Insomnia

My ten favourite insomnia songs

Spending the night in bed tossing around has happened to each and everybody of us. One would like to sleep, but the stream of thoughts just don’t end. The body is tired, but the mind wide awake. You tell yourself, that you have so many things to do the next day and the most appropriate thing to do now would be to sleep. You get irritated over it, which make matters only worse. And then in the wee hours of the morning, when you are supposed to be soon getting up, you fall asleep in sweet, sweet slumber! A dear friend of mine, Raja, was in this situation a few days back. This unfortunate incident made me come up with this list.

But the songs below don’t sing about the situation described above, but are rather moans of separated lovers or are freshly-fallen-in-love pairs. For this list, I have chosen songs with neend(iyaa) na aaye in the mukhdaa (refrain). I hope you like them as much as I do.

 

Look! It Is A Bungalow!

My ten favourite bangala (bungalow) songs

A dream of one’s own house/cottage in the suburbs has been and is the motor of many middle class households all over the world. Maybe it is the security it offers or the need for privacy, to have a garden and the cosy life which one associates with it and thus to achieve ultimate goal of every human being to be happy. If one really ‘achieves’ all these things with the acquisition of this cosy house is secondary. I think the dream in itself the best part of it.

Like many of the dreams and aspirations of the common man (whoever or whatever he/she is), even this aspect has not been neglected in the Hindi film songs. Here are my favourites!

 

Happy Janmasthami

My ten favourite Krishna songs

Today is Krishna Janmasthami, Krishna’s birthday. Krishna is the most favourite of all the Hindu deities in Hindi films and is sung about in many ways. Today while discussing with Madhu on Facebook, I started listing some Krishna songs, which came into mind and thus this list happened. It was made in a hurry, so pardon any mistakes made.

 

Of Winds and Breezes

My ten favourite thandi hawa songs

It is very cold here now. At night it goes down to  -20° C. When I ride my bicycle to work and back, the wind freezes me to the core. Yesterday, as I was returning back home the thought about the discrepancy between the European and Indian attitude towards cold and heat arose again in my mind. In Hindi film songs the cold breeze brings in the romantic mood, while in Europe summer sets the mood for romance. While Meena Kumari in Pakeezah wishes her lover that the sun may never touch her beloved (suraj kahin bhi jaaye tum par na dhoop aaye), the gondoliere in sunny Italy calls his lover o sole mio (my sun). Of course the temperature difference plays in this attitude a big role. This brought my thoughts to the various thandi hawa songs in Hindi films and resulted is this list.

 

Happy Birthday Nanda!

My ten favourite Nanda songs

It is not only Nanda, who has birthday today (Jan. 8) but also fellow-blogger Madhu-Dustedoff. Happy Birthday to you as well, Madhu! Many of the films mentioned here in this post (and others) are linked to Madhu’s excellent reviews on her blog. Incidentally, Nanda is also one of Madhu’s favourite actresses, so it fits in quite well.

Nanda had a sweetness about her, which one hardly sees nowadays. She had something about her, which made men and women feel all protective about her. She was the girl-next-door of the 60s. Even the glamour of the later 60s didn’t affect this image. Unfortunately, such were also the roles, which came her way. Ittefaq changed it, but till then a new crop of actresses had arrived. All the same, just like she helped Shashi Kapoor’s career start, she helped through out her career other leading actors like Sanjeev Kumar, Sanjay Khan and Deb Mukherjee.

Now she lives away from the glamour of the Hindi film industry and still looking good. The last I heard of her was in August in Times of India gossip columns, where it was mentioned that she was a generous tip-giver. That is nice to hear, that she doesn’t live secluded somewhere unattended, but living and enjoying life. May she celebrate more such merry birthday celebrations!
The rules for choosing the songs were
a. solo songs
b. one song per film
and blah, blah, blah! 😉

 

My ten favourite Hindi film loris (lullabies) and Merry X’mas!

For Christmas, I was thinking of doing a Christmas song list. But I could come up only with aao tumhe chand pe le jaaye from Zakhmee [1975]. But then I thought Mother Mary and Joseph must have also sung some lullabies to baby Jesus, so why not a list of my ten favourite loris (lullabies).

Lullabies have not always been my favourite songs. Once when a 6 year old child at a friends place asked me to sing an Indian lullaby to him, I realized that I knew only few authentic lullabies in my mother tongue and soon I ended up singing filmi loris!  The child must have been pretty deaf or a great fan of off-tune singing. More evenings followed and made me realize how sweet basically loris are.

Some rules, which I followed for my list:
a) The person singing must be singing it to a child and not to a grown-up person
b) Only one song pro film

Well here they are! Try not to fall asleep while reading it! Yawn! 😉