Summer has been beating down upon us with her usual diligence and fervour. However, the last three days have been unusual. The mornings have been pregnant with expectancy, the afternoons hot and muggy, the evenings windy and leaden-skied. Yes, against all odds, it has been raining (drizzling, anyway) in Begumpet. Wednesday and Thursday weren't very great productions, a lot of wind reeling drunkenly hither and thither, fatal hoardings, but very little by way of precipitation.
But today, finally, the weather decided that it had had enough of the thillana variety stunts and tried to settle down for a proper katcheri. A hush descended over all the land, there was no wind to speak of, the setting sun turned syrupy golden.
And then, quietly, it started to rain. As showers go, it wasn't much to speak of. Garden sprinkler variety output. But it did leave everything wet, and green, and squelchy, which is always good.
We whipped out the trusty Powershot S45 and started clicking like there's no tomorrow. The lights went out, and mercifully put an end to all the lingering air conditioners. Quite appropriately, the laptop launched into bole re papiihara (YouTube, you can find the full audio and lyrics here). Who are we to argue with Fate? We lined up a bunch of "rain" songs and let fly (1).
The kids from the building were playing galli cricket downstairs, and their easy Hyderabadi admonitions floated upstairs, "What re, vy your dooing li' that li' that?", "Notredee-notredee-notredeeeee! Rrrredeeee!!!" . Presently, it stopped drizzling, so we hauled ourself onto the roof to see what was to be seen.
Per usual, the cupolas of our local Kremlin, the Hyderabad Public School, gleamed creamily in the distance. The grotesque new foot overbridge butted its way into our picture, and someone seems to have spilt a palette of watercolours on the sky. After some time, this fellow came fluttering by and with what seemed like visible relief, perched on a handy construction rod.
It was quite tired, wet, and frazzled. It sat morosely there for a bit, incessantly wagging its tail and shaking out the droplets from its fuzzy breast. Eventually, it decided that enough was enough, and let out a few experimental trills. Having discovered to its apparent astonishment that all was in working order, it flitted off towards Hussain to catch the passing 1021 Dn Konark Express, itself all wet and gleaming liveried. It seems like it was this, but alack, we were too busy trying to photograph to notice whether the supercilium was supercilious enough and so on...
And then, the lighting of the lamps...
1. There are so many of them...
- bole re papiihara perennial favourite in miyaan ki malhaar
- kahaan se aaye badraa from Chashm-e-baddoor, which we don't listen to as often as we should
- ghir ghir aaye badariyaa kaari, from Sardari Begum, a relatively orthodox rain song
- rim jhim gire saawan (YouTube) from Manzil, of course, even if it isn't (is it?) a rain raagam. Visually, we like the one which Lata Mangeshkar sings, with Amitabh Bachhan and Moushimi Chatterjee wandering through the rain in a stunningly pretty Bombay. For a number with no "skin show", it is stunningly erotic, blows your mind away.
- ek bas tuu hi nahin, a Farhat Shehzaad poem set to miyaan ki malhaar and sung by Mehdi Hasan. Not a raing song, per se, but love this one, because it taught us to (sort of) identify miyaan ki m..
15 comments:
nice.
on footnote 1. -- I love the manzil song. another nice one sawan barse
rgzfi : SMS shorthand for ragas for fine rain.
i think hindi movies has too many of these songs...
Ek Ladki Bheegi Bhaagi Si and
zindagi bhar nahin bhule gi picturised on the lovely Madhubala.
Kishore and lata crooning in 'bheegi bheegi raathon mein'
rhim jhim rhim jhim from 1942 a love story
aaj rapat jaaye featuring the unusual pair of Amitabh and Smita Patil
cute tap dance by Kajol in dekho zaraa dekho barkha ki jhadi
and of course how can you forget Ghode jaisi chaal ,haathi jaise dhum from Dil to paagal hai
n the list goes on...
Ah, we like very much. Rain. And birds. (heh, heh)
1. Rim jhim ke tarane leke aayi barsaat from Kala Bazaar - Just like the Rim jhim song you listed, this one is rather appealing.
2. Aaj ki kaali ghata, mast matwali ghata from Uski Kahani - Kaifi Azmi's imagery and evocative lyrics, Kanu Roy's music and Geeta Dutt's velvety vocals - soft and seductive, the words drop like a gentle drizzle.
3. O Sajna barkha bahar aayi from Parakh - One knows you aren't a great fan of Lata Mangeshkar, but this one is surely one's favourite.
There are of course a lot more that come to mind - some of which you have already list (no, no, definitely not the "classic" ones) - maybe one should just write about it.
The pics are nice - but coincidentally, one went about similarly with one's camera as well :).
By the way, I am sure, you would want to check this out.
[the black mamba] thanks for the link. if you can find a video of the other version of the Manzil song (the one with them running in the rains), please let us know pronto.
[chimera] OK, we were slightly confusing in our list making, apparently. the original intention was not so much to list rain songs, as much as it was to list miyaan ki malhaar and other malhaar varieties. but adding the Mohra and Mr. India songs just muddled up the list. for the record, the list is more about rain raagams than it is about rain songs.
having said that, all the ones you and anonymous have mentioned are definitely worthy of inclusion, no doubt.
[ph] heloo. why you 'heh, heh'-ing? something funny about rain and birds? hmm? tell all!
[anonymous] see response to chimera's comment. where are your pics? thanks for the link. very...er...educational.
ah, was about to add two songs to that nice list:
1) O Sajna that Anon mentions above and
2) Lata singing Ghar aaj ghir aayi badra saawariya from Chote Nawab. RD Burman, if you'll believe it.
Ayyo 'coz you had songs of the non-feathered variety too. We thought we were being clever. :( (Now I sound like a dirty old man, being neither old nor a man just makes it worse).
Sir...Ela unnaru...Chala pani chestunnaruta... The Bglr wagtailuva told me. :)
Hyd ki tagaladutunna voche varam. Mulaqat might happen?
Here's the song from Manzil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmD6GfZgKX8
[sheetal] ne'er even heard of the two. shows what a sheltered life we've lead.
[ph] heh. most intriguing, the thought process!
[indu] 'alo, 'alo. edo raama-krishnaa types, as usual. the b'lore wagtailuva is a slanderer (assuming that we're referring to the same wagtailuva).
comingu nextu weeku? yeah, yeah, mulaaqaat can def happen. send details... the sibling is in town for a couple of days too.
and thanks for the song. what's the deal with spelling it "zhim"?!
rain raagams-ah? cool stuff vonly. we are lost in this domain as our contributions are limited to a vague-ish picture of Sridevi in a yellow plastic hat dancing in the rain while a stud-ly Sunny Deol lounges on a car bonnet. Meanwhile the dark face of a Rajnikanth lurks in the background, ready to rescue damsel. Damsel is drunk having drunk room-temperature KingFisher beer straight from the bottle. surely neither a classic (involving as it does, Sunny Deol), nor a rain raagam per-se (i dont think there was any song there, only hiccuping of some sort), but hey, let the word verification decide if thats OK or not.
mogsaf- Scarf worn as dress by Raveena Tandon in cult movie Mohra. Now immortalised in Ramoji Film City in wax form.
Okay, long comment this will be.
Fustofall, lovely pictures. Making us all nostalgic and wistful. Okay so its raining here too, but we miss rain-drenched, moss-covered Qutb Shahi tombs so we are jealous. Bah.
And eeeesh! Whaat? You have not heard O sajna barkha bahaar aayi from Parakh, aa? What is this life you are living, we say! (Hyderabad rains post, so tried to add appropriate Gult touch) O sajna is a lovely composition in Khamaj (not a rain raagam, to our knowledge? Or is it?) about the romance of the monsoon with lines like -
aisi rimjhim mein O sajan,
pyaase pyaase mere nayan
tere hi khwaab mein, kho gaye~
And since we watched Saaz (1997) all of two days ago, we must mention the Miyaan ki Malhaar composition from it - baadal ghumad bhar aaye. By Kavita Krishnamurthy, we think.
And all this talk of rain and malhaars and no mention of Megh Malhaar? We should be taking this personally, you know? Tch tch. Anyway, we forgive only because you a) remembered to pick kahaan se aaye badra from the tutti-fruiti movie and b) echoed our thoughts about the on-screen beauty of the Lata version of rimjhim gire saawan.
yepulgk: a mix of a yelp and gulp. the sound of indignation made on witnessing a blogger's lack of exposure to a SalilC classic.
(We have PJ to share on the topic of rain but we won't besmirch your bootiful post with it.)
[kbpm]
> surely neither a classic
surely, you're referring to Chaalbaaz. a total classic, if ever there was one. Thalaivar kalakkified in it. particularly remember the relish with which he pulls out a desi tharra type liquid and says (in that impeccable Tam accent), "Aaj tho Sunday hai, din mein daroo peene ka din hai!" or something like that. brilliant schtuff.
[megha] oho! lookee 'oos 'ere?!!
> You have not heard
we've not heard many many things, as has already been pointed out by many worthies. thanks much much much for the Saaz thing, very nice. have duly located it.
majorly relieved that you've forgiven us on account of a) and b).
and please to definitely share PJ. pretty please. speaking of PJs, we're rather indignant that not many seem to think that this was funny.
Warum muss Man schweigen? Sie können bloggen! :-)
[vanessa] touche. but man muss schweigen because ludwig says so!
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