Digi's Blog

Sachin and Jigar have had a wonderful year uptil now. First the awesome ABCD, then the wacky Go Goa Gone and then the simple Ramaiya Vastavaiya. Now they make a BIG leap as they bag a Yashraj movie. With the promos smelling totally fresh, let us take a look at the music of the movie. "Tere mere beech mein" holds your attention from the first second. We are treated to a collage of sounds- boys echoing "dado mujhe de chhokro", the hustle bustle of traffic, that cycle ki ghanti and that rickshaw ka bhopu backed by nice guitar riffs. There is a sweet whistle playing too. Finally all these sounds give way to Sunidhi Chauhan's voice. Along with Mohit Chauhan, she sings this dialogue-like song with finesse. Mohit lends ample support, his voice sounding good as always, especially in the higher notes. But for the first time he is not the dominating singer. It is Sunidhi who owns the song and Mohit who pitches in at regular intervals- an arrangement for which the comp...

Nikhil Advani is one of those rare directors whose films have always boasted of brilliant music – Kal ho na ho, Salaam-e-ishq, and the recent Patiala House. Even Chandni Chowk to China had the gorgeous “Tere naina”. In short, his movies have always had quality chartbuster stuff. And the people responsible for this have always been the same – Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy. D-Day looks very promising from its promos. However, one doesn’t know what really to expect from the music, as there seems less scope for music here. Yet, let us take a look at the album of D-Day. DUMA DUM gets one more version, this time in the voice of Mika Singh. What is with this song that it is getting so many remakes? No doubt it is a great song, but there is always a tolerance limit. And that has been reached. Earlier this year, even David had a version in the voice of Rekha Bhardwaj. Coming to the song, it is good. Mika does a good job with the vocals. But that’s it. I would prefer the original versi...

The latest book which Blogadda delivered at my door step was a book called “MY STROKE OF LUCK” written by Vijay Santhanam. And believe me, I am indeed lucky to have read this book. Firstly, I myself am a doctor. So that changes my entire perspective towards the book. I have seen people suffering from all kinds of strokes and brain abnormalities, ranging from mild to severely debilitating. But Vijay Santhanam’s book moved me, deeply. STORY – One can’t really call it a story. It is a true and heart wrenching write up of the odds faced by a single man, how he dealt with it, how he came out of it and what he is capable of achieving even after facing so much in his life. Vijay Santhanam, at a young age of 41, was afflicted with a cerebro vascular stroke, resulting in paralysis of the right side of his body. His speech was lost. A stroke at such a young age is distressing, both to the patient and the people around him. But then, as I have learnt in medicine, disorders of the brain can a...

Rohit Shetty’s movies never boast of path breaking music. However, this time he teams up with Shahrukh Khan. Let us see what Vishal and Shekhar give us in the music department. 1234 – GET ON THE DANCE FLOOR – Staying true to the title of the film, the song starts with some tamil rendition by Hamsika Iyer. We are also treated to some tamil rap portions done by Sricharan. To put it bluntly, the song is highly irritating. Following the path taken by umpteen item songs, this one too progresses on the same lines. With a catchy background beat, we are treated to Amitabh Bhattacharya’s disappointing lyrics. (Is it really him?) Vishal Dadlani sings one of his career’s worst songs. He is totally out of tune and doesn’t fit in at all in the song. Even the video hardly does any justice to the song. Overall, nothing is right about this song. Please delete it if you have downloaded it. Period. TERA RASTAA is another disappointing track. With Amitabh Bhattacharya singing this one, I was expecti...

CONTAINS SPOILERS, AND IS LONG A lot was resting on the shoulders of Aanand L Rai – whether he’d be able to create the banaras atmosphere effectively just as he showed UP in Tanu Weds Manu, whether he’d do justice to the wonderful music of A.R Rahman, and most importantly, whether the two lead actors would escalate the movie by their acting or cause its downfall. Well, Aanand Rai manages all these things, and much more! As he puts it, Raanjhanaa was never meant to be a simple love story. The movie begins with Naman Jain (Kid Dhanush) falling in love at first sight with Zoya. From that scene onwards, you know Raanjhanaa is going to be the actors’ show throughout. Naman Jain (Jhaangiya) is fantastic as usual. Every frame in which he is there lights up due to his lovely acting. And soon kundan grows up. That school phase is wonderfully done. Firstly and most importantly, neither Dhanush nor Sonam seem too old to play school going teenagers. They infact convincingly look as school stud...

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is synonymous with fantastic music. Rang De Basanti and then Delhi 6 were massive blockbusters. This time however Mehra opts for Shankar Ehsaan and Loy instead of A.R Rahman. Let us see what the trio presents to us. Mehra is known for including a short musical/lyrical piece in the soundtracks of his movies. First there was “Ik Onkar” in RDB and then there was “NOOR” in Delhi 6. Here we have “GURBAANI” – a lovely short prayer like piece sung by Daler Mehndi. And boy, Daler paaji rocks. I have always held the opinion that both Daler and his brother Mika sing such songs very well. It is a pity that we get to hear them most often in Punjabi dance numbers. Gurbaani’s short duration of 1.40 minutes is enough to showcase Daler mehndi’s scale range of singing. He is simply brilliant. But the winner is the fab arrangement by the composer trio. What a lovely way to begin a soundtrack! “ZINDA” is easily and undoubtedly THE anthem of the year. The song starts off with h...

It was indeed a pleasure to find a hard bound book delivered to me by Blogadda; that too a book which dealt with a topic which needs to be given more attention than it is currently getting. “SHOES OF THE DEAD” is penned by Kota Neelima and describes the situation of farmer debt related suicides. The book describes multiple stories all ultimately related to the same problem. And so we have one plot depicting young Keyur Kashinath, a novice and son of the democratic party’s general secretary. He is new to the political scenario and faces the problem of an increasing number of debt related farmer suicides in his constituency Mityala. How he deals with his own arrogance, ego and gets a dose of the real problem in the constituency is shown in the book. On the other hand, we have a top class honest and bold journalist named Nazar who is frequently aided by a woman also associated with the concerned constituency. And finally we have the main plot of Gangiri Bhadra. Ga...