as the blue-eyed boy of music director AR Rahman, is all set to rope him in for a project. Kher wants Rahman to perform the title track of the film Allah Ke Bande, which he has composed.

This will be the first time that Rahman will lend his voice to tunes composed by someone else. The film also marks the debut of the trio Kailash-Paresh-Naresh of the band Kailasa as composers.

“He has already heard the tune and the lyrics of the song and was impressed with it when we went to meet him last month. He asked us to complete the song. We will go to Chennai next week,” says an excited Kher.

Is Rahman going to sing the song finally?

“I hope so, because I share a special bonding with him. After hearing the tune he said Insha Allah and I know what these words mean when it comes from someone of the stature of Rahmansaab. I am like his brother and he has never turned me down,” says Kher.

The song has been written and composed by Kher and will be picturised on the band and Rahman, along with 1,000 children. “Rahmansaab has given me an informal assurance, as we share a relationship that is different from the one he has with others,” he says. The film directed by Faruque Kabir deals with juvenile crime and has Atul Kulkarni as the male lead.

After hearing the tune he said Insha Allah and I know what these words mean when it comes from someone of the stature of Rahmansaab-Kailash Kher
Kher who has sung for Rahman in films such as Swades, Mangal Pandey-The Rising and Kisna and is also a regular member of Rahman’s group, sees his dreams coming full circle.

“That’s why I have kept the title track for him. It’s a positive song, almost like a prayer to God but has the folk-rock flavour for which Kailasa is known,” he says.

However, this is not the only film that the composer trio has in its kitty. It is also scoring the music for Nikhil Advani’s Made In China, which has Akshay Kumar and Deepika Padukone in the lead. “It’s an inspirational song,” says Kher.

The trio will also start recording for Mahesh Bhatt’s assistant Hirdesh Kamble’s directorial debut, Pranali, which is based on devdasis. The choreography will be done by Birju Maharaj. “It’s an offbeat subject,” he says.

As of now, after the success of their last private album Kailasa Jhoomo Re, the band plans to focus on films. Kher will be heard singing in movies such as Crazy 4, Sarkar Raj, Mittal vs Mittal and a couple of untitled projects that will release next year.

Courtesy: Hindustantimes.com