Kaansen
Khronicles #5: Revisiting songs from years past, that have been lost in
the chaos of the social media-era content explosion!
In the fall of 2004, the collective attention of every music channel or TV show covering Bollywood was focused on a Shah Rukh Khan movie that was a huuuuge hit even before it was released. Veer-Zaara was the mother of all love stories, a story that brought India and Pakistan together, made by Bollywood's Royalty, Yash Chopra. To add another feather to its cap, music for the film came from old unused compositions by Madan Mohan, a storied music producer from the 1950's - 60's. Every music store you walked into had Veer Zara songs playing and the cassette's and CD's were flying off the shelves.
But even with all the uniqueness and speciality of Veer-Zaara notwithstanding, the most remarkable album of 2004 came with a completely different SRK movie, the buzz around which started out with an obscure music video featuring SRK and a disheveled fakir driving through the arid central-Indian countryside in a camper. It would've been hard to say at the time, but in a span of a few years Swades became one of A.R.Rahman's most iconic albums of all time, a full suite of musical genius unleashed all at once.
Several songs from the movie are all time Rahman fan favorites, with the aforementioned Yun Hi Chala occupying a permanent place on all roadtrip playlists, and Yeh Jo Des assuming the role of spiritual successor to Vande Mataram. Between the two of them, the Swades experience is summed up as traveling through life and country, learning to accept and love your life and country for what it is.
And yet, there is another song in the movie, one that is not as appreciated as the above two gems, that captures the essence of what Swades stood for in that moment in our history, and helped it become one of the greatest cult classics of my generation. Sung by Udit Narayan, and written by Javed Akhtar, the song talks about stars, and the place Indians can occupy among them. It is called Yeh Taara, Woh Taara.
The song came at a time when it was still acceptable to have songs with 3 Charanams. It came at a time when songs could be 7.30 minutes long and people still enjoyed listening to the song unfold at its own pace. It came at a time when there were Directors still crazy enough to take a 7.30 minute song and use it without cuts in the movie - granted, the audiences punished the Director, Ashutosh Gowariker dearly with the utter failure of this 3.5 hour long movie at the Box Office.
Time and again, we've spoken about the importance of context to a great Indian movie song. We've talked about how much a song is elevated when it is subservient to the story it is trying to tell. When the role of the song is not to promote the movie, but to help the movie accentuate its premise. When the intent with releasing a song early in promotions is not to have a catchy tune with fast beats stuck in the minds of the listener, but instead portray a character that you are interested in learning more about.
To that end, the premise of Yeh Taara jumps out in the first 30 seconds - the protagonist, who happens to be a NASA Scientist, is trying to demonstrate to a village the joy of being together, all divisions removed. He shows people stars - this star, that star and every star - and tells them about how the stars put up a show when they light up the sky in constellations - all together.
The music of this song, in keeping with the theme is plain, non-distracting and very simple. Udit Narayan's voice carries the song, other than the interludes when the symphony, and then the flute help maintain a somber mood. In successive Charanams the metaphors extend to the colors of a
rainbow, and drops of an ocean as well, before eventually landing on his
point in the ultimate uptempo charanam - the fact that every member of
the society has their role to play that they excel at, and the true
victory for society is when they all work together! Rahman even brings in a couple of really young singers to lift the energy of the song, and succeeds in giving it an authentic feel by letting the kids sing like any normal kid would at a large gathering - with gusto and enthusiasm trumping the studio recording perfection. Small touches like this emphasise the meaning of the song, and its significance in the movie.
True to the character of the song, everything about this song lines up perfectly - the lyrics, the voice, the music and the visuals are all dedicated 100% to extending the story. In that regard, the song in itself is a metaphor for the message it delivers - each artist in the song, from SRK to Javed Akhtar, from Rahman to Gowariker, and the myriad of support artists, bring their speciality to elevate the effect of the song, like the stars he talks about.
A quick check on YouTube reveals that Yeh Jo Des is 3x, and Yun Hi Chala is a staggering 5x more popular than Yeh Taara, The lag can be explained with the usual reasons - Yeh Taara is slow, doesn't possess the universality of the other two songs, and is the longest of the three. Much the same could be said about Swades the movie - slow, not universally relatable, and fairly long. But Swades was a milestone in thought in our society - it presented a blueprint for a growing educated middle class that worked outside the country and showed them a path that may draw them back to their roots. And Yeh Taara is the only song that captures that essence of the movie - it captures the tension of a person who belongs, but is an outsider, the dilemma between letting things be and doing the right thing, the opposing forces of realism and idealism - and the result is a song, that while underappreciated, will be cherished as a representation of what was one of the most iconic films made in India!
