Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Gar Yaad Rahe..

i am haunted by a song since morning. The song is from the film "Kinaara".This film, made by Gulzar, is one of the well-made films by him with the not-so-great actor jeetendra. Gulzar signed his favourite R.D.Burman for music.
Gulzar emphasized many times that he worked with many other great composers like Salil Chaudhary, Hemanth Kumar etc.,. but it was R.D.Burman who adorned his unusual poetry with some great music. this fact is evident in this song from the film.

naam gum jaayegaa,
cheharaa yeh badal jaayegaa
meri aawaaz hee pehchaan hai..
gar yaad rahe.

waqt ke sitam kam haseen nahee,
aaj hain yahaan.. kal kahee nahee..
waqt ke pare agar mil gaye kahee,
meri aawaaz hee pehchaan hain..
gar yaad rahe ..

jo guzr gayee, kal kee baat thee,
umar to naheen ek raat ki,
raat kaa siraa agar phir mile kahee,
meri aawaaz hee pehchaan hain...
gar yaad rahe

din dhale jahaan raat paas ho,
zindagee ki lau unchee kar chalo..
yaad aaye gar kabhee jee udaas ho,
meri aawaaz hee pehchaan hain..
gar yaad rahe..

naam gum jaayegaa,
chehra yeh badal jaayegaa
meri aawaaz hee pehchaan hai,
gar yaad rahe..

the mukhuda(pallavi) of this song doesnt have a meter..especially with las line "gar yaad rahe"..it's length is very odd compared tothat of previous lines..Only R.D could do it.. i dont know the raaga on which this song is based but this definitely falls into semi-classical genre. the wonderfully woven interludes..with instruments like sitar, sarod or haunting (hill-kind) flute ..with echo at tail-end(his stamp)...till 2nd charanam, the song is picturised on jeetendra and hema malini..but just before last anthara(charanam), he uses pakhwaj along with guitars. the mood here varies..compared to previous interludes...on the screen, the variation is shown with dharmendra (guest role) entering the scene(dream sequence)...

wonderful lyrics..looks like gulzar wrote it just for Lata(meri aawaaz hi..pehchaan hain!!), because she just nailed it. even bhupinder(male singer) is dwarfed.R.D knew the range of Lata's voice and tapped it eloquently.and musically, it is excellent craftmanship by him.who says R.D means only club songs..infact, this genre of songs (of semi-classical kind) faded out with R.D. today we dont have such songs...and such composers.

PS: i sincerely/strictly suggest all the readers to listen to this song keenly...after reading this.

6 comments:

Gandaragolaka said...

this was one of those songs most northie junta from CBIT didnt know, and I somehow knew it.. though not completely. This was a time when I knew I liied some songs so very much, but didnt know why... (I found a lot later most of them were yamans or hamsadhvanis).

I remember this was from a film where a woman has a gruesome accident with a lorry filled with some acid and her face had to be re-structured using plastic surgery...a case of lost identity

To add to the melodrama, the woman was going to meet her lost son after many years and now her face is changed, and she works as a maid in her son's house or something like that...

whatever the story, the song is really great...Let me try to analyse from melodic perspective... perhaps junta could add to it:
Tts based (mostly) on ragas yaman (kalyani) and hamsadhvani...

the first line goes --p-m2-r2-m2-[g3]->r2-s...(gamaka on g3)

"meri awaz hee pechchaan hai" is where the talent of RD is... this one moves like hamsadhvani--
meri awaz hee
g3-p-n3-R2-s(-n3-p-r2)-- a fast gamaka downwards.

pechchaan hai
g3-p-g3-r2-s-r2

and then beautifully for "gar yaad rahe" p-r2-g3-r2-s (with an elongated g3). An important ingredient in defining yaman is the movement from p to r2.

the antara is bit more difficult to decode... shades of hamsadhvani bhoopali before sliding back into proper hamsadhvani.

the pakhawaj part that u mentioned is really awesome!!and the yamanic sitar to go with it... nothing more needed!

Gandaragolaka said...

errata: gar yaad rahe: g3-r2-g3-r2-s (the first g being elongated)

Aakarsh said...

kedar, u got the story wrong. Kinaara's story is different.Jeetendra recovers from an accident and meets Hema. Hema is yet to come to terms with the death of her beloved,Dharmendra(he appears only in flashback scenes). Jeetndra discovers that he is responsible for dharmendra's death(that accident from which he recovers). Jeetendra eventually falls in love with hema but she hates him after knowing what he has done.what more! she loses her eye-sight also becoz of him (accidental push). interesting story.
all songs are gems. they will follow in this blog very soon.

Sketchy Self said...

excellent song, competent analysis! the gamaka on the "hee" very hamsadhwani-ish, but song more yaman-based.
The story isnt as gory as kedar remembers, its about an accident all right, but the twist is that husband dharmendra dies in it and wife hema survives, but is blind now. And jeetendra, who takes it on himself to nurse her back to life, is the person who was responsible for the accident, though hema doesn't know it (since she cant see him).
So this song is like an explanation of the plot, the theme song, if you will...each character singing out his/her position.
This movie has another excellent semi-classical song by kishore-da - "jaane kya soch kar" (which i think is yaman, any analysis appreciated)
and one by bhupinder which goes "meethe bol bole"...
Anyways, nice choice, aakarsh! keep it coming!

Sketchy Self said...

aakarsh,
looks like we posted at the exact same time!

Aakarsh said...

yes, Jaane kya sochkar is R.D-Kishore's Gem of Gems..write up will follow soon.
and "meethe bol bole" is R.D's interpretation of "bhairavi".
one more "ek hi khwaab" is prose cum poetry made into song..