Two music directors make their debuts in Dus Kahaniyaan - Gourav Das Gupta and Bappa Lahiri. Jaaniye by Anchal and Sunidhi Chauhan is popular and is composed by the former. Aaja soniye is sung by Shweta Vijay and Sudhanshu Pandey the actor. While none of Bappa Lahiri’s tracks are noticed, Anand Raaj Anand’s Bhula diya which he himself sings, becomes fleetingly popular.

The most interesting aspect of the album is the third CD, in which Gulzar pens a poem for each of the stories. The poems are recited by the artistes from the ten films that comprise Dus Kahaniyaan - Nana Patekar, Naseeruddin Shah, Dia Mirza, Amrita Singh, Manoj Bajpai, Sanjay Dutt, Anupam Kher, Neha Dhupia and Sudhanshu Pandey. The background music is by Bappa Lahiri.

Rozana from Nishabd makes news for a while due to Amitabh Bachchan’s rendition. The music is by Vishal Bhardwaj and lyricist Munna Dhiman is introduced. Jiah Khan renders Take lite from the same film with music by Amar Mohile.

Kash lagaa (Sukhwinder-Daler Mehndi-Vishal Bhardwaj) is the saving grace of Vishal Bhardwaj’s No Smoking. Lyricist Gulzar achieves a feat of sorts by writing every mukhda - Jab bhi ciggaret, Phoonk de, Ash-tray and Kash lagaa - pertaining to smoking.

Siddharrth Suhas’ Dam lagaa (also sung by them with Suraj Jagan and Hamza) needed a better vehicle than Dil Dosti Etc to get its due. K.Mohan’s Lamha yeh jaayega kahaan and Aarti Ankalikar’s More baanke chhaliya both composed by Agnee are two more interesting tracks.

Debajyoti Mishra composes a different score for Dharm with cerebral lyrics by Varun Gautam. Sonu Niigaam’s Bhayee bhori and Jaago are notice-worthy. Including alaaps and instrumentals, the album has 20 tracks.

Khanna & Iyer composed by Tabun Sutradhar will go down in dubious history as the first-ever Mukta Arts film from which not even a single song was popular or worth a listen. The music is by Vipin Mishra - his only contribution to the Ashutosh Phatak and Dhruv Ghanekar score.

Jag lal lal lal sung by Ustad Sultan Khan in Big Brother is the only standout track from this Sandesh Shandilya score.

Shamir Tandon’s Bal Ganesh has two cute tracks, Ganaa ganaa di (Shankar Mahadevan with Amaanat, Aneek and Nirupama) and the lyrically ungrammatical Haathi ka bal akal shakal (Suchitra, Sameer, Pavni and Raj Pandit). Asha Bhosle and Usha Mangeshkar record a Hindi song together after the ‘80s in Nanha munna bal Ganesh, Usha recording a Hindi film song for the first time since Maine Pyar Kiya in 1989.

Lesle Lewis scores Apna Asmaan, his debut film score and Katra katra (Sukhwinder Singh), Chand re (Shreya) and Shehzada (Shaan) do not get their due.

A bevy of music directors besides the Anand Raaj Anand churn out a joint winner in Shootout At Lokhandwala. Biddu writes, composes and sings Live by the gun, Dr Palash Sen’s Maa composed by Euphoria, the band led by him, is in the Baul tradition. Mika-Anchal’s Ganpat rap is also composed and written by Mika. ARA’s Unke nashe mein is a hit too, as earlier mentioned.

The lesser-known casualties in the year are music directors Dattaram (more famous as Shankar-Jaikishan’s arranger and assistant) and Snehal Bhatkar and Amitabh Bachchan’s poet- father Harvanshrai Bachchan who had also penned lyrics for three films.

Ilayaraja composes his first interesting original Hindi score after Sadma 25 years earlier in Cheeni Kum, with songs like Cheeni kum and Jaane do na (both Shreya) and Baatein hawa hain (Shreya with Amitabh Bachchan).

To be cont’d..