Subah Shaam Sahana

These days, Sahana has become one of my better companions. She is not a companion who would annoy me no end by babbling things about which I don’t give a damn. She is also not the one who would doze off the moment she boards a tram or bus. She sings for me any song I wish to listen to. May be, she would make me deaf in due course. May be one day she would lead me straight into an approaching vehicle while I am totally absorbed in her music. But, that is not going to discourage me from considering her a great companion.

If you haven’t yet guessed who Sahana is, she is my mp3 player. Today I named her Sahana :)

Here are songs (in no particular order) I listen to frequently these days.

Pal pal hai bhaari from Swades
Another gem from A. R. Rahman. Javed Akhtar sparkles at “Mann se Ravan jo nikaale, Ram uske mann mein hai”. This sentence never fails to gives me goose bumps even now, when I hear it for the hundredth time. Beautifully sung by Madhushree. It is a Ram-leela kind of song. I was a bit taken aback when I heard the song for the first time. It is a heavily classical song with nowtanki-style interludes. Odd combination. But, like most of Rahman’s songs, it grew in me and I started loving it.

Ek nazar mein bhi from Taxi no. 9211
A groovy track from Vishal-Shekar. Kay Kay and Sunidhi Chauhan at their best. This is one such song that would automatically make your body move to its beat.

Tere liye from Shaadi se pehle
Not a great one. Himesh Reshammiya, Udit Narayan, Alka Yagnik – they all have done a decent job. It is a feel good song that would make you smile. It is a proof to the fact that the early 90s style music still remain catchy.

Satyam Shivam Sundaram from Satyam Shivam Sundaram
When I read William Wordsworth’s ‘The Solitary Reaper’ at school, I used to wonder what on earth could a melancholy be. I knew the answer when I heard this song (I realized how powerful a melancholy could be for the second time when Swarnalatha shed buckets full of tears, and thereby making the listeners to join her, in ‘Porale ponnuthayi’ from Karuthamma). Lata Mangeshkar has sung her heart out. I didn’t get to watch the song for very long. I was like – “This song could very well qualify as one of the best devotional songs ever composed. Why wouldn’t TV channels show it?” Haha… When I saw it, I understood why it neither qualified as a song to be shown on prime time nor as a song to be telecasted late night. Naughty Raj Kapoor :P

Beedi from Omkara
Now this is a song with loads of attitude. Sunidhi Chauhan and Sukhwinder Singh have spelt magic. It is a choreographer’s dream. A la “Babuji zara dheere chalo”. Let us wait and watch what Ganesh Acharya has come up with. For some unknown reasons I am glad to know that this song is filmed on Bipasha and not on Kareena.

Bheegi bheegi si from Gangster
Pritam has done one hell of a job in Gangster. All the songs of this album are beautifully composed. James succeeds in making this haunting song to reach your heart.

Ya Ali from Gangster
Another masterpiece. A killer tune. Zubeen does full justice to it. Whether they give quality movies or not, you can always trust the Bhatt clan for good music.

The album Dhaani by Strings
An exquisite album. All the songs are treat to listen to. On any day, I would prefer the old fashioned originals from Strings to the remixes and bhangra pop that flood the market. It is so refreshing to know that there still exists a band that believes that magic can be created by vocals without heavy ear-jarring noise. Strings seem to know what to do with guitar. They are rightly named ‘Strings’.

Yeh hai meri kahani from Zinda
Another jadoo by Strings.

Bang bang (My baby shot me down) by Nancy Sinatra
Heard this song in Kill Bill Vol. 1. An intriguing song with minimal music and eerie lyrics. A spooky one.

A whole new world from Aladdin
A fancy feel-good song. Takes you on a pleasant magic-carpet ride to a whole new dreamy world.