No news is good news these days… the Indian Cricket Team isn’t playing too well, and that affects the mood of the nation, the abject surrender to the Springboks still rankles. More taxes are in the offing in the new budget and that means more stress and less sleep. There have been accidents galore… some natural, some by the aid of deliberate human intervention, can’t say I really feel sorry for the victims given the quality of life a common man is forced to lead these days. For all the love-struck fans of’Abhash’, it’s downright heart breaking news… they are, indeed, getting married. There are extortions, murders, scams, and the mother of all Indian sex crimes… the killing drains of Nithari.
Reading papers or watching the news gives no joy these days… hey, wait! I just came across a piece of good news after an excruciatingly long period of time… Himesh Reshamiya has decided to stop singing. Now, that must be a relief beyond one’s wildest imaginations. The news seems almost too good to be true. Ah, thank God for small mercies! Just imagine, how many people would benefit from that? The noise pollution levels are definitely going to come down and that too with the intervention of one man who really counts. Three cheers to Himesh… he is a hero in my eyes, now.
Mia Resham(he likes to think he is Mia Tansen) has decided to spare us all from his ‘na(u)s(e)al’ crooning and I wish to spread this piece of really good news to all and sundry shouting from the top of Charminar. I feel like humming that catchy jingle again… “Happy days are here again…”
Not long ago, Himesh Reshamiya was an exciting and promising music director. He had delivered some great compositions and I respected him for his talents. A shy, young lad was out there in the industry among the wolves trying to establish his credentials. He was doing alright, I thought, until he came up with this highly ill-advised gambit of singing his own compositions. Sniff… that’s when I began to lose my sense of Indian music.
Here’s a man who leans so heavily on his nose to get the job done when in fact he should have been, like all others, using his throat. The result - a whining, high decibel cacophony! If there was a law against singing through the nose, then Himesh would be the “Most Wanted” in India for playing havoc with the ears and lives of innocent people.
The people who advised him to sing were not his true friends, or well wishers. I mean, it beats me when I try to make sense of it all. Why would any artist flaunt his weaknesses more than his only strength consistently for such a long period? Why would he wish to become the laughing stock of the nation, and the inspiration for sing(ular) jokes?
Watching him croak and squawk away to oblivion in one music video after another and with a penchant for the same kind of jeans and cap, and with a wooden face and a disagreeable beard was beginning to take a toll on me. Admittedly, his music was good and it was lapped by the younger generation who didn’t care two hoots for the way a song was sung as long as it was embellished with foot tapping music. Alas, poor Himesh took that as an acceptance and an open invitation from the public to sing more, and sing he did.
Himesh is an excellent music composer and has a gift of coming up with raunchy numbers, but why would he want to use his ‘violin’ to strike at his own ‘nose’? I don’t entirely place the blame on Himesh for the way things have turned out… after all he was only trying to offer what the Generation Next wanted. The question is… what did GenNex want?
The answer is as diabolic as the question is naïve. I think the average youth on the street(read as bathroom singer) began to believe that if Himesh could achieve so much of success as a below average singer then why can’t he also become a hot shot singer in Bollywood. Many bathroom singers began to believe and identify with the bearded toupee clad Himesh. They really believed that their time had come.
Imagine any below average crooner with a heavy nasal slant enjoy such huge patronage in the golden era of Mohd Rafi, Mukesh, Kishore Kumar, Manna Dey, Hemant Kumar, Mahendra Kapoor, and Talat Mehmood? Each of those singers was adept at his art and always strived for perfection. At least, try imagining someone like Sonu Nigam, Udit Narayan, Kunal Ganjawala, or even Abhijit replace the vocals rendered by Himesh and you will get the drift. The songs would have been a runaway success and Himesh would have got greater credit for his music compositions than the kind of mauling he is getting from music maestros and the press for his slipshod singing. Himesh’s real talent in music composition is overshadowed by his insipid rendering of the songs which have earned him more notoriety than real fame. Wanting to sing is one thing, but thrusting one’s singing, time and again, down the helpless ‘ears’ of others smacks of an insensitive “take it and bear it” attitude.
Himesh, after tasting initial success, decided to croon almost everything that came his way. He was under the grand illusion that the public was in love with his voice, and image on the screen. Now, can you beat that? Sonu Nigam had a great future as a singer, but he also harboured an itch to act. In spite of his ‘chocolate’ good looks, he soon found out that his aspiration of becoming a hero would actually make him a zero. After that immensely forgettable film “Love in Nepal”, Sonu realised that he should concentrate on his strong points, which he did, and we all know where he is today. Sonu has carved a niche for himself with his singing abilities but no body remembers his atrocious fling on the silver screen.
Think of Himesh Reshamiya and the image that conjures up in our mind is not music but his nose and not because it is a piece of art which, of course, it isn’t. The first thoughts I get about him are the countless funny jokes deriding his nose… I mean his voice. The participants in “The Great Indian Comedy Show” never had it so good and used every opportunity to regale us while having a go at Himesh.
I am afraid, things have changed. Himesh is not the tragedy… the tragedy is that we have failed to appreciate good music and encouraged people with below average talents in singing to take courage from that and come out unabashedly flaunting their croaking throats and squeaky noses believing that they are entertaining and serving the people. Yes, we don’t appreciate good music, anymore, and when third rate singing efforts, where flaws are camouflaged by expensive modern audio technology, are passed off as masterpieces then it’s time I looked up to God to grant me the courage to hold my peace against the merchants of dissonance and discordance.
mbfarookh.