Nandita Das’ debut directorial venture features the musical combination of Rajat Dholakia – who in the past has been known for completing R D Burman’s work in 1942 A Love Story following his demise, national award-winning performance in Dharavi and most recently as the person who composed Genda Phool alongside A R Rahman for Delhi 6 – and Piyush Kanojia, who won critical acclaim last year for his scoring of the movie Gandhi, My Father. Though the album is about two weeks old now, Music Aloud decided to publish an albeit delayed review given the quality of the album.
Meri Gali Mein Andhera
Given the premise of the movie, Rajat Dholakia and Piyush Kanojia start off bang on with Meri Gali.. A song with very sinister-sounding instrumentation, rendered effectively by Sukhwinder Singh. Though not a very hummable song, it is bound to go well with the movie.
Gujarat Ke Firaaq
Jagjit Singh delivers this semiclassical song, again with dark overtones. The Urdu lyrics by Gulzar are splendid and quite aptly the composers have provided minimal instrumentation for the song. Again not a song that would appeal to the masses, but a classical music fan would find the song to his taste.
Ummeed
A relatively less sombre song, as its title suggests. The major highlight is of course Rekha Bharadwaj’s flawless singing. There is a slightest Middle-East tinge to the background, with the use of some stringed instrument which sounded like the Oud.
Daag Daag Ujala
This is an old Urdu poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, read out as is. Though the credits are given to Faiz Ahmed Faiz, I am not sure if the voice doing the recital indeed belongs to Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
Theme
Starting on an Arabic note, the instrumental soon moves into classical mode Sarod and Sarangi being the lead equipments. The raga I believe is Todi (Subha Panthuvarali in Carnatic), quite an ideal one to portray the gloom.
Rajat and Piyush have proven their quality and done total justice to the film with a classy album. While this soundtrack will surely find its takers among the discerning listeners, it is probably not going to create any movement in the hit charts due to its esotericity. Nevertheless Nandita Das can be content that she left the music department in efficient hands. And going by the reviews of the movie so far, she seems to have done the same with the entire movie.
