Hi guys’n’gals,
(the complete and formatted version of this review is available @
https://browser.to/saathiya )
The music of Saathiya is by A.R.Rahman and lyrics are by Gulzar. The prior movie album outing of these two, Dil Se, created a landmark hindi/urdu movie audio of recent times, through a genre generating score, which can be described best as Sufiana Electronica. In, Saathiya, though there are glimpses of the same genre, the score provides a lot of variety. Saathiya, while mostly re-using the score for the tamizh Alai Payuthey, presents an eclectic offering covering musical grounds in the reggae, rap, pop, electronica, sufi, mujra etc. genres. It should also be noted that, as is expected of an A.R.Rahman product, the arrangement and sound quality does place it out of the usual hindi movie audio fare. The lyrics, though of fairly high poetic value and imagery, at times do seem to be lacking flow and feel force-fitted to the tunes.
saathiya
sonu nigam, sings this title song passionately, with the lyrics urging the presumed beloved to keep smiling/laughing(seemingly ad infinitum). The following excerpt of the lyrics seemed forced:
madham madham hans de phirse,
sona sona phirse hans de.
mildly mildly laugh/smile again,
pretty pretty laugh/smile again.
The song is also touted as the color song, for each of the stanzas in the tamizh version had references to the colors, aptly conveyed in the picturization. Gulzar, adds innovative shades/shadows to the https://lyrics.
zulf ke neeche, gardan pe
subah-o-shaam milti rahe.
under the locks of your hair, on your neck,
dawn and dusk keep meeting.
Gulzar already having a repertoire of fairly colorful songs like, maine tere liye hi saat rang ke sapne (Anand), tu hi tu satrangi (Dil Se), mentions yellow sunlight, blue sky and expands the lyrical canvas beyond colors to seasons.
saat rang hain baharon ke,
ek adaa mein lapete hue.
seven colors of spring,
enveloped in a single graceful style.
Lyrically, again there are some instances of repetition of imagery like blossoming, (of laughter, shyness and evening), brightness (of eyes and smoke), like the following:
garam garam ujala dhuan,
naram naram ujala dhuan.
warm warm bright smoke,
soft soft bright smoke.
In a nutshell, where the lyrics are found wanting in this song, the music makes up for it more than sufficiently, helping in the painting of a pleasant atmospheric mood, with a wavy flute melody, bassy grooves, reggae-ish interludes, electronic strings and percussion.
chalka chalka re
This song starts of with playful narration of percussive bols, dum dumakku dumm dumm, soon to be accompanied with percussion and other instruments. Due to use of thavil in traditional tamizh weddings as accompaniment and the mandatory playing of getti melam while the tying of the mangal sutra, the expression dumm dumm dumm itself is associated with/conveys wedding. In the tamizh movie this song was an improvisation of a wedding song, sung by the supposed buddies of bride and groom. A.R.Rahman, as if with some premonition of the score going north, had improvised in the tamizh score itself, having shehnai in the first interlude and also using Richa Sharma’s punjabi tones in a mild sufi manner. This song does musically provide a relief from the typical wedding song scores of Bollywood, tailor made for a set of 20 in sherwanis and 20 in sharaaras to shake their legs.
This song also features the voices of mahalakshmi, vaishali and shoma. Maybe due to the pots’n’pans kind of sample used in the beginning of the song or the rhythm of electronic drops, Gulzar conjures up a seemingly out of context mukhda for a wedding song.
chalka chalka re kalsi ka paani,
chalka chalka re oh ankh namaani,
spills spills water from the pot,
Spills spills moist eyes,
Lyrics then convey, all and sundry relations, reminding the bride of the only remaining day of staying at her father’s place and some imagery of the bride’s spinsterhood. The second interlude leads to richa sharma’s vocal further re-iterate the bride’s impending departure from the courtyard of her father’s house.
Gulzar then fast forwards to mentioning in the lyrics that the next time she would visit parents, she would bring a baby and would feel the longing to get back with dear husband.
aye udi udi
This song starts with seemingly the bass rhythm, which morphs into the melody. The song has samples of waves woven in, and the inspired lyrics mention dew:
hulki ae hulki, kal raat jo shabnam giri
arre ankhiyaan wakhiyaan bhar gayee kal to,
haath pe tup tup giri.
last night, light dew fell,
eyes that welled up yesterday,
as drops fell on my hand.
Possibly because of the mention of waves, dew, tears, rain etc. the lyrics really flow and suggest episodes of mild marital naughtiness and playfulness of a newly wedded couple. The second stanza further enhances the lyrical value of the song and the music takes some jazz tones/undertones.
Adnan Sami, singing his first song for A.R.Rahman, has been given a free rein with the vocals, and he does take ownership and adds a lot of attitude to the rendition, making this song fairly unique and entertaining. From a sound mixing, perspective in the first stanza due to cleaning or some patch work on the vocals, breath interval/pause seems to be missing between two lines.