News

A month for poetry

It would be too much, perhaps, to expect a revival of great poetry. But one must be fair and square. If one justifiably complains when lyrical standards plunge, one must also point out when the scenario gets even a temporary face-life. One only is amused at the irony of Faaiz Anwaar taking umbrage at the callow treatment given to him and his ‘poetry’ by Sonu Nigam in the very same month when we are talking about a revival, which may even prove enduring if all the albums concerned do commercially well. The line Sonu reportedly has changed without a ‘by-your-leave’ is Deewana main tera ho gaya. Now it is Mera dil tera ho gaya. Pray, what classic verse has been tampered with anyway? Reminds me of the saying, “Mediocre minds are happy with mediocre achievements.” Indeed.

But we are digressing. The five albums that are lyrically cheering this month are in ascending order of merit - Mukhda Piya Ka (Naqsh Lyallpure), One Two Ka Four (the late Majrooh/film), and three more which just cannot be ranked in any order, Sitaron Mein Hai Tu (Mehboob/non-film), Khubsoorat (Anand Bakshi/romantic and ghazal-based) and Daman (Maya Govind/film).

Mukhda Piya Ka is a pop album with veteran Kuldip Singh composing a neat assembly of songs that are trendy in rhythm, but anchored in melody. With a veteran like him, and a committed Rajeshwari as singer, the lyrics have been assigned to veteran small-timer Naqsh Lyallpuri, who has written some stunners in his time for men like Khayyaam, Jaidev and B.R. Ishara. What distinguishes Naqsh’s work is not freshness (how pathbreaking can one be in Indipop?) but the elegant framing of words, as seen in the lines Aankhon se tumne baat ki, saara badan sharmaa gayaa, o mian kee karaan mere piya se ulajh gaye nain. Even in the faster tracks, Naqsh maps out verse that never descends to the banal or downmarket kind.

Coming to One Two Ka Four, Rahman’s music is like the curate’s egg. But Majrooh is far from erratic and amazingly trendy at the same time, complete with his rich typically Majrooh lexicon and phraseology. The lead track, Khamoshiyaan gungunaane lagi’s very concept is notable. Majrooh goes to the ‘live on love and fresh air’ motif in the perfectly worded Sona nahin naa sahi chandi nahin naa sahi, fiqar kya hai main hoon na tere liye. The ’70s aura returns with I am sorry and Dil ki baazi lagaa, and even in the very Rahman-esque Allay allay and Osaka muraiya. Majrooh never lets go his hold on good thoughts and crisp execution.

A third veteran, Anand Bakshi steals the thunder with Khubsoorat, a truly khubsoorat (beautiful) album with the kind of lyrics that have made Anand Bakshi go from strength to strength for over four decades. Says singer Talat Aziz, “Even as he wrote songs that were feather-light for film situations, there was a poet hidden inside him, and this poet has surfaced in his lyrics for my album.” In one song Bakshi writes, Chehera subah Benares, zulfein Awadh ki shaam, in another he poses the query of who was the first-ever human being to feel and voice the sentiment, Mujhe tumse muhabbat hai and to whom. In a third song he writes Koi nahin hai phir bhi awaaz aa rahi hai/Shaayad meri mohabbat mujhko bulaa rahi hai. All said and done, this is Bakshi writing for better and for verse!

Then wa have folk-poetess Maya Govind coming up with her first solo film album in more than a decade - Daman. The Assam-centric subject finds Govind wielding an amazing pen that would do Indeewar, Pradeep, Bharat Vyas, Pt Narendra Sharma, Neeraj nand the other pure Hindi-oriented poets proud. In the song Sun sun goria (awesomely rendered by Alka Yagnik), a sahelis-bidding-bidaai number, Govind pens Maata pita ki aankhen bane jaldhaara - what a welcome departure from the standard Babul roye and the likes. Gum sum gum sum nisha aaye/Maun ki dhaagon se bun bunke/ chaadar neeli laayi goes another exquisite lyrical gem. As Dr Bhupen Hazarika told me some months ago, “Pure Hindi has a unique charm of its own. Maya Govind was my first-ever lyricist in Hindi films in Aarop, and I wanted her poetry for this subject.”

Finally, we have the redoubtable and underrated Mehboob re-affirming his credentials as the most original poet of today’s generation with the Yesudas-Lalit Sen tour-de-force Sitaron Mein Hai tu. His work becomes all the more noteworthy when you consider that Lalit Sen had made most of these tunes many years ago as a Yesudas fan, and wanted the colour and tenor of the quintessential Yesudas numbers he had loved from the ’70s, like Chitchor, Swami, Toote Khilone and Saajan Bina Suhagan. Sen even revealed that in some songs he wanted a Brajbhasha-oriented rural language.

Writing to tunes (and everyone knows that Sen likes to write and sometimes keep his dummy mukhdas), Mehboob has shown that his Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam was no flash in his pan. It is sheer pleasure hearing songs like Sajni chali more man anganaa mein in today’s Deewana main tera ho gaya and techno-infected days. Also, Mehboob follows in the Majrooh-Neeraj tradition of giving the public a rare new word in mushq (Urdu for perfume or fragrance) in the lines Ishq mushq na chhuptaa hai/Laakh chhupaye koi.
Truly, the fragrance of good poetry lives on forever.

Rajiv Vijayakar

Back