This week's Shabana-gaana is from Atithee (1978), a movie I have not seen.
"Rang birange nazaare" is a nice enough duet, though I have to admit that Shabana ji's performance in the song is fairly generic and uninspired. Songs like this really don't play to her strengths, even this early in her career when she frequently played the masala heroine. She did better hamming it up in the funny songs in Parvarish.
The real question this video raises is: Why did the costume designer helmet Shashi with such a terrible wig, when he has such gorgeous natural curls?
A quiet few weeks here as my real life once again drags me away from the blog. I am 2/3 of the way through Kaifi & I and have a few things to say about it when I get time.
I managed to watch Basu Chatterjee's 1980 film Apne paraye, which stars Shabana Azmi with Amol Palekar, Utpal Dutt, Girish Karnad, and a few others. I'll review it on Filmi Geek soon. In the meantime, it provides a Shabana-gaana for us, this sweet and sad lullaby "Halke halke aai chalke."
Remember the Shabana-gaana feature? Back when I used to update Sounds Like Power obsessively, I reserved Fridays for interesting (for better or worse) song picturizations featuring Shabana Azmi.
This week the feature returns with "Jaan ab ja rahi hai," a qawwali from the 1977 movie Khel khilari ka. I'd never heard of this film before and assume that it's thoroughly forgettable - but the song itself is not half bad. I don't care much for Shabana ji's outfit - there seemed in this era to be a lot of dressing tawaifs and female qawwals in Pepto-Bismol colored suits -but she handles herself with reasonable competence, doing something much closer to real dancing than you usually see from her.
I am not sure who all the men are who join her partway through the song - the video quality is too poor for me to tell for sure. I am pretty sure I spotted Shakti Kapoor. And, with the help of Memsaab's incredible resource, the Artist Gallery, I confidently identified a fellow named Dhruv, whom to my knowledge I have never seen before.
Our first post-hiatus Shabana-gaana is a pretty song from Basu Chatterjee's 1980 film Apne paraye. I have had this film in my collection for ages but still have not got round to watching it.
The song is sung competently by Lata Mangeshkar but I don't find her a great match for Shabana Azmi, who by the way looks completely lovely in the song.
Today's Shabana-gaana is "Tum se roshan hai" from the 1984 film Lorie. The song features Shabana Azmi looking particularly lovely and Farooq Shaikh looking particularly fuzzy.
Lorie is also the answer to SLP's first trivia question, which I posted last week. The question was: Name a film to which three Azmis contributed their talents.Lorie featured Shabana ji in a starring role, Shabana ji's mother Shaukat Kaifi in a supporting role, and Shabana ji's brother Baba Azmi, behind the camera as cinematographer. I haven't yet seen this film so I can't say much more about it.
Thanks to a great SLP reader - you know who you are - for the trivia question and the song clip.
Today's Shabana-gaana is from the movie Ashanti, a Charlie's Angels-esque story in which Shabana Azmi joins Zeenat Aman, Parveen Babi, Rajesh Khanna, and Mithun Chakraborty in a quest to take down a nasty gang of drug dealers and thieves who have wreaked havoc in each of their lives.
I had been saving this song until I saw the movie, and last night I finally got my chance - I sat down to watch it with David and Greta - but the DVD crapped out halfway through. We barely got to see Shabana Azmi fire a pistol, and we missed both of her songs. I'll finish the movie and review it fully as soon as I get my hands on a working copy. In the meantime, here is "Lawangi mirchi," the final song from the film, which I was really looking forward to seeing in somewhat better quality than this dinky YouTube stream:
Last weekend I saw an absolutely outstanding concert by Zakir Hussain - it was the fourth or fifth time I've seen him and let me tell you, if you ever have the chance to see him, just drop everything and go. Anyhow in light of that wonderful experience it seemed appropriate that the first post-hiatus Shabana-gaana should be "Kya tumne hai keh diya" from Sai Paranjpe's Saaz - featuring both Shabana Azmi and Zakir sahib. I've not seen this movie yet but I've got it in my collection, and as Sai Paranjpe is well on her way to becoming one of my favorite directors, I'm sure I'll watch it in the near future. Enjoy the song.
When I saw Avtaar, I hadn't yet seen many of Shabana Azmi's mainstream films - I hadn't seen Fakira, or Parvarish, and the idea of Shabana ji prancing around trees in full-on masala mode just blew my tiny little mind to the point where I didn't really appreciate just how horrible the picturization of this song is.
Today, with some perspective, I can only conclude that she was made to look ungraceful on purpose. Shabana ji was not a great dancer in her mainstream heroine days - but she really wasn't this bad. Look for the moment at about 1:35 where she tumbles ass-over-teakettle off the berm - as I said, not pretty.
It gets a little better after that - Shabana ji looks much better in the blue sari she wears in the second segment of the song than in the hideously unflattering dress of the first segment - but it's still not good. After a few more snuggly scenes, a sinister character with a pistol shows up to interrupt the amorous frolickling - that's Shabana ji's character's father, who doesn't like the thought of his daughter canoodling with the mechanic.
I didn't much like Avtaar at the time I saw it, and having recently confessed my true feelings about Rajesh Khanna, it's only getting worse in my memory with time and distance. And the twinge of embarrassment I feel watching this song is not doing it any favors, either. I'm sharing the song with you because for me part of loving Shabana ji is exploring her weaknesses as well as her strengths, taking a little time for the places she went wrong even while reveling in all of the many things she does right. Watching her founder in a stinker like "Din mahino saal" makes gems like "Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho" and "Do naina aur ek kahani" that much more lovely.
Today's Shabana-gaana is a cute bit of sweetness from Swami - "Pal bhar mein ye kya ho gaya." In this song a besotted Shabana has fallen in love with the guy-next-door - who actually does love her for her mind, believe it or not - and she finds herself here distracted by daydreams, unable to concentrate on hanging on the washing, making garlands, or even whatever Proust or Milton she is trying to read.
I like this song because it highlights some of the cuter aspects of this character that are on display in the first 45 minutes of this film, before it all goes wrong for the poor girl. She's a little bold, a little awkward, smart, curious, girlish, and sweet. She doesn't look half bad, either. In fact the entire film is a parade of one simple but beautiful sari after another. I had wanted to do a screencap post of "The saris of Swami" but I never finished preparing it; I got tired out at around the twelfth.
This week's sacreligious Shabana-gaana comes from the warped mind of Beth, who seems to be responsible for most of the stuff around here that makes one say, "oh no she di'int!"
Please click here, and watch the video that might just start riots on two continents. Oh, and don't give up when you think it's over, because she will come back for a little more. Including air guitar.
Today's Shabana-gaana is another song from a film I haven't seen, 1980's Thodisi bewafaii. You might recognize this trippy dream-sequence song as the source of the picture in the "One blingin' tiara" banner that Beth made for SLP. Of course in the video it's apparent that it's a full-on crown, not just a tiara, that tops the absurd, striped, spangly horror of a gown that poor Shabana ji had to wear in the first half of the song. Enjoy!
The clips featured in today's Shabana-gaana, I assume, will not be up on YouTube very long. But since the clips are there now, I thought I would link them for those of you who have not been able to see Om Shanti Om.
First, there is the hilarious Filmfare awards sequence, possibly the funniest segment of the film. Shabana ji makes her appearance early in this one, only about 30 seconds in. (The clip is unsubtitled: what she says is, more or less, "A slum was displaced for the site of this award function, and I have come here to protest that.")
Next, there is Shabana ji's giddy turn (literally) in the party song "Deewangi deewangi" - you have to wait a little longer, as she appears a little over two and a half minutes in, but there are plenty of other stars to keep you amused while you wait.
I stumbled across this week's Shabana-gaana about a week ago, and I've already watched the clip four or five times. It's simply outstanding.
In this clip, in addition to Shabana Azmi, you will also see Om Puri and Shashi Kapoor (looking a little rounder than he was in the song I posted last week - I didn't recognize him at first; I found myself thinking "That fellow looks rather like a KapooOH MY GOD."). It's from Ismail Merchant's In Custody, yet another film sitting in my to-be-watched pile. The dialogue toward the end of the clip provides some context; it seems quite bitter and sad.
In case you weren't sure, Shabana ji is singing her own ghazals in this clip. Having listened to the ghazal "Gulab jism ka" from Anjuman an unholy number of times (it's available on iTunes), I'd know her singing voice anywhere, especially singing a ghazal. (ETA: And the mind plays tricks; I was completely wrong about that. I should have said "I'd hear her singing voice anywhere" rather than "I'd know ...." See the comments.) What a clip - outstanding!
I am in my office doing some research, and I have some music playing quietly in the background. This song came on, and it made me think - it's Friday, I haven't done a Shabana-gaana in a while, and it will only take a couple of minutes to find the song on YouTube and post it. So here you go: "Tota-maina ki kahanai," from Fakira, in which an almost impossibly young Shabana Azmi romps in a meadow with a plaid-jacketed, airplane-collared Shashi Kapoor and declares: "Main Fakire ki rani ho gayi" - I have become Fakira's queen.
I love Shabana ji's mainstream juvenilia. I love the trademark hairstyle she wore through the 70s, with those short bits curling down the sides. I love her bashful non-smile, betraying self-consciousness about her teeth. I love her youthfulness, lean and strong but awkward, and really not much of a dancer. I just love the roughness of the whole package, and the air that Post-Punk Cinema Club interprets as "What the hell am I doing in this film?" There may be no film that embodies this spirit better than Fakira. Of course I know what the hell she's doing in this film - if you're 25, and trying to establish yourself as an actor, do you turn down the chance to star opposite one of the biggest heroes of the era, and your girlhood crush to boot? But that doesn't make it any less endearing to watch this somewhat nervous and slightly unsteady proto-Shabana, still figuring out who she is and where she's headed.
There's really nothing I can say in introduction to this week's Shabana-gaana. If you've seen Godmother, you already know how awesome this is. If you haven't seen Godmother, you will probably want to after you watch this video.
This week's Shabana-gaana takes a little patience. It's a portion of an episode of the TV show "Star Voice of India" that aired a couple of weeks ago. "Star Voice of India" appears to be some kind of talent contest show; you'll have to squirm through a couple of contestants' performances to get to the reason I'm posting it here - a little preview of Shabana ji's talent-contest performance in Loins of Punjab Presents.
Watch the video here. And many thanks to reader fadista de mouraria, who didn't give up in the middle of the agonizing boy-band rendition of "Papa kehte hain" as I did the first time I tried to watch this clip, and so was able to confirm for us that it contained Shabana ji's performance.
Today's is an unusual Shabana-gaana. The song is "Aaja zara mere dil ke sahaare" from 1957's Ek Jhalak, sung by Hemant Kumar and Geeta Dutt. Deepa Mehta used the song in Fire in a very sweet scene in which the young, impulsive Seeta (Nandita Das) prevails upon the reserved and introverted Radha (Shabana ji) to cut loose and dance for some members of their household. "I'm afraid I'll make a fool of myself," Radha says. Seeta answers, "So what's wrong with that?" Here's the song.
I recently translated this song at a reader's request, so I offer the translation here. The usual caveats apply - I am learner, so correctness is not guaranteed!
H: aaja zara aaja zara mere dil ke sahaare dil-ruba Come to me, just come to me my darling, my heart’s desire tere lie mere dil mein teri yaad hai javaan For you, memories of you are fresh in my heart
G: are ja ja ja dekh li hai main ne shekhi teri Go away from me – I have seen enough of your boasting na sata ja ja ab na chalegi yahaan chaalen teri Don’t torment me, go away, your wiles won’t work here anymore
H: tu ne na jaana main hun divaana You haven't figured out that I’m crazy about you dil me chhupi hain muhabbat teri Your love is hidden in my heart
G: kuchh nahin yahaan There’s nothing here for you.
H: aaja zara..... Come to me &c.
H: are aa aa aa maan le o gori kahana mera O, come to me, o lovely fair one, believe what I say na jala aa aa achchha nahin dur rahana tera Don’t make me jealous, come, it’s no good to stay so far away
G: pahle akadana phir paanv paDana First you harass me, then fall on my feet and beg me duniya men mardon ki aadat buri In this world men behave so badly
H: jaaegi kahaan Where will you go? H: aaja zara........... Come to me &c.
Today's Shabana-gaana is a trippy and manic number from Mahesh Bhatt's Lahu ke do rang. I haven't seen this film, though I recently acquired a copy from Indiaweekly, who couldn't wait to get rid of it - it was cheaper to buy new than to rent it! Cryptic comments from one SLP reader lead me to believe that it will be best enjoyed with generous quantities of liquor.
Anyway on to the song, which features an indifferent and irritable Shabana Azmi, aggressively and quite dashingly pursued by Vinod Khanna.
Once again there's no video in this week's Shabana-gaana - instead just a little more on Shabana Azmi's own singing, which I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago.
Mumbai Mirror has a story about Manish Acharya's Loins of Punjab Presents (mentioned previously on SLP here and here) that talks about the two songs Shabana ji sang for the film. She has performed two classic filmi songs - and Manish ji will give no clues as to what they might be, so we'll just have to be patient. (I'm secretly hoping that one of them will be "Chura liya hai tumne jo dil ko," but I guess there's really an infinity of possibilities.)
I can't wait to see this - I really can't wait. As I mentioned before, the film is slated to open in India in the second week of September, but I don't know of any U.S. distribution plans yet.
This week's Shabana-gaana is all about the pretty.
As of this writing I've not yet seen Namkeen - but it's in the stack and I'm looking forward to it as it has more of my favorite names associated with it than I can count. Directed by Gulzar, music by R.D. Burman, starcast including Sanjeev Kumar, my latest crushasaurus Sharmila Tagore, and - of course - Shabana Azmi. It's pretty much my dream movie, at least on paper.
All of seen of it so far is this one song. "Phirse aaiyo badra bidesi" - this beautiful song, shot in gorgeous natural scenery, with nothing to distract from Shabana ji looking as absolutely lovely as ever. Watch the song here. And so smashing is the view that I cannot resist sharing another screencap.
Welcome to Filmi Geek's Sounds Like Power, a blog and fan site devoted to the actor and activist Shabana Azmi - as far as I know, the only such site on the web. Enjoy the site - read, comment, visit the Geek's Guide to Shabana ji's films, sign the guestbook.
Sounds Like Power is an unofficial, fan-run website. All views expressed herein are my own, and are not those of any organization with which I may be affiliated. Nor are they those of Shabana Azmi or of any organization with which she may be affiliated.
