Pinjar (2003)...A 'Don't Miss' Movie!

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Chandra Prakash Dwivedi's movie, Pinjar !

I wanted to watch this movie, 'Pinjar' which means, skeleton,  for a long time and at last did it last Sunday.  I had heard/read a lot about it and it was worth watching this movie at a stretch at home without getting up and going inside! It was so engrossing that nobody dared disturb me!

Do you remember the famous Doordarshan serial, 'Chanakya'? The director and the actor who acted as Chanakya, Dr.Chandra Prakash Dwivedi has directed this movie. This is his debut movie.  The story, is based on a novel, written originally by the famous award winning Punjabi author Amrita Pritam, revolves around the Hindu, Muslim families during partition.

When the movie started from the year, '1946', I knew, it is going to be a very serious movie.  I hadn't read the complete review earlier.  The movie starts with Kulbhushan Karbanda (what a booming voice he has got!), a rich Hindu man  in Amritsar, who is planning to fix his daughter, Paro's marriage and goes to his village in Western Amritsar with his family. 'Rangeela' fame, Urmila Matondkar, is the daughter...she looks beautiful and has acted quite well in this movie! I had admired her in 'Banaras' also. The partition disturbance had started just then.  But the family is happy.  His one son, Trilok (Priyanshu Chatterjee),  was involved in Congress activities.  He stays back and promises to join the wedding activities later.  At the village, the wedding is fixed  with a local rich man, Alok Nath's son, Ramachandra (Sanjay Suri) and he insists on 'give & take' marriage, i.e. he had a daughter whom he wanted to marry to Kulbushan's son and his son would marry Kulbhooshan's daughter!  It was agreed. A grand Punjabi wedding song is shown here! Punjabi songs are colourful and have got good rhythm, so they become famous easily!

The actual story starts now.  Paro has got a sister and both the girls roam in the fields and suddenly a man on a horse chases her and abducts her.  He is a muslim, Rashid is his name and his family had an  old revenge with Kulbhushan's family.  This man is the hero of the movie and Manoj Bajpai has acted very well in this role. Very controlled acting.  He keeps her in an old village house, which looks very primitive. She keeps on crying and after some days, she runs away and goes to her father's place and to her horror, her father refuses to take her in, since she is tainted now and tells her that her sister also will not get a groom if people come to know about her.  She returns and finds Manoj Bajpai waiting for her on the way.  They show him repenting for his act and starts loving her.

Kulbhooshan discusses the truth with Alok nath and Alok nath agrees to marry nephew to Kulbhooshan's second daughter, since Alok's son, Ramchandra, refuses to marry the sister. He had seen Paro once and so he refuses to marry her sister.  Ramachandra's sister is married to Alok nath's son, who reluctantly agrees but stays aloof because of the grief of losing his sister and not finding her.

Paro reluctantly settles down with the muslim family  and then the India-Pakistan partition problem starts.  Kulbhooshan's (his screen name Mohanlal has not registered in my mind!) family whose village is in Pakistan, starts their return journey to India.  Like we know, they go through lots of problems.  Women are abducted and raped by muslims and as per the story, Alok Nath's daughter, Kulbhooshan's daughter in law, who came home for delivery, is abducted and raped by many people.  Kulbhooshan's son, Kirti who came for the wedding starts looking for Paro and comes to know about Rashid and sets his field in fire.  Rashid objects his family who wanted to attack Kulbhooshan's family for this, saying that any brother would do this for the people who hurt his sister.  They show Paro still thinking of her home and Ramchandra...but slowly softening towards Rashid.

Now, the story goes a bit 'filmy' way.  Still, the movie was captivating for a long time.  The songs are good, though one song where Sanjay Suri sings, sitting under a tree, during partition procession is a bit irritating, knowing the situation! Dwivedi should have avoided this or it should have been in the background!

Watch some songs from this movie now:





The above song sounds clearer here, in raaga.com.   but no video! This song is originally from Jagjith Singh's album, 'Marasim'.  Gulzar is the lyricist.  He is the lyricist for all the lovely songs in this movie. Read what he says about Jagjith Singh here.  His voice suits the situation very well.  A great singer, but now, he is no more.




This song is sung by another famous singer, Roop Kumar Rathod and the music director of this movie, Uttam Singh .  He did the music for the famous 'Dil to paagal hai'.  Sounds very patriotic.

Well...this is a 'different' type of movie and you can watch it without getting bored.  Good acting by all of them is a plus point!

This film won the award for 'Best feature film' on National Integration, 'Best Art direction' award for Munish Sappal and 'Best actor' award for Manoj Bajpai.

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Picture Courtesy: Wikipedia

An Unsung Heroine - Chitra (Jagjit) Singh!

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Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh, the famous ghazal singers!

 I did a post on Jagjit Singh's ghazals long back.  Our whole family is a great fan of Jagjit and Chitra Singh.  The post is here.  His wife Chitra Singh also is a great ghazal singer.  We have heard her solo songs and songs she sang with her husband too. But mostly people talk about Jagjit Singh and I haven't heard anyone mentioning Chitra Singh's name! I and my son love her voice.

She is born a Bengali and married Jagjit Singh and both of them started giving concerts.  Normally, ghazal singing was conducted in elite homes in those days (Mehfil). Slowly some singers like Mehdi Hassan and Ghulam Ali started giving concerts in public places.  And Jagjit modernised the ghazal singing by using unique instruments like guitar, santoor etc. So, he and his wife, became very popular.  Their songs were easy to follow and we could sing along too! He was particular about the lyrics being clear and simple, but with sincere emotions. He was interacting with the audience who were thrilled to get involved in the concerts.

Now, let me come back to Chitra Singh.  She is not a trained singer.  She developed singing just by hearing good music.  She met Jagjit and married him in 1969.  I am not going to write about her personal life.  I am an admirer of her and her husband's singing.  We will stick to it.

In the beginning, they were singing in jingles.  Later on, both of them started singing ghazals and their audio CD's became a hit.  They reached the homes of ordinary people who were used to hearing just film songs.  Our family includes in that category.  I have told you in Jagjit Singh's post itself how we started listening to ghazals.  His simple ghazals hooked us to hearing mostly his CD's plus some more, like Hariharan's.  We were fans of Latha and Asha and other singers' voices until then.  After we got used to hearing Chitra's voice, we started liking her's too.  My son used to say that we have to keep on hearing  and 'develop' liking to good music!  Their ghazal concerts became famous gradually.  I have never heard of them performing here, in Chennai.  Jagjit gave concerts alone later in his life but his voice was a bit shaky by then and my son wanted to keep his good voice in memory always.  So, we didn't attend his concert here.  It would have been nice if we had the opportunity to hear them live.  But we developed the liking for ghazals  very late!

She has got some good film songs to her credit and many ghazals which are memorable.  Let me give them here. Her voice is unique.

1. Tum aao to sahi...we can keep on hearing this:



2. Tuu nahin toh...tranquility:



3. Har soo dikhai dete...just admire her voice!



4. Aisa lagta hai...zindagi tum ho....lovely song!



5. Woh nahin miltaa mujhe...



6. Ishq mein...Chitra is singing...Jagjit Singh starts the concert with some humour.  This nature of his, has made the pair very famous.  They interact with the audience and so the concert is always lively! I have got this CD at home! This is one of my favourites!



7. A Punjabi song...typical concert atmosphere.  Jagjit is a Punjabi and Chitra is a Bengali, but she sings this Punjabi song, beautifully! This song is in the CD I have with me.  If you had asked me to hear a Punjabi song, just like that, I wouldn't have listened to it.  But when I am made to hear with other ghazals, I just let it play and slowly I started liking it! I have noticed in music reality shows also, when we hear Punjabi songs, we notice that have a kind of 'josh' in them which makes people dance! This is one of that type of song. I sing along this also without knowing the meaning and mostly the words might be wrongly pronounced too, I know! But this is good!




When other people sing Ghulaam Ali's or Hariharan's ghazals, we immediately recognise and say that this is Ghulam Ali's ghazal or Hariharan's ghazal.  The aalaap or sargam varies from each other's singing. Same thing happens with AR Rahmaan's songs or RD Burman's songs or SD Burman's song.  We recognise them with some musical notes or instruments or something.  Like that way, we recognise Jagjit Singh, Chitra Singh's songs also.  In some way, they sound similar to their previous songs...some thread is there in every song! Maybe, this is called 'Gharana'!

Whenever I played Jagjit and Chitra's CD, I used to think that Chitra is not recognised properly.  I like many of her songs.  I have compiled the songs I got in 'You tube'.  Some of my favourites were not available.  Now, watch the concert! Both of them look very young here and their voice at their best.  I am not very familiar with this song, though! Should keep on hearing it and then we will like it...like it happens with AR Rahmaan's song!


 

I love Chitra Singh's 'Safar mein dhoop toh hogi' a lot.  You can hear that in my earlier post on Jagjit Singh here.

Which song do you like of Chitra Singh?


Picture Courtesy: Thank you!


EDITED TO ADD ON 28TH MARCH '13:  Rahul Aggarwal said in the comment section that Jagjit and Chitra Singh's Punjabi Thappe songs are very famous.  I don't have it in my CD collection, so I am not very familiar with it.   But I heard it now and it is interesting, though I don't know Punjabi! Have a look at the song.  Both the singers are very young and it is a live concert in London:

A garland of songs...add one or two of your own to this please...!

After a long time, I am doing a musical post and all of you please come and join!

Both sides of my family are music lovers. When we have a get-together or a function at home we play 'anthaakshari'. Sometimes, one of us will just hum a song and others will join with another song which comes to their mind after hearing that song...so we continue in this way and it will become a chain or garland of songs of similar tune - raaga.

As many of you know by now, I am a great fan of Jagjit Singh and this song is one of my favourite. Whenever I play this cd, I hear this song in the 'repeat' mode! I never get bored of hearing this song! Now, let me start this chain with this song:



This soulful song from the movie 'Leader', is picturized on Vyjayanthimaala and Dilip Kumar. Music is by our famous Naushad saab:



This Kannada song by Rajkumar, from the movie 'Hosa Belaku', is my favourite one. The tune is the exact replica of the above two! Rajkumar's voice is so expressive, here:



This is also a melodious song. You can watch MGR and Jayalalitha (younger Ammmaa!) in this song. MGR's movies were famous for melodious songs. I could not get the video of the whole song, this one runs for just 3 mts., sorry. Now, watch this song:



This song is from my favourite film, 'Unnaal mudiyum thambi'. The storyline of this Tamil movie was very good. I love this song picturized on Seetha and our Kamal:



Sharmila Tagore is one of my favourite actress and I loved the movie 'Amar Prem'. As soon as I got married (1974!), we were invited to our relatives' places for dinner and everyone 'thought' I was a good singer, that too, of Hindi songs, which was new to them! If anyone asked me to sing a song, I used to start with this song! I remember the lyrics of very few songs - 2 stanzas of songs! I can sing along with many songs, though! Whenever my husband hears this song now, he will start laughing and recite the old story to my sons! So, this song has got a special place in my heart!



Now, please hear the songs and if you remember anyother song after hearing this, please jot down! If you don't get it in 'you tube', it is OK! Let us enjoy music together!

Yeh daulat bhi lelo...Jagjit Singh, Chitra Singh

Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh .

Our family started hearing ghazals when my children were still in school. Till then, we were just addicted to film songs. My brother, who worked in Ahmedabad, got addicted to Jagjit Singh's ghazals and he introduced us to non-filmy ghazals and in time, we started singing their songs ...singing along....!

My whole family loves this song of this duo. The lyrics are wonderful. The voice of Jagjit Singh is matchless and Chitra singh's is, divine. This is an old song and their voice were at their best, in this song, Duniya jise kehte hain, lyrics:Nida Fazli





Safar mein dhoop toh hogi....This ghazal is in Chitra's voice, soft, soulful song....beautiful lyrics by Nida Fazli. Lots of ghazals by Jagjit Singh have Fazli's lyrics.




This is my favourite and my cd must be having a dent, where this song is printed! I keep on hearing it often, not once but always 3-4 times. Couldn't get the video:


Koi paas aaya savere savere...as usual beautiful lyrics by Saeed Rahi.


Jab Kabhi tera naam ..... Chitra's voice glides like ice-skating, here. Lyrics by Sardaar Anjum


Voh kaagaz ki kashti ....the lyrics.... Both, my husband and I sing this song often....alongwith Jagjit and Chitra. Every word is golden. My elder son, who is abroad, has got the full set of Jagjit's ghazals. He loves these songs.





This is one of their famous and our favourite songs.  Aahista...aahista...! Enjoy!




Another song by Jagjit Singh for the film 'Sarfarosh' which is a famous movie of Aamir Khan. The song is melodious.  The legendary actor Nasseruddin Shah is 'singing'! Music: Jatin-Lalit:




Preferred time to listen to these songs: Night!

Now, enjoy this melodious music!



Edited to add on 28.3.13: I did a post on Chitra Singh and it is here! I came across an article written by the famous lyricist Gulzar about Jagjit Singh here after they did an album, 'Marasim', which has got beautiful songs by Jagjit!  I think I will do one more post on Jagjit's songs!