So here I am, back to writing my blog after almost 2 months. I am in Kolkata right now, enjoying a personal visit. It’s monsoons in Kolkata, as it is in many other parts of the country – however I am tad disappointed with the rainfall this time. I grew up in a Kolkata where monsoons meant a heavy lash of rain hitting thunderously against your body and on your head…. with nerve-wracking thunderbolts literally sending shivers down your spine. Monsoons invariably meant waterlogging, clogged roads and lots of days without the sun. It also meant purchasing the best brand of raincoats and umbrellas, which could survive the incessant downpours. Long hours of power cuts and literally being stuck at home for there was no other option! Yet as kids we always had “other avenues” – frantically making paper boats to sail them on the waterlogged streets or running up to the terrace to soak in the afternoon showers!
My heart skips a beat even now when the thunder rages up in the skies and I look up eagerly to find the dark dense clouds, which cast their ominous gloom – yet the downpour which follows is merely a drizzle or at best a light shower. I am zealously praying for the rain gods to work some magic now!
5 comments:
I remember Calcutta rains distinctly because I missed my flights twice due to the jams caused by rains. The city turns young with its lush green park and it is a sight to watch. I take a cab from Taj Bengal to Maidan for morning walks when I stay over and during the monsoon Maidan is a treat. It is a similar experience in Bangalore and Cochin. My own Mumbai is an all together different experience and Mumbai rains are back.
You are right with less than normal monsoon predicted we can only expect drizzles instead of downpours.
Thanks for your comments. I wonder if anyone else other than Hrishikesh Mukherjee could rightfully capture the magic of Mumbai's rains...in the song "Rim jhim gire sawan' rendered by Lata Mangeshkar and picturised on Amitabh Bacchan and Moushumi Chatterjee.Maybe you've seen it already, if not try it on youtube!
Oh what a lovely number have you referred to. Of course I have heard the song a lot with the FM stations playing it regularly in their old hit music hour. Hrishikeshda was a master in portraying human emotions on screen.
Have you seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid film with the great number "Raindrops keep fallin' on my head".
Rain also finds a good mention in our Hindustani classical though not sure of Carnatic music. Raga Miyan Ki Malhar - by Salamat & Nazakhat Ali Khan – in Satyajit Ray’s masterpiece Jalsaghar. Miyan ki Malhar is a raga that captures the full power of the monsoons – complete with the thunder & lightening. I guess you are awaiting this kind of rain in Calcutta.
Music and rains are tightly interlinked across cultures. Any idea how the Aztec and other ancient civilizations treated rain and music.
it seems you have a wide knowledge on music and cinema...would really appreciate if you could send in an article on those lines for this blog
Oh you flatter me. I am a jack of all when it comes to expertise on subjects. My work demands that I read something about everything and not everything about something.
Music and Cinema are joined at the hip around the world. Indian movies are musicals by nature barring those by the masters like Satyajit Ray. In the beginning of his career Ray worked with some of greatest music maestros of Indian classical music; Pandit Ravi Shankar for the Apu Trilogy and Parash Pathar (The Philosopher's Stone, 1958), Ustad Vilayat Khan for Jalsaghar (The Music Room, 1958) and Ali Akbar Khan for Devi (The Goddess, 1960).Since Teen Kanya (1961), he began composing the music for his films. Other Indian masters like Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Guru Dutt, Bimal Roy, Mehbood Khan also used amazing music for their films. Carnatic music has been used extensively in some of the old South Indian movies but it is more of a fusion barring the ones where MS Subbalaxmi sang some amazing numbers. I prefer to call it applied Classical rather than pure classical.
Ghazals in Indian movies. It is hard to tell sometimes whether the lyrics or the music of the ghazal makes it great. Being a lover of Urdu, I can confidently tell that expression of feelings by Poets like Ghalib and others just make the ghazals music to the ears. Of course modern day ghazal singers like Jagjit Singh, Hariharan, Pankaj Udhas and ohters have spoiled the authenticity which people like Bade Ghulam Ali and others had maintained. Some of Jagjit's older numbers are very good though.
Sufism and its music has also influenced Hindi movies though I prefer the non filmi Sufi music including the ones from Pakistan as it is more pure, less commercialised and true to Sufism in the first place. Sufism is a religion of love towards god and the music is intoxicating.
Foreign movies, lets start with the Hollywood ones. Lost track of the number of movies which have been graced by the music of Mozart, Beethoven and other masters. Meet Me in St. Louis, Easter Parade, An American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music are some of the pre 70's classic that comes to my mind. Though personally I also like post 70's musicals Grease, Dirty Dancing, Chicago, Moulin Rouge but the puritans claim that the innocence of musicals were lost after 70's. But Hollywood has taken Music and Movies to a different plane altogether by fusing them and creating some magic and some of the magicians were Alfred Newman, John Williams, Johnny Greene, Andre' Previn, John Barry, Alan Menken and many more.
Music in non english world movies is a world in itself and will write on that later.
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