Simply not just music....

When all the elements mix up in the perfect proportion one gets the magical essence of what we can call heaven. For me, this effect is ringing in my ears with Rafi, S.D Burman and Majrooh Sultanpuri. And this takes me on a whirlwind ride where I am lost admist the notes and I feel elated with the euphoric feeling his voice evokes.

I was wondering about the stark contrast in terms of the musical eras, the sixties and the seventies were definitely for the die hard romantics, subtle yet articulate. There are so many songs that speak the exact words that one would feel from time to time. The hopeless lover serenading his lover and she can’t help but be coy and sheepishly smile, that’s the image I get. The seventies were more for the ones who looked at other aspects than love, the roti kapda makaan logic. The male was more of a chauvinist, a stark contrast to the blind in love man of the yesteryears who was the more expressive one. Songs were not about wooing the woman in focus and if it was it was demanding in nature, as if it was his right. Not quite like Rafi who would be humble. The 80’s and 90’s I believe was the hopeless era not just for the romantics of my kind but also music (obviously exceptions are always counted out). To put it crudely…it sucked! And most of the current lot continues this legacy. In terms of music and lyrics though, the songs are more about the “we” than the “I”. Nothing wrong in that ideology, except when I listen to a “Aise tho na dekho..” and a “khuda jaane kyo”…I smile at the former and I feel like stretching my arms and dancing at latter, in other words….the feeling is communicated and transpired much better by the former….”Tum hume roko phir bhi hum na ruke…Tum kaho kafir…fir bhi ese jhuken…kadme nazuuke ek sajda ada ho jaye…:)”

My hangover because of the extra shots of songs sung by Rafi is quite evident. There is a song for every mood. Not quite like the usual sentence that we furnish these days, “Words can’t express what I want to communicate to you” doesn’t hold water here. The lyrics were brilliant and music was in tandem, and when you have singers like Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey, Lata Mangeshkar, Geeta dutt etc etc, you can put the soul in music. To me, listening to Rafi is like my hopeless romantic singing to me- “Mere Mehboob mujhe meri mohabbat ki kasam…”, “jeeya oo..jeeya kuch boldo”, “Ehsan tera hoga mujhpar..”, “dil ka bhawar kare pukar…” (gosh there are too many!), listening to him is like reiterating what I feel “Aaj mausam bada beiman hai…”, “yeh dil na hota bechara…”, “Pukarta chala hun mein…”. The wonderful part is it’s not just his voice; it’s the ambience that all the elements of the song create, make belief but so real. Nothing, no era beats it!....I am in love…:)